"Allegorical" and "Spiritual" Hermeneutics

[HankD]

This is very helpful. Is 1,000 usually interpreted literally or otherwise? Let's take a look:

Psalm 50:10. 'For every beast of the forest is Mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills.' There are more than 1,000 hills in the world; do the cattle on the 1,001st not belong to God?
Psalm 90:4. 'For a thousand years in Your sight are like yesterday when it is past and like a watch in the night.' Would 1,001 years or 5,000 years be any different? [Compare 2 Peter 3:8]
Psalm 105:8. 'He remembers His covenant forever; the word which He commanded for a thousand generations.' Well, which is it? Does He remember it forever or for 1,000 generations?

There are a few more, but these should serve. A thousand means, almost everywhere it appears in Scripture, 'all that there are' and so it should be interpreted in Rev. 20. I don't know whether anyone wants to call that a 'spiritual' interpretation; to me it's common sense.

I believe all numbers in Revelation should be interpreted symbolically. It's full of 4s, 7s, 10s and 12s. Where are the 5s, 8s, 11s and 13s?

Revelation 20 uses the definite article with "the 1000 years" a clear indication that it is a literal 1000 years.

HankD

 

[agedman]

Revelation 20 uses the definite article with "the 1000 years" a clear indication that it is a literal 1000 years.

HankD

Clear statement of the truth.

 

[Martin Marprelate]

This is where the hermeneutical principle of "shareability" comes in.

If there were two guys of the same culture as John reading over John's shoulders as he penned the words of Revelation 20 what would they understand the word "χιλια" to mean? When the word is transliterated it reads "Chilia." As you know, I am an Historic Chiliast. I believe in the thousand (chilia) year reign of Christ on Earth.

It seems more than just a bit confusing (perhaps even dishonest) to assign that word a meaning that neither John, the two guys reading over his shoulder, or I understand the word to mean.

If they were familiar with Psalm 50:10; 90:4; 105:8, oh, and Deuteronomy 7:9 (forgot that one!) then perhaps they would understand.

I am "Pre-millennial." I am not "Pre-a long long time" - ial.

If I were not a contented Amil, I would be Historic Premil (but I am so I'm not ).

 

[prophecy70]

Revelation 20 uses the definite article with "the 1000 years" a clear indication that it is a literal 1000 years.

HankD

Ecclesiastes 1:4 does the literal earth remain forever?

Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever.

1. Deu. 1:11 "(The LORD God of your fathers make you a thousand times so many more as ye are, and bless you, as he hath promised you!)"
2. Deu. 7:9 "Know therefore that the LORD thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations;"
3. Josh. 23:10 "One man of you shall chase a thousand: for the LORD your God, he it is that fighteth for you, as he hath promised you."
4. 1 Chr. 16:15 "Be ye mindful always of his covenant; the word which he commanded to a thousand generations;"
5. Job 9:3 "If he will contend with him, he cannot answer him one of a thousand."
6. Job 33:23 "If there be a messenger with him, an interpreter, one among a thousand, to show unto man his uprightness:"
7. Psa. 50:10 "For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills."
8. Psa. 84:10 "For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand. I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness."
9. Psa. 90:4 "For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night."
10. Psa. 105:8 "He hath remembered his covenant for ever, the word which he commanded to a thousand generations."
11. Eccl. 6:6 "Yea, though he live a thousand years twice told, yet hath he seen no good: do not all go to one place?"
12. Eccl. 7:28 "Which yet my soul seeketh, but I find not: one man among a thousand have I found; but a woman among all those have I not found."
13. Isa. 7:23 "And it shall come to pass in that day, that every place shall be, where there were a thousand vines at a thousand silverlings, it shall even be for briers and thorns."
13. Isa. 30:17 "One thousand shall flee at the rebuke of one; at the rebuke of five shall ye flee: till ye be left as a beacon upon the top of a mountain, and as an ensign on an hill."
15. Isa. 60:22 "A little one shall become a thousand, and a small one a strong nation: I the LORD will hasten it in his time."
16. 2 Pet. 3:8 "But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day."


