First off, you should know that the "s" in Revelation is both silent and unwritten... There is no book of Revelations in the Bible.
The title actually comes from the opening line that says The Revelation 'of Jesus Christ' as wittnessed by His servant John. The reason it is a transliteration 'of Christ' in because it is the dative case of revelation, indicating possesion. Since the revelation is possesed by only one, that is Christ, it is therefore properly singlular since Christ alone posseses it. However, within the book there is a series of revelations (plural): The Bride of Christ, Babylon the Great, The Lamb that speaks like a Dragon, The Man of Sin, The Two Wittnesses and the final revelation of Christ returning in power and glory to establish His 1,000 year reign. If you want to get technical about it should be called the 'apocalypse' since 'revelation' is a transliteration and apocalypse is the normal Greek word used.
As to this quote, you started off by misquoting Jesus -- nowhere in the verse does Jesus say "literally." Then you say that Jesus was in the middle of the Earth...
Look again Deamiter, there were no quotation marks and that was a paraphrase with a point. The point was that Jesus spoke of the ressurection and Jonah being in the belly of the whale as being the same thing. Both are obviously meant to be taken as literal happenings, not metaphors, analogies or parables. Just as Jonah was three days in the belly of the fish the Son of Man with be three days in the earth. That is a clear as it can be and the all the semantics in the world won't change the clear meaning of the text.
The Hebrew people believed in a place called Sheol -- the place of the dead. They believed it was under the Earth as evidenced by MANY verses talking about digging to Sheol etc...
I am aware of the Hebrew concept of Sheol, death and the grave. Sheol is the grave and both terms are used interchangably as a euphimism for death. Paul uses the literature application of this imagary in Romans 6 and Ephesians 2(dead to sin, alive to God). However, Jesus is not using this as a metaphor, euphimism or analogy, He is talking about His literal death and comparing it to Jonah being three days in the belly of a fish.
To date we have not found Sheol. I don't know about you, but I tend to interpret it figuratively... unless you really think digging in the right spot will find us the land of the dead...
Jesus does not call sheol a place, he calls Hell a place and speaks expressly of it as such. I don't know who 'they' are or how you expect them to uncover the place Jesus called Hell but there is something you might not realize. Jesus is the only one in the Bible that spoke of Hell, wanna know why?
Because He was the only one that knew anything.
So now you have Jesus comparing one story (which you believe is literal) to his own stay in the heart of the Earth... I submit to you that unless you truly believe Jesus traveled to the core of the Earth, you have just shown how a person can use a mythological idea to convey real truth. It is not a LITERAL comparison between two historical events, but a comparison between two stories both of which contain truth. We've just established that one is at least partly metaphorical (Jesus' stay inside the Earth) and there's absolutely nothing that requires the other to be factual/historical for the truth in each to be compared!
Jesus was lilterally three days in the grave just as Jonah was literally three days in the belly of the fish. There is no reason short of a private interprutation to warrant taking Jesus words as anything other then literal. It like the Rich Man and Lazerous, he is talking about three literal people, two in heaven and one in Hell.
You throw around "obviously" and "clearly" as if the use of such strong terms is going to be enough to convince those that disagree with you. Quite simply, the interpretation of scriptures is anything BUT obvious as evidenced by the many thousands of varying interpretations Christianity has seen throughout the years. You might consider revising using language that avoids insulting the intelligence of every other Christian...
I would just be paraphrasing the content of my post if I said straightforward or unambiguise. These texts do not beat around the bush, there is clear language both in and around these texts indicating exactly what I am emphsising. The Scriptures are neither the product of private interprutation or subject to private interprutations. Those who gave the Scriptures spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit and New Testament belivers understand as they are filled with the Holy Spirit.
When the Scriptures speak clearly we should speak clearly of the content, not holding to private interputations. Particularly when speaking of the central events of the Gospel, the death, burial and ressurection of Jesus Christ. How many interprutations are there for those events?
