I took notice of bannabrain's good historical response to the thread re "temple location found" in the "regular
" Christianity thread which sort of related to traditional interpretations of the Book of Revelation. BB's apt response reminds us off the dangers of literalist interpretations of scripture. So thought I'd offer up my non-literalist interpretation of Revelation. I'm no biblical historian or scholar but read somewhere that the factions that wanted to make Jesus the Jewish messiah had in mind the hope that his arrival would change things from the outside-in. That is he would lead in someway a political/military revolution which would forge a new socio-political reality for oppressed people. Instead of the outside-in answer-the military one, Jesus offered an inside-out one: as you win the battle waging within you you can become that change you seek to sort of quote Ghandi.
So to Revelation. I see that book as chock full of metaphor and allegory-not a literalist prediction of specific external events to come. I won't go into a symbol by symbol discussion right now-would take more typing and time than I want to give now. Perhaps we can collectively use this thread for just such a discussion. But here are a few. First the return of the Christ. While I don't discount the possibility of a physical return of that manifestation, I believe the book is discussing the coming of the Christ individually for each of us-that is Christ seeks to be born in each of us in every moment of our lives and in our death. But ala Jungian thought which speaks of the "brighter the light, the darker the shadow," the more we seek to embrace the light of the Son the more we are called to deal with our internal demons-our shadow self.That must be purged/transformed before fuller realization & that old "Anti-Christ" doesn't give up without a battle. The seven seal spoken of to me represent the traditional 7 chakra system in Hinduism whereby as spiritual realization advances, each of the 7 chakras are engaged and in the process of opening to allow the flow of Divine grace to come through, the individual often faces the personal demons" associated with each chakra that require the purging I spoke of. There are more symbols in this book probably worthy of more speculation so if there's interest we can hopefully continue that dialogue here. But at any rate, the less we project our own battles onto others and the broader world stage and wage them within ourselves, the more likely I think we are to facilitate the "second coming" and maybe make the world a better place. The collective dangers we face seem to all be man-made whether you're talking about the scarey notion that the Middle East could flare into world war III or hosts of natural disasters triggered by global warming-it ain't God's or a supernatural Anti-Christ's doing. It's ours and ours to fix. Of course, can't rule out the possibility that John wrote that book under the influence of some hallucinogenic substance I suppose as it kind of reads like an acid trip.
Take care, earl
" Christianity thread which sort of related to traditional interpretations of the Book of Revelation. BB's apt response reminds us off the dangers of literalist interpretations of scripture. So thought I'd offer up my non-literalist interpretation of Revelation. I'm no biblical historian or scholar but read somewhere that the factions that wanted to make Jesus the Jewish messiah had in mind the hope that his arrival would change things from the outside-in. That is he would lead in someway a political/military revolution which would forge a new socio-political reality for oppressed people. Instead of the outside-in answer-the military one, Jesus offered an inside-out one: as you win the battle waging within you you can become that change you seek to sort of quote Ghandi.So to Revelation. I see that book as chock full of metaphor and allegory-not a literalist prediction of specific external events to come. I won't go into a symbol by symbol discussion right now-would take more typing and time than I want to give now. Perhaps we can collectively use this thread for just such a discussion. But here are a few. First the return of the Christ. While I don't discount the possibility of a physical return of that manifestation, I believe the book is discussing the coming of the Christ individually for each of us-that is Christ seeks to be born in each of us in every moment of our lives and in our death. But ala Jungian thought which speaks of the "brighter the light, the darker the shadow," the more we seek to embrace the light of the Son the more we are called to deal with our internal demons-our shadow self.That must be purged/transformed before fuller realization & that old "Anti-Christ" doesn't give up without a battle. The seven seal spoken of to me represent the traditional 7 chakra system in Hinduism whereby as spiritual realization advances, each of the 7 chakras are engaged and in the process of opening to allow the flow of Divine grace to come through, the individual often faces the personal demons" associated with each chakra that require the purging I spoke of. There are more symbols in this book probably worthy of more speculation so if there's interest we can hopefully continue that dialogue here. But at any rate, the less we project our own battles onto others and the broader world stage and wage them within ourselves, the more likely I think we are to facilitate the "second coming" and maybe make the world a better place. The collective dangers we face seem to all be man-made whether you're talking about the scarey notion that the Middle East could flare into world war III or hosts of natural disasters triggered by global warming-it ain't God's or a supernatural Anti-Christ's doing. It's ours and ours to fix. Of course, can't rule out the possibility that John wrote that book under the influence of some hallucinogenic substance I suppose as it kind of reads like an acid trip.
Take care, earl