But because Revelation uses the word "The" its literal?

 

[John of Japan]

Is is not true that there is more then allegory or metaphor in the Scriptures?

There is also, metonymy, substituting a word as a representative for.

When one uses the term "Lord's supper" is that not the use of metonymy?

The study of typology (objects of the OT that are symbols or representative figures of what is realized in the NT) is fascinating.

Has anyone listed the use of figures of speech, and see which was more commonly used by the ancients?

In English, the two words - like, as - indicate the use of a simile
For example: I call my wife "Love" - metaphor
"Her love is like a red, red rose" - simile

In English, a longer story in which contains hidden meaning and messages is an allegory.
For example: The most published book after the Bible is "Pilgrims Progress." It is an allegory, a story with hidden meanings and messages in the characters and story line.

Is it the same in the language of the ancients?

Are their grammatical indicators, and story lines that were indicated as such within the text of the ancients?

Perhaps as is in other languages, the elements of figures of speech are both indicated and not indicated but still well known to those who are familiar with the language.

A Vietnamese friend struggles to understand English idioms. When she heard, "It is raining cats and dogs," she actually looked out to see if the animals were falling from the sky and were hurt.

Perhaps, in the effort for "different" some trip over figures of speech in a language they are too unfamiliar to recognize, and the typical translation causes a stumbling that the ancients would laugh about?

This is an excellent post. I find that the biggest failure of allegorical interpreters is their lack of recognition of figures of speech. Over and over here on the BB, they have tried to convince us of the validity of allegorical interpretation by pointing to figures of speech.

One example is right here on this thread, where Martin tries to convince us that the 1000 years of Revelation (6 times) is not literal by referring to other uses of the word 1000 in the Bible. What he has missed is that the references he notes are hyperbole, while the ones in Rev. are not. "hyperbole the term for 'exaggeration' in the ancient doctrine of figures of speech" (Oxford Concise Dictionary of Linguistics, by P. H. Matthews, p. 180).

The truth is, there are only three usages of "1000 years" in the Bible outside of Rev., really only two: Ps. 90:4, quoted in 2 Peter 3:8, and Eccl. 6:6. Now, Psalms and Eccl. are both poetic books, and poetry uses far more than the normal of figures of speech.

Other than that (as I've told Martin before), there are 441 other places in the Bible where "1000" or its plural are used, and most of those are literal.

 

[Yeshua1]

There appears to be great confusion about hermeneutics on the BB, especially among preterists, and amil advocates. Hopefully this thread can clear up some things about hermeneutics--but I'm not holding my breath. Caveat: I'm going to have to simplify some things. There is no way a BB thread can even begin to deal adequately with this subject. So my goal is mainly to inform about the OP.

For the record, my method is grammatical-historical, and I think much of modern linguistics helps that method. In particular, advances in semantics (the study of meaning) help Biblical exegesis. Great sources on this are Mouses Silva (Biblical Words and Their Meaning) and David Alan Black (Linguistics for Students of NT Greek).

First of all, all scholars agree that the basic method of interpretation of the early church was grammatical-historical. Klein, Blomberg and Hubbard (Introduction to Biblical Interpretation, 1993, p. 30) speak of literal-contextual interpretation as an apostolic method.

The first genuine school of hermeneutics developed in Antioch of Syria. When Origen and his allegorical method came along, "The Syrian school fought Origen in particular as the inventor of the allegorical method, and maintained the primacy of the iteral and historical interpretation of the Scripture" (Bernard Ramm, Protestant Biblical interpretation, p. 49). "The literal method of interpreting the Bible is to accept as basic the literal rendering of the sentences unless by virtue of the nature of the sentence or phrase or clause within the sentence this is not possible" (ibid, 45).

Ah, yes, Origen (185-254). There were other allegorists (Clement of Alexandria, for one), but he took the Jewish method of Philo and applied it to the NT, popularizing it in the process. Origen taught different levels of interpretation: the literal (the least important), only for laymen. He taught that the spiritual interpretation was the true interpretation, something foreign to the grammatical-historical method, and something that allows every interpreter to interpret differently.

