question on interpreting prophecy

[lutherangerman]

Some time ago I read some prophecies in the bible I had these ideas on a possible interpretation.

Two examples:

Stars

When the book speaks about the stars falling from the sky, couldn't this allude to space travel becoming possible, that the "stars come to Earth" meaning that science finds a way to bridge the vast distances in space?

Wormwood

In the book of Revelation there is mention of a star named Wormwood hitting the ocean. Could this refer to people digging up outlived ideas and philosophies and putting them into practice again? Or about corruption becoming bad? Wormwood might simply be understood literally to mean a piece of wood riddled with worms and holes. Something unfit but people use it anyway like when a builder uses bad materials for a house?

Thanks, God bless!

 

[papaJP]

Be careful that God does not think you are causing others to stumble.

 

[lutherangerman]

How on Earth am I causing people to stumble with this?

I know my interpretation could be wrong, but it does not seem heretical to me.

 

[lutherangerman]

Well that's untrue too, there is such a thing as heresy and it's not right. For example, there have been heresies that said Jesus was not here on Earth in flesh and blood but only as a kind of spiritual hologram. We need to avoid such teachings and so we have the christian struggle for Orthodoxy in our beliefs. That has nothing to do with Inquisition or Witch Trials, instead people learn and pray and study and discuss until the truth is determined. We all have an obligation to the truth.

 

[Hairy Tic]

Some time ago I read some prophecies in the bible I had these ideas on a possible interpretation.

Two examples:

Stars

When the book speaks about the stars falling from the sky, couldn't this allude to space travel becoming possible, that the "stars come to Earth" meaning that science finds a way to bridge the vast distances in space?

Wormwood

In the book of Revelation there is mention of a star named Wormwood hitting the ocean. Could this refer to people digging up outlived ideas and philosophies and putting them into practice again? Or about corruption becoming bad? Wormwood might simply be understood literally to mean a piece of wood riddled with worms and holes. Something unfit but people use it anyway like when a builder uses bad materials for a house?

Thanks, God bless!

## To understand the point of "wormwood" in Revelation, look at the OT source of the description. Wormwood is absinthion in the Greek: it is poisonous, which is why those who drink of the sea, die.

The stars are a regular item in visions of the end - compare Matthew 24 & its sources. Revelation can't be understood by look at to-day - what did John know of space travel ? To look at the world as we know it, is to get things back to front; we have to start from the text, not from our ideas of what we can read back into the text. Otherwise, we could find Scotland in the Bible. It's very easy to do. All one need do is:

• have a fixed idea about finding entity X in the Bible
• look in the Bible for words which can be read as a description of it
• proclain that entity X is in the Bible.
  

That is not how to read the Bible - but Revelation has been read in that way for centuries The starting-point is Revelation's own words, and the ideas it uses, and its echoes of the OT, & of the ideas of OT.

Hope that is some help.

 

[Elena Bandysheva]

Please, could you tell me, what means the word - tufidor? I find this one in the book 'Dogmatic Theology/ Vol.1 God, His knowability, essense, and attribute. Joseph Pohle

 

[Alive_Again]

Here's the passage...

"And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters; And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter."
Rev 8:10-11

Stars are usually bigger than the earth. If a star as we knew it struck the earth, that would be end of the earth. It stands to reason that it speaks of a heavenly body.

God sent brimstone upon Sodom and Gomorrow that was not native to the earth. There is still some there. I wonder if the Dead Sea was dead prior to that?

Although some things are symbolic. It was expected that Elijah would return before the Messiah came, but it was rather the "spirit of Elijah" in John the Baptist. There may be other mysteries in Revelation such as the fornications in the letters to the churches. We don't see any church openly advocating fornication. I would be inclined to a "spiritual" counterpart. The church is a bride and can be an adulteress by her behavior.

I would receive the "star" or heavenly body being just that, kept for that very hour and purpose. The fruit is that the waters will be made bitter.

I read wormwood in scripture as a fruit and a judgment.

"Ye who turn judgment to wormwood, and leave off righteousness in the earth, Seek Him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night: that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The Lord is His name:"
Amos 5:7-8

"He hath turned aside my ways, and pulled me in pieces: he hath made me desolate. He hath bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow. He hath caused the arrows of his quiver to enter into my reins. I was a derision to all my people; and their song all the day. He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath made me drunken with wormwood. He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he hath covered me with ashes. And thou hast removed my soul far off from peace: I forgat prosperity. And I said, My strength and my hope is perished from the Lord: Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall."
Lam 3:11-19

My bet is that it will be a real heavenly body and the fruit of it with be as wormwood/judgment.

 

[papaJP]

Hopefully when I finish my study and commentary on Revelations I will answer some of your questions and put to rest the assumptions that lead down trails that end in dissalusionment.