Hear, hear! Even if we could figure out precisely when Jesus is coming back, would it make any difference in our daily lives? I don't see how it would.
Agreed. It's sad to see so many people here sick with 'End times table distraction'. EG: Look at Bible2's standard reply to my post. He just copies and pastes the same stuff every time. But there's no biblical scholarship backing this or wisdom in it. It's just an automatic, autistic copy and paste exercise. It's sad.
PS: I asked him not to reply to my posts but he keeps going. See what a troll he is?
Hey, Bible2, copy and paste boy, catch this! (This is copied and pasted from another thread on the
slightest provocation, just the way you do to everyone here every chance you get).
Rev. is almost entirely literal, for it's unsealed (Rev. 22:10), meaning it shouldn't be difficult for saved people of any time to understand it if they simply read it as it's written. The few parts of it that are symbolic are almost always explained afterward (e.g. Rev. 1:20, 17:9-12), & its few symbols not explained afterward (e.g. Rev. 13:2) are usually explained elsewhere in the Bible (e.g. Dan. 7:4-7,17).
Jesus having 7 eyes and 7 horns and a sword-tongue was of course literal. Oh, and the passage explained it sooooo well. Right there in Revelation 5 it says "And of course, Jesus having 7 eyes and 7 horns was all a parable, a metaphor, just in case you dumbheads who can't distinguish different forms of literature were tempted to take this chapter literally. Like the rest of this book really!"
See, Bible2, your problem is that you can't have it both ways. On the one hand you demand that the TEXT ITSELF must proclaim, "This readingeth be a metaphoreth". Otherwise it is literal. But Rev 5 says Jesus has 7 eyes and 7 horns and never, ever explains it away as a parable or a metaphor. It doesn't explain it at all. It's just stated. Like a fact. But I know you have previously said it is one of the *few* metaphors in Revelation.
My challenge to you? Prove it. The writing is EXACTLY the same as the rest of the book. Every time you fall back on "Revelation is literal" I'm just going to throw Rev 5 back to demonstrate how illiterate you are.
It's there. Read it. Revelation 5. Because the text doesn't 'explain it' as you suggest. What do you do? Assume it is literal? Is that what you do *every* time you read? Assume it's literal?
What about poems? Are poems literal? What about love sonnets. "Your teeth are like the sheep going down Mt Hermon." Literal? No. Too easy. The word 'like' is in there, it's a simile.
But according to your whacked out, ignorant, illiterate definition of 'literal' writing it's all literal unless the text specifically spells out something different. So what do you do about metaphors? It seems to me that you don't have the first clue how to detect metaphorical from literal writing.
Tell me sunshine, do I call you 'sunshine' literally? Or is it a metaphor? (Sarcastic at that.) Are you my little ray of sunshine or not?
Or what about this?
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
Literal or metaphor?
See, the problem you have, sunshine, is that metaphor is *never* explained. No good writer turns around and says "Oh, that was a metaphor!" That's up to the reader.
Imagine if Shakespeare had written:
All the world’s a stage (But that was just a metaphor)
And all the men and women merely players (I just extended the metaphor)
They have their exits and their entrances (But not literally, as it's just another metaphor).
If by definition a metaphor *never* explains itself, how are we to recognise one when we stumble over it? What clues are *you* going to look for? By your ignorant definition we have to believe *everything* is literal unless the text specifically says otherwise. But that's not how writing works.
You simply don't want metaphors to be real. You don't allow them. You want everything to be similes, where Shakespeare would have instead said
All the world is LIKE a stage,
And all the men and women are LIKE mere players;
They all live life LIKE they have exits and their entrances;
But that isn't in Rev 5 is it? IS IT? No sunshine, it isn't. Rev 5 just says it like it is. (Or isn't, depending on whether or not you have a clue about metaphors). So Jesus HAS "seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth." There you go. No reason to argue about it. It's literal. The bible says so. Revelation 5 says so. Unless.... unless you can help us recognise a metaphor?
You have *no* reason to assert Rev 5 is any different to the rest of the book. This is the most metaphorical book in the entire bible! How do we know? By reading it! By recognising the metaphors as biblical images all mixed together to write a beautiful poetic sermon. And how do we know the rest of it is metaphor? By being biblically literate and recognising the bible's older, other metaphors for what they are. Anyone well versed in the bible is going to *recognise* these biblical metaphors from other areas that help to describe these symbols. They are most definitely NOT literal.
I hope this helps you clear away some of the fog before your eyes, blinding you to what is in the text. Because you've got a lot of this 'fog' and you've got it bad. (By the way, that last bit was a metaphor).