So, for you preterists on the BB: "Spiritual" and "allegorical" are synonyms for the same method. When you interpret other than literally you are interpreting "spiritually" or "allegorically." Thus you are not interpreting according to natural, God given (cf universal grammar), normal hermeneutics. You are using a method that can mean anything--thus the very wide variety of preterist positions. Simply admit that you do not interpret prophecy literally (however you may interpret the Sermon on the Mount and other important Scripture), and go on from there.

The big switch from the preferred method of understanding the bible came about due to Augustine making popular his spiritualising/allogirizing the prophetic scriptures.

 

[John of Japan]

Ecclesiastes 1:4 does the literal earth remain forever?

Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever.

1. Deu. 1:11 "(The LORD God of your fathers make you a thousand times so many more as ye are, and bless you, as he hath promised you!)"
2. Deu. 7:9 "Know therefore that the LORD thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations;"
3. Josh. 23:10 "One man of you shall chase a thousand: for the LORD your God, he it is that fighteth for you, as he hath promised you."
4. 1 Chr. 16:15 "Be ye mindful always of his covenant; the word which he commanded to a thousand generations;"
5. Job 9:3 "If he will contend with him, he cannot answer him one of a thousand."
6. Job 33:23 "If there be a messenger with him, an interpreter, one among a thousand, to show unto man his uprightness:"
7. Psa. 50:10 "For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills."
8. Psa. 84:10 "For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand. I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness."
9. Psa. 90:4 "For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night."
10. Psa. 105:8 "He hath remembered his covenant for ever, the word which he commanded to a thousand generations."
11. Eccl. 6:6 "Yea, though he live a thousand years twice told, yet hath he seen no good: do not all go to one place?"
12. Eccl. 7:28 "Which yet my soul seeketh, but I find not: one man among a thousand have I found; but a woman among all those have I not found."
13. Isa. 7:23 "And it shall come to pass in that day, that every place shall be, where there were a thousand vines at a thousand silverlings, it shall even be for briers and thorns."
13. Isa. 30:17 "One thousand shall flee at the rebuke of one; at the rebuke of five shall ye flee: till ye be left as a beacon upon the top of a mountain, and as an ensign on an hill."
15. Isa. 60:22 "A little one shall become a thousand, and a small one a strong nation: I the LORD will hasten it in his time."
16. 2 Pet. 3:8 "But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day."


But because Revelation uses the word "The" its literal?

See Post #45 below. These other usages you mention are hyperbole, but the usages in Revelation are clearly literal, as are most of the 441 usages in the Bible.

Learn what a "figure of speech" is before you leap into the argument here.

 

[John of Japan]

The big switch from the preferred method of understanding the bible came about due to Augustine making popular his spiritualising/allogirizing the prophetic scriptures.

Yes, Augustine followed Origen in that. Unfortunately, Augustine wasn't much of a linguist, so didn't understand what we are discussing here, judging by his advocacy to Jerome for the LXX as inerrant (like a modern KJVO advocate), rejecting Jerome's Latin Vulgate.

 

[Yeshua1]

See Post #45 below. These other usages you mention are hyperbole, but the usages in Revelation are clearly literal, as are most of the 441 usages in the Bible.

Learn what a "figure of speech" is before you leap into the argument here.

The problem is that those who despise literal think that it means that we do not use the genres and word types of scriptures, but we do, prophecy/parables, metaphors etc all are seen as being legitimate meanings, just need to apply the rightones !

 

[TCassidy]

But because Revelation uses the word "The" its literal?

Do you understand the grammatical implication of the presence or absence of the definite article in Koine Greek?

 

[Yeshua1]

Do you understand the grammatical implication of the presence or absence of the definite article in Koine Greek?

