Literally or symbolic
The book of Revelation uses a lot of images that seem to be out of our world. Do we need to stretch our imaginations or are these just symbols? Well, both. Read on for a better understanding.
Not an easy answer
There is no simple answer to whether something in the Bible is symbolic, literal, or both.
Something can be symbolic, but it can also occur in reality, such as the Nile turning to blood, referring to the symbolic killing of the Nile god, while the water actually became red like blood.The literal form becomes symbolic, so that the 12 true sons of Jacob, forming the twelve tribes chosen by God, become a symbol of being chosen.In this article we will look at how to read and interpret the book of Revelation.
The scope of the book
For this we must understand that this book reflects different types of literature that we must take into account: apocalyptic, prophetic, letter.
We need to consider the scope of the book:
- Historical context for the first readers (as a letter) — we expect some clear historical references that make sense to the first reader, so some of the plagues have a historical reference (for the first readers!).
- The spiritual context (apocalyptic): The book wants to provoke the readers to make a decision and uses harsh images to get a reaction and may use symbolic words to describe a spiritual reality that we don’t see directly.
- The goal view (prophetic): The book is meant to encourage and motivate people to stand up against evil and asks them to look back from the fulfillment to our time, which totals 2000 years. The events described there are unlikely to describe all of history as it should apply to all generations, so it is likely that prototypes of events are molded into symbolic events.
But let us take a closer look at the text itself.
The Daniel frame
There are some key passages in the book of Revelation that have a strong connection to the prophecy in Daniel chapter 2 that should help us better understand the book. This passage parallels Daniel chapter 7 which has many references in the book of Revelation.
The passage is the only one in the prophetic books that uses the word “mystery”, which occurs three times in Revelation (mystery of the church, mystery of God, mystery of the beast).
The beginning of the prophecy “He showed … what thing must take place in the latter days” is quoted at the beginning of the book and just before the letters to the churches.
The beginning of the book is “to show … what things must take place quickly” shows that the time that Daniel prophesied has come (in the latter days vs. quickly) while just before the letters to the churches the term “in the latter days” is used as in Daniel.
Also the introduction after the letters uses the same phrase: “I will show you what must take place after this”.
They all mirror the beginning of the vision in Daniel (“has shown the king what will take place in the future”), while the end of the vision is very close to the end of the visions of Revelation: “to show his servants the things that must soon take place”.
The similarities do not seem great because here we have a translation, but it is hard to send a reference to the Greek translation of Daniel and compare it with the Greek text in Revelation.
So what is the conclusion? The book of Revelation uses the same phrases that surround the vision in Daniel, which describes a symbolic image of empires in the form of a statue being destroyed by a stone that fills the earth, which are also symbols.
So the book seems to be primarily symbolic. But let us look at another aspect.
deiknumi and semaino
No, this heading is not a typo but describes the two words that show the purpose of the book: “The Revelation from Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show (deiknumi) his servants what must soon take place. He made it known (semaino) by sending his angel to his servant John”.
These two verbs should give us a good understanding of how God wanted to show and make known the contents of this book:
semaino
This is the word we find as a parallel to the story in Daniel where it shows the interpretation of a symbolic vision. This word is used only 5 times in the New Testament.
- Once in a generic to (to specify),
- another time showing a potentially symbolic prophecy, given the symbolic meaning of the same prophet while
- the other three are symbolic descriptions of Jesus death on the cross in John chapters 12, 18 and 21.
The noun is often used to describe Jesus’ miracles as signs of his character or mission, e.g.
- It shows His power to give spiritual life as well as spiritual resurrection
- The feeding of the 5000 shows Jesus’ power to give spiritual food
The word semaino can also mean to make known or announce, but if John wanted to show this aspect, he would have used the more appropriate word gnorizo, which he did not use.
deiknumi
This word in written in the context of a symbolic vision of an angel (“made it known by sending his angel to his servant John”), which is also the reference to the book Daniel, see above. Also in other places in the book John uses it to describe a vision that he saw, usually combined with seeing and interpreting of the symbol he saw
- The angels shows him the heavenly throne room and what happens there like lamb opening a scroll.
- The introduction to the vision of the harlot in the wilderness surrounded by many waters.
- The Bride is shown as the city of New Jerusalem.
- The river of the water of life is shown.
- The summary, which is also a reference to Daniel.
- The summary of all the things he saw and heard which were sometimes different things describing symbolically the same thing.
Conclusion
All these observations show that we should first assume the symbolic character of a content, especially when it is not clear.
You will also see that the book is full of things that are obviously symbols: the lamb, the dragon, the beast with heads and horns, the book with seven seals, the sword coming out of the mouth of Jesus, …