Symbols and Reality (eBook)

Introduction

For multiple reasons, the parts of the Bible covered in this guide are the most difficult ones to read and understand. The first step in mastering the prophetic and apocalyptic parts of the Bible is to acknowledge the difficulties posed by them. Once we understand the nature of the difficulties, we are in a position to find solutions. This introduction covers three topics: facing the fact that these biblical genres are difficult; analyzing what makes these forms difficult; and learning how we can feel confident in mastering these parts of the Bible.

Admitting That We Feel Intimidated

Before we can determine why the prophetic and apocalyptic parts of the Bible are intimidating to us, we need to have the forthrightness to acknowledge that they are problematical. No statistical data exists to prove this, so I simply pose the following questions:

•In the past two years, have you chosen Jeremiah, Ezekiel, or Revelation for your daily devotional reading?

•When you choose a prophetic or apocalyptic book for daily devotions, do you stick with it to the end?

•Have you heard a sermon series based on these parts of the Bible in the past two years?

•If you were asked to teach a six-week session to a Sunday school class, would you choose to teach part of Jeremiah or Zechariah?

I am going to hazard the guess that the number of people who answered yes to those questions is so few as to be statistically insignificant. By contrast, I think it likely that other parts of the Bible are regularly used in the ways I have named in my questions.

No one should feel guilty about finding the prophetic and apocalyptic parts of the Bible difficult. They are as they are. Nor is anything positive gained by denying that we lack confidence in dealing with these books in the Bible. Acknowledging our perplexity about the prophetic, apocalyptic, and visionary parts of the Bible is the starting point for making them an open book instead of a closed book.

Obstacles

All we need to do to identify the difficulty that we face with prophetic and apocalyptic parts of the Bible is to browse them for half an hour. If we dip into a representative range (not limiting ourselves to just one biblical book), we find the following difficulties.

Abundance of Obscure Geographic Place Names

The Old Testament prophetic books are filled with references to nations and cities of the ancient world that are unfamiliar to us. Even if we look up the information about them in a study Bible or commentary, the names remain mere names and nothing specific. Here is an example:

Therefore I wail for Moab;

I cry out for all Moab,

for the men of Kir-hareseth I mourn.

More than for Jazer I weep for you,

O vine of Sibmah! (Jer. 48:31–32)

Many of the Old Testament prophecies are directed to nations and groups such as those in the quoted passage. It is simply part of prophetic discourse. The problem is that modern readers find the references unintelligible or mere abstractions.

Obscurity

The enigmatic place names are a specific manifestation of a more general obscurity that frequently confronts us in the prophetic and apocalyptic parts of the Bible. Creating disorientation seems to have been part of the strategy of the prophets and writers of apocalypse, perhaps as a way of shaking people out of their complacency and inattentiveness. Here is an example:

The oracle concerning Dumah.

One is calling to me from Seir,

“Watchman, what time of the night?

Watchman, what time of the night?”

The watchman says:

“Morning comes, and also the night.

If you will inquire, inquire;

come back again.” (Isa. 21:11–12)

The obvious question is, What does this mean? It is no wonder that we often find ourselves bewildered and therefore intimidated by prophetic discourse.

Topicality

Much prophetic discourse is rooted in specific conditions. Literary scholars speak of “topicality” in regard to this, meaning that the passage under consideration makes references to topics or situations that existed in the prophet’s time and would have been understood by people living then but not by people living now. The term “topicality” implies that such references to contemporary events pose a problem for modern readers, and in fact literary scholars often speak of excessive topicality as characterizing certain genres such as satire. An informal rule of thumb is that if a detail in a passage requires a footnote to explain it for modern readers, the passage falls under the rubric of being topical. Here is an example:

Ah, land of whirring wings

that is beyond the rivers of Cush,

which sends ambassadors by the sea,

in vessels of papyrus on the waters! (Isa. 18:1–2)

Some nation has been doing something noteworthy. Probably people living at the time knew who and what made up the story, but for us it is a head-scratcher.

Poetry and Symbolism

Not all poetry and symbolism is difficult and obscure, but much of it in prophetic and apocalyptic discourse is elusive and difficult. Consider this example:

“Behold, the days are coming,” declares the LORD,

“when the plowman shall overtake the reaper

and the treader of grapes him who sows the seed;

the mountains shall drip sweet wine,

and all the hills shall flow with it.” (Amos 9:13)

It is obvious that these things cannot happen literally, so what do they mean figuratively? What does it mean that the plowman will overtake the reaper? How can mountains drip with wine, and what reality does the figurative statement delineate?

Code Language

The claim that vast parts of the Bible are a code language that needs to be cracked is something that I resist. But there is one genre where I think the concept is valid, namely, apocalyptic writing. It seems likely that some of the details in the book of Revelation that baffle us had an understood meaning at the time. The book of Revelation may even have been what we know as underground literature that criticized the tyrannical and anti-Christian Roman Empire in a concealed way. The extended lament over the fall of Babylon in Revelation 18 is an example. This communal entity, personified as a woman, is portrayed as a worldwide empire and mercantile success. The nation of Babylon had been off the historical stage for centuries, so it seems plausible that “Babylon” is John’s code language for “Rome.”

Repetitiousness

The two dominant modes in prophecy are the oracle of judgment and the oracle of redemption. The recurrent unit in apocalyptic literature is the vision of either calamity and woe or redemption and heavenly bliss. In the prophetic and apocalyptic books we get huge blocks of one or another of these, as anyone who has read these books through one chapter per day can testify. A given day’s reading seems like “more of the same,” and a law of diminishing return sets in.

Uncertainty about the Referent

The word “referent” in this context means the reality that is being referred to. Some of the categories I have discussed above are bifocal, by which I mean that the surface of the biblical text stands for or is a picture of something else. Double meaning is a basic method of operation in prophetic and apocalyptic discourse. For example, in the portrait of Christ in Revelation 1:12–16, such details as a long robe and white hair and a sharp sword coming out of his mouth obviously stand for something else. In Amos, the prediction that the mountains will drip with wine symbolizes something other than a literal picture. As we assimilate such passages, we naturally search for the referent—the thing to which the surface details point. Left to our own devices, we often struggle, and even the experts often do not agree on their interpretations. It is no wonder that prophetic and apocalyptic books intimidate us as we face the need to identify the referent of the surface details.

The Problem of Prophetic and Apocalyptic Time

As an extension of the problem of finding the referent, it is often a toss-up as we seek to determine the time that is in view in a prophetic or apocalyptic passage. Here is an example:

On that day there shall be a fountain opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and uncleanness. (Zech. 13:1)

Is this a picture of the imminent future, namely, the return of a remnant from Babylonian captivity to resettle Jerusalem? Is the prophet Zechariah looking forward six hundred years to the incarnation of Jesus and the blessings that this brought permanently into the world? Is this an apocalyptic vision of the New Jerusalem of the millennium and eternity? Might all of these be simultaneously in view?

Wondering What the Relevance Is

Many of the events described and predicted in the Old Testament prophetic books happened centuries and millennia ago. For example, Isaiah 14 consists of oracles predicting the destruction of Babylon, Assyria, and Philistia. The prophecies were fulfilled soon after Isaiah declared them. What relevance...