In case, does not
2A. THE GENERAL RULE.
It is important to remember that the way the article was used in Greek is not always the
same as the way we use the article in English. In English a word may have a definite
article (the), an indefinite article (a, an) or no article at all. In Greek there is no indefinite
article, so a word either has the article or it does not.
Here's an example of how the Greek usage (or non-usage) of the article can be
misinterpreted: Jehovah's Witness writers have argued that there is no article before
"God" in John 1:1 and therefore it must be indefinite: "The Word was a god" (see the
New World Translation). ls this what the non-use of the article really means?
Here is the GENERAL RULE:
I) The use of the article identifies (points out, marks out), particularizes (specifies) and
draws attention to an object, or a person. As Daniel Wallace observes: "The article was
originally derived from the demonstrative pronoun. That is, its original force was to
point out something. It has largely kept the force of drawing attention to something ... ln
terms of predominantfanction, it identifies" (Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, p. 208,
209). When the article is used, just think of a pointing finger
http://www.middletownbiblechurch.org/egreek/greek05.pdf

 

[John of Japan]

Has anyone listed the use of figures of speech, and see which was more commonly used by the ancients?

E. W. Bullinger listed all of the figures of speech in the Bible in his book available here in pdf format: http://www.biblicalresearchjournal.org/brj-pages_pdf/001ewb_figures_of_speech.pdf. He listed 217 different figures of speech in the Bible. And he was a dispensationalist (well, hyper )!

 

[Covenanter]

Revelation 20 uses the definite article with "the 1000 years" a clear indication that it is a literal 1000 years.

HankD

Not at all - it simply refers to the previous mention of the thousand years which is indefinite - a thousand years. John will tell us if that accords with the Greek.

We are moving to a new house. The house we are moving to is ....

I see the replies above - as far as I can see, the first occurrence of is - for thousand years (indefinite) while the second employs the definite article. That indefinite/definite pattern is repeated in the chapter, proving my point.

 

[Yeshua1]

E. W. Bullinger listed all of the figures of speech in the Bible in his book available here in pdf format: http://www.biblicalresearchjournal.org/brj-pages_pdf/001ewb_figures_of_speech.pdf. He listed 217 different figures of speech in the Bible. And he was a dispensationalist (well, hyper )!

That was my point #49

 

[HankD]

Ecclesiastes 1:4 does the literal earth remain forever?

Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever.

But because Revelation uses the word "The" its literal?

Yes to the first question if you count the "new earth" as a renovation of the "old earth".
Yes to the second question.

HankD

 

[HankD]

Not at all - it simply refers to the previous mention of the thousand years which is indefinite - a thousand years. John will tell us if that accords with the Greek.

We are moving to a new house. The house we are moving to is ....

I see the replies above - as far as I can see, the first occurrence of is - for thousand years (indefinite) while the second employs the definite article. That indefinite/definite pattern is repeated in the chapter, proving my point.

You shouldn't compare 21st century English grammar and syntax with that of Koine Greek.

For one thing Koine Greek is anarthrous (has no indefinite article as does English).

HankD

 

[Martin Marprelate]

This is an excellent post. I find that the biggest failure of allegorical interpreters is their lack of recognition of figures of speech. Over and over here on the BB, they have tried to convince us of the validity of allegorical interpretation by pointing to figures of speech.

One example is right here on this thread, where Martin tries to convince us that the 1000 years of Revelation (6 times) is not literal by referring to other uses of the word 1000 in the Bible. What he has missed is that the references he notes are hyperbole, while the ones in Rev. are not. "hyperbole the term for 'exaggeration' in the ancient doctrine of figures of speech" (Oxford Concise Dictionary of Linguistics, by P. H. Matthews, p. 180).

The truth is, there are only three usages of "1000 years" in the Bible outside of Rev., really only two: Ps. 90:4, quoted in 2 Peter 3:8, and Eccl. 6:6. Now, Psalms and Eccl. are both poetic books, and poetry uses far more than the normal of figures of speech.

2 Peter 3:8 isn't poetry.
But the poetic books in the Bible are still teaching truth, I think. Also, what about the instances of 1,000 when it doesn't speak of 'years'?

