Revelation: You are here...

IN the Acts thread, Trevor responded:

I agree with you Trevor, that Revelation contains symbols.
And that care must be taken in interpreting the book, and that some interpretation is required.

By 'interpretation', here we primarily mean 'identification', that is connecting the symbols and figures of the book with real world events and entities around us.

That having been said, these issues have been raised 140 years ago or more, when people like Christopher Wordsworth noted that interpreters were inconsistent in handling symbols:

For instance, interpreters took the 'Harlot of Babylon' in an allegorical sense and applied it to the Roman Catholic Church, while they took the "Euphrates River' in the same sections of the book 'literally', as the actual river in Iraq.

Wordsworth's own view was that both examples were symbolic, or rather the use of known, recognized symbols with 'properties' , "Babylon" (= the future 'harlot' will be like Babylon was), and the "Euphrates" (= the commerce and corruption will be like the ancient Euphrates). He also held that since a crudely literal interpretation was impossible (Babylon had fallen already, the Euphrates was not the central trade route in Jesus' day), that all the symbols must be consistently interpreted symbolically.

There is some common sense to Wordsworth's criticisms regarding how Revelation was handled in his time.

I wonder if we are any better off really today. There is a wide variety of interpretations of Revelation, even among those who take it very literally, and apply it to today, as being the "Last Days" etc.

This is why I am exploring it freshly in the first place, looking for historical pieces that can plausibly and coherently fit the puzzle-picture portrayed in Revelation.

peace
Nazaroo

 

In Revelation 7:9-17 we are given a special vision,
of a vast number of Christian martyrs.
Those who try to apply this vision to the very early times (c. 60-130 A.D.)
or even the last 'great persecution' (c. 280-300 A.D.)
must interpret the vision as an exaggeration of sorts,
a poetical hyperbole.

But if we actually look at the history of Christianity for the last 2000 years,
we will be startled when we find just such a period in history,
and it was quite recent: The first and second World Wars.
The following chart diagrams both the expansion of Christianity,
and the significant periods and places of Christian Martyrdom:

The Second World War in particular is remembered for the Holocaust,
the slaughter of some 6 million people of the Jewish faith,
but the actual numbers for this war show that a a vastly larger number
of Christians, mostly civilians, women and children, were also slaughtered,
in a systemic pattern of genocidal acts, mostly simply butchering,
such as in the Croatian Holocaust, and other East-European events from
the beginning of the 20th century until the end of the Cold War.



It is remarkable that although this great slaughter of Christians temporarily slowed the expansion
of Christianity, it also gave it the greatest boost since the fall of Constantinople.

If we want to interpret Revelation historically, we are again faced with a prophecy
which has a clear and plain literal fulfillment without exaggeration, and with a specific time marked out.

Again, the overall effect is to place us in the Last Times, with few prophecies left to fulfill,
before the Return of the King.