Majority of Biblical scholars? Really? Do we mean actual academics at proper universities here?
There may be a use of gematria in interpreting the writings of someone who believed in gematria, but as a system, it is simply bonkers. The stretches of interpretation and logic to make Nero into 666 or 616 by gematria are extreme. It also sets a very unlikely date range for the Apocalypse of John; either it is remarkably early or it postdates Nero, which means that by a further stretch of an already overstretched imagination people suppose it to mean Domitian.
I used the term “urban myth” for NCLXVI, just as an example of the silly things people make up when they have too much time on their hands, but for anyone who takes gematria seriously I have only sympathy. As for the author of the Apocalypse, I suspect too many magic mushrooms on top of mild sunstroke.
