No, we can't really conclude that, we can only speculate, or guess. The only thing that cannot be denied is that one possibility which always exists is that a text is meant literally. The literal meaning is not only always a possibility, but should be assumed unless the text, context, historical context, and the listeners' understanding to whom it was intended were all to agree that it should be taken as figurative. Otherwise, the literal meaning should be taken.
The author had all the opportunity in the world to make such a meaning as you suggest the easily understood meaning. The fact that he went to such detail in mentioning the tribes and the numbers argues for literal. He would only have needed to leave all that out, and say the number was a number of the church to make the meaning clear. Bot the author and the intended readers knew very well what the church was; and they knew also what the tribes of Israel were.
"When the plain sense of Scripture makes common sense, seek no other sense; therefore, take every word at its primary, ordinary, usual, literal meaning unless the facts of the immediate context, studied in the light of related passages and axiomatic and fundamental truths, indicate clearly otherwise." - David L. Cooper, "The God of Israel", p. iii.
Consider an example:
someone tells about an event where my two sisters and I took a trip; and name the sisters as Linda and Sharon. Later someone else tells the account mentioning three sisters going with me on the trip, and names the third sister as Julie.
The future readers should not take license to conclude that the story is figurative of a journey made by all those "close to me" or of a trip with several "women".
In fact, I have two living sisters, and one dead. A person not knowing that, but personally knowing the two living sisters might tell about the trip with the two sisters. Someone who knew me at the time it happened and knew the deceased sister would probably mention all three.
But no one would have the right to pretend it meant anything other than what it means: a trip with three sisters. It wasn't figurative, it happened.
That was an excellent thought provoking reply. Based on your quote from David L Cooper, I can clearly see that we come from very different divergent theological understandings of the bible. I intend to present an understanding of interpreting scripture from the theological background of my tradition. I have no illusion that I will change your mind but I hope to find some common understanding and we will have to agree to disagree.
You lay out some very important rules regarding the interpretation of scripture. You state that we must assume that scriptural text should be understood literally unless the text, context, historical context, and listeners understanding argue for a figurative understanding of the text. For much of the bible that is written in a narrative context, I wholeheartedly agree. For example when reading the Gospels, we should assume that the accounts of Jesus are meant to read as literal history and only when Jesus speaks in parables do we then assume a figurative meaning associated with his teaching.
However, the traditional orthodox understanding of scripture requires one to first determine the genre of writing the author is using to convey his message. For the genre of writing has very specific rules of interpretation that must be followed necessary to fully understand the true intent of the scripture. For example we know that Psalms are emotional prayers and using the same literal understanding that we use to understand the historical books would likely yield some fairly weird understanding of the nature of god. Likewise, the prophetic books have traditionally throughout the history of both the early church and the reformed churches to be understood symbolically. The first and most excellent interpretation of Revelations was written by Augustine. Later, during the time of the reformation both Luther and Calvin confirmed the traditional interpretation of Revelation based on its symbolic interpretation. The type of literature that we are dealing with is determined by the grammatical-historical method, which allows the text to speak for itself. The symbolic nature of prophecy is not to be left to the individuals imagination but to be carefully understood based on the biblical understanding of such symbolism that is clearly established throughout the bible. The interpretation must also be taken as an "idealistic" interpretation, meaning that we should only interpret the general context and not draw any specific interpretation that can not be directly understood by scripture. We should likewise allow the context to govern the meanings of the letters and words of the text. When one clearly understands the rules for symbolic interpretation, the meaning of prophetic scripture becomes very apparent.
For those who would say that we are imposing relativistic figurative interpretation to Revelations. I would claim that we are interpreting the book of Revelations literally. The literal truth that Revelation is a vision, and it is literally true that John saw the things he described here, and that the things he saw were symbols which pictured the future history of the church. We are not interpreting the bible literalistically. We can understand verse 5:5 to be discussing the Savior as a Lion in the tribe of Judah and in the very next verse the Savior can be described as a Lamb having seven horns and seven eyes. We should be able to interpret the symbolism in the same freedom as the writer freely uses in his visions.
Let us return to section of Revelations which addresses the 144,000. It is a curious fact that Revelations specifically list 12,000 for twelve tribes of the children of Israel. You state that the fact that John went to such detail in mentioning the tribes and their numbers argues a literalistic interpretation. However as I have argued above, the genre of the text of Revelations is prophetic, meaning unlike the Gospels or the Epistles it needs to be interpreted symbolically. We also can gather from the previous verses that the scene of 144,000 are written in the context of a vision that Paul is sharing with us of Christ divine revelation of the future history of the church. As I had mentioned in my previous post the twelve tribes listed in revelations could not be the historical literal tribes because they do not match the twelve tribes listed in the old testament. I merely ask you to Read Numbers Chapter 1 the Census of Israel's Warriors. One can not escape the fact that the tribes listed in revelations has omitted the the Tribe of Dan and the tribe of Ephraim. To believe that the tribes listed in revelations are the same twelve tribes of the historic literal old testament Israel, one would have to believe that John's Revelation is in error. I am not willing to go that far.
Instead I presented in my first Post that the 144,000 symbolically represented the whole church of believers in Christ. The symbolism I presented are based on a traditional interpretation and not something that I just made up. Also I stated that children of Israel are the believers of Christ who although they may be gentiles Paul argues that they are Abraham's offspring and heirs according to promise. The 144,000 I contend is the whole church and include the converted Jews as well as the gentile believers. I am not anti Semitic I could very comfortably believe that a great multitude of Jews will come to see the truth of Christ teachings and accept Christ as their Savior before his second coming. One could scarcely assume that the Jews are excluded from the Great Commission. I look forward to sharing salvation with my brother from Israel.
Regarding your example, yes the fact that one friend had excluded one of your sisters from your journey does not mean that the journey did not take place or that his telling was in error. But, if your same friend included a relative named Bob into the trip that never came with you, would you not say that his story is in error? In the same way the tribes listed in revelations not only exclude two tribes that where part of the literal historic tribes of Israel but it also includes two tribes Levi, and Joseph that were never counted among the twelve tribes.