Other than that (as I've told Martin before), there are 441 other places in the Bible where "1000" or its plural are used, and most of those are literal.

I am actually thinking of the number 1,000; multiples are another question. I can't think of very many places where it is to be taken literally and Prophecy 70 has given us a fine list of places where it isn't, but I'm prepared to be corrected.

As you, of course, know, there are also different types of literature in the Bible: wisdom, poetry, history, prophecy and so forth. One of these is Apocalyptic. Apocalyptic literature has a meaning to be sure, but there is a whole lot of imagery, which, if you take it literally, you are going to miss the point spectacularly. I am not expecting a literal beast with seven heads and ten horns to pop up out of the sea any time soon and I'm sure you're not either, so why insist that 1,000 years has to be literal?

However, God has made His plans, and He hasn't asked me about them, so if I'm wrong, I will look you up sometime after the rapture and beg your pardon. I try not to fall out over eschatology.

 

[Covenanter]

The point of this thread is obviously to try to prove that a literal, future millennium is prophesied when all the OT prophecies concerning Israel are to be fulfilled, on earth, centred on Jerusalem, with Jesus reigning, in person, on David's throne.

Where is that taught in the Gospels, or the letters? Where do Jesus & the Apostles give any positive prophecy for the Jews who rejected both their Messiah & the Gospel Message? Where Is a future separation of believing Israel & the Church taught?

Acts records how many thousands of Jews & proselytes Jews, devout men, from every nation under heaven formed the Church from Pentecost onwards, including a great many of the priests.

As for those who persistent rejected the Gospel, Peter quotes Moses in condemning them:

22 For Moses truly said to the fathers, ‘The Lord your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your brethren. Him you shall hear in all things, whatever He says to you. 23 And it shall be that every soul who will not hear that Prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people.’​

And if you still look for a future dispensation for fulfilment of OC prophecy, read on in Acts 3:

24 Yes, and all the prophets, from Samuel and those who follow, as many as have spoken, have also foretold these days. 25 You are sons of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’ 26 To you first, God, having raised up His Servant Jesus, sent Him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from your iniquities.”​

The was open to the Jews until the destruction, when

1 Thes. 2:16 ....wrath has come upon them to the uttermost.​

No further wrath against the nation, whatever subsequently happened in history. The Gospel was & remains open to all repentant sinners.

 

[John of Japan]

Not at all - it simply refers to the previous mention of the thousand years which is indefinite - a thousand years. John will tell us if that accords with the Greek.

We are moving to a new house. The house we are moving to is ....

I see the replies above - as far as I can see, the first occurrence of is - for thousand years (indefinite) while the second employs the definite article. That indefinite/definite pattern is repeated in the chapter, proving my point.

The thing is, Greek does not have an indefinite article, and the definite article is somewhat different in usage from the definite article in English. "In general, the presence of the article emphasized particular identity, while the absence of the article emphasizes quality or characteristics" (David Alan Black, Learn to Read NT Greek, 3rd ed., p. 30).

In this case, Rev. 20:2 does not have the article, but vv. 3, 4, 5, and 7 do. This means that those verses are pointing as their antecedent to the first mention in v. 2. In other words, they are all pointing to the same 1000 years. It is hard to see how the 1000 years could be hyperbole like other places in the Bible when so many times the article points back to the first mention. So, the 1000 years is literal, not hyperbole.

Forgive me for being technical, but v. 6 does not have the article in the TR Greek NT or the Byz. Textform, but does in the Aleph manuscript, so Nestle's 28 and UBS 3 have the article in brackets there. Either way, it's pretty clear that the whole chapter is referring to the same 1000 years, with v. 2 not having the article but the other verses pointing back to it as the antecedent.

 

[Martin Marprelate]

Revelation 20 uses the definite article with "the 1000 years" a clear indication that it is a literal 1000 years.

HankD

Good point, but the first use of 1,000 years in Rev. 20 is in verse 2, where it lacks the article. The other instances (vs. 3, 4, 5, 7) have the article because they are referring back to verse 2, not because they are saying "This is literal!"