Jesus taught a lot in parables. And in other parts of the Bible important messages seem to be sent in dreams that sometimes need translation... though in other parts of the Bible messages seem very direct any literal.
Parables and symbolic language seems to be one way in which God communicates.
Are there any parts of the Bible that you find difficult to understand?
Are there parts that are symbolic but are prone to being taken literally?
I've been reading bits of Revelations. Some of it is clearly very symbolic and the text even explains some of the symbology and what it means. But other parts are not explained so it's difficult to understand.
Numbers seem important...
Why are numbers so important?
Numbers then, just like now, can have symbolic significance. There are thirteen stripes on the US flag because of the original thirteen colonies. It's not mystical, but it has a symbolic meaning given the context.
In a similar way numbers had symbolic significance in the context of the cultures and communities which used them. For example the number twelve was significant, because of the twelve patriarchs of the twelve tribes of Israel--which is the significance of Jesus choosing twelve apostles. As such, in the Revelation the number twelve carries this significance: twelve tribes, twelve apostles; so there are twenty-four elders around God's throne, there are twelve foundations and twelve gates for the New Jerusalem. When John sees the great multitude sealed by God, it is 144,000, 12x12x1000. John sees seven candlesticks, the seven churches to whom the Revelation was addressed. And so forth.
The number seven has often been understood to be symbolic of divine or heavenly things, because in the ancient near east--including Jewish thought--there were seven heavens. In the non-canonical book of Enoch the eponymous Enoch is taken up and shown the "third heaven" which is where the Garden of Eden/Paradise is; St. Paul echoes this when he mentions that he knew of a man who was taken up into the third heaven to the Paradise of God and shown wonders.
Big numbers are often used as short hand for "many" or "all" or "a lot". In the Psalms we read that God owns the cattle on a thousand hills, the use of a thousand is to indicate a great many--indeed, all cattle on all the hills belong to God. In Isaiah the vision of the future world says that a man of a hundred years old is to be counted as very young. In the Revelation Jesus' reign is described as a thousand years, some Christians take this literally, but most Christians have since ancient times (with some notable exceptions) understood this to be an indefinite period (the indefinite period of time between Christ's first and second comings, where He reigns even right now from heaven). Even in the above mentioned example of the 144,000 it is a multiplication by a thousand to indicate "a great many".
When it comes to reading the Bible, and whether something is literal or not-literal, there are always going to be debates and disagreements. But for myself I make it an effort to look at things like this:
The Bible isn't, properly speaking, a book, but a collection of books. And thus the Bible should be seen as analogous to a library. In a library there are many books, and indeed many kinds of books--from history, to science, to science fiction, fantasy, how-to guides, biographies--and how we approach any given book means understanding what kind of book it is. We don't read the The Hobbit the same way we read a biography of King Henry VIII. And the Bible is full of different books from different genres. For example, the Revelation is an example of an ancient literary genre known as apocalypse, and there is a whole slew of ancient Jewish and Christian and pseudo-Christian apocalypses from antiquity, the Bible only contains two: Daniel and the Revelation of St. John. Understanding what an apocalypse is, and what sorts of tropes that genre of literature employs helps us better understand what we are reading when we read the text. The same is true for the rest of the Bible.
That, of course, isn't the whole of it, but it's an important place to start, and an important question to be asking when reading the Bible. We don't read the Psalms the same way we read the New Testament Epistles, they are very different kinds of texts.
Getting back to the Revelation, if you find it difficult to understand, you're not alone. It is the most debated book in the Bible, and historically one of the most disputed. I would, in fact, refuse to believe anyone who claims they completely understand it and what it means fully and in every detail.
-CryptoLutheran
