the hardest part is finding OT prophecies to support my principles of interpretation. I know there are tons but don't remember all the references offhand
and my brain is shutting down - I'm trying to finish before it quits :P
I'll probably go back and edit this in the morning in horror
I will attempt to propose a hermeneutical approach to the translation of the book of Revelation. I am going to approach the text from a Christian perspective (as this was the intended audience). I would not call these 'rules,' but rather 'principles' of interpretation that I believe are helpful f...
Thanks for the laugh @JonEricson. I was going through the new-post review queue and was quite puzzled to find one by you in there. Even when I scrolled far enough down to see that the author was something else, I believed my instinct more than the label. The revision history confirmed what I already knew.
If you ever want to really hide, here are some ideas:
* Run some of your paragraphs together. Randomly re-order the whole post so the thoughts don't lead cleanly to a conclution. * fail to capitalize at least half the time, randomly allcap some WORDS. * Link using full http://example.com/long/useless/url/full/of/%12%13percent%34codednonsense rather than [clean urls](http://example.com). * Don't use blockquotes for verses or headings of any sort, much less logical useful ones.
@DanO'Day I haven't yet read your whole answer, but this caught my eye: "Was he talking about the end of the world? Nope. This prophecy was fulfilled when the Medes destroyed Babylon in 539 B.C."
are you arguing against 'double fulfilment' ?
(thanks for taking the time to produce such a weighty answer btw)
@JackDouglas nope, the section immediately preceding that one gives an example of double fulfillment (Is. 7:14)
but I am saying that if you're looking for another fulfillment of that passage, it probably won't be the "end of the world." It would most likely be another political judgment (a nation being invaded by another most likely)
I would have elaborated my last section to say that all the prophecy in scripture finds its fulfillment in Christ but didn't want to venture too far beyond the text into doctrine
I'd have to break down the entire Olivet Discourse and parallel it to Matthew and Luke to answer that in a coherent way that would make sense, and I don't have time to do so right now :P
For a detailed explanation on Christo-centric preaching (and thereby indirectly the hermeutic), I highly, highly recommend Keller + Clowney's 16-part seminar they held on "Preaching Christ to a Postmodern world", available for free(!) on iTunes U. Here is the link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/itu...
This user has just answered 2 questions after being a member for 11 months
Good answer too imo (though it probably needs a bit of neatening up)
I will attempt to propose a hermeneutical approach to the translation of the book of Revelation. I am going to approach the text from a Christian perspective (as this was the intended audience). I would not call these 'rules,' but rather 'principles' of interpretation that I believe are helpful f...
@swasheck thanks. I just updated the section on chronology / circular time and gave an example
A night's sleep makes a lot of difference
the hardest part was not what principles to include - but rather which to exclude. I tried to avoid any principles that have their sole basis in this book (i.e. no good examples outside of Revelation) and those that introduce one-sided doctrinal slants.
i find that most people want to overstate the need to completely understand Revelation and, as such, seek a transcendent understanding of the "signs" and hoping to place themselves somewhere in a timeline. that also adds a lot of confusion.
@swasheck @DanO'Day, @Soldarnal, et al: Now that we have a great answer (I haven't read it yet, but I'm sure it is), what should we do about the question? Is it properly scoped?
@JonEricson in some ways my response is a way of saying: "It's not as simple as coming up with rules for when to take things literally or symbolically. How do we take it literally, and how do we take it symbolically? Did first-century Jews have in mind the same kind of symbolism we do? What kinds of symbols would they have expected? etc."
@DanO'Day Yesterday on Philosophy.SE someone corrected a few dashes in a post and added something like: <!-- The six character limit is stupid. -->. (Not that I recommend the technique, myself. ;-)
@DanO'Day Me too. One thing being a moderator is good for is no character limits on edits. I'm perfectly comfortable editing for a single character once it catches my eye like that.
In Joel the moon is mentioned as getting 'dark'.
The earth quakes before them;
the heavens tremble. The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining. (Joel 2:10, ESV)
Then at a later time in the vision is is said to be turned 'to blood'.
The sun shall be turned...
@JonEricson I do agree the scope of the question is too broad; Dan's answer while admirable doesn't even scratch the surface on a number of features of the symbolism (e.g. the roman cult)
he's already written quite a lot, so i'm not faulting his answer; it just would be difficult to give a full answer that isn't too long for the medium of this site
@Soldarnal while i wholeheartedly agree, i think that dan's answer comes close to approximating a framework. discovering the roman cult, gnosticism, etc. would be a part of using a framework.
@swasheck I've asked several questions on Revelation; it's tough to answer any of them because they require so much upfront work in establishing your hermeneutic
In the spirit of biblical hermeneutics, the general hermeneutic that I will be applying to this text is historical-grammatical-critical. Since no real discussion can occur unless we agree on our hermeneutics, here are some of the hermeneutical principles that I apply as I interpret scripture, inc...
but this becomes exhaustive and I don't have that kind of time :P
@DanO'Day Maybe we can ask a canonical question (or a bunch of them) and we can link to answers there in answers to more specific questions. "Given the framework described over here, ..."
I know quite a few posts with small mistakes involving less than 6 characters, but I can't correct them without some more changes in the post, because that "at least 6 characters changed" limit.
What to do with it? I can make some invisible changes in addition to the correction, but I'd be happy...
@Soldarnal We got another question, you got a bit more rep (why am I the only voter on those posts?!?), and the answers are more manageable. A win all around.
@JonEricson I think I've seen you do the same thing in a couple places, which I can't remember off-hand; but I think it's an approach that can work, it just takes a lot of time
@JonEricson Oh boy, don't get me started on canon law. I'm by no means an expert on it, but my priest is writing a thesis for a theology degree challenging the application of some of the canons. So if that gives you any idea how I might approach them....
@Caleb Yes. I expect they will bring joy in excess of the burden, however. (Turkey is definitely on my short list of travel destinations when we are able to travel again.)
@JonEricson Well being on the short list is good, just don't make it a short trip. There is a stupendous amount of stuff to be seen.
I've been here 6 years, traveled fairly regularly, seen place after place, and yet most of what we you see in that photo set was new to me too. And we didn't scratch the surface at any place we went.
@Caleb A few years ago, we did a week in Florence and a week in Rome. On the way home we saw that we had missed half the things on our "must do" list. And in those cities, everything is conveniently pressed into walking distance!
In Joel the moon is mentioned as getting 'dark'.
The earth quakes before them;
the heavens tremble. The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining. (Joel 2:10, ESV)
Then at a later time in the vision is is said to be turned 'to blood'.
The sun shall be turned...
