Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Tyler and Dr. Stewart discuss the challenging 4th Principle to interpreting Revelation: Symbolism. They explore the effectiveness of apocalyptic imagery in conveying timeless messages, its ability to transcend historical context, and the importance of spiritual discernment to uncover deeper meanings. They argue that apocalyptic literature is not just historical narrative but a call to spiritual insight, with the truths being real and warn of the danger of false interpretations.
Creators & Guests
What is The Study Podcast?
The Study Podcast is an in-depth look at the Bible with Dr. Paul Wegner and Dr. Alex Stewart.
Tyler Sanders 0:00
You're listening to the Study Podcast with Dr. Alex Stewart on Revelation. I'm your host, Tyler Sanders. I'm here with Dr. Alex Stewart, who's our dean and professor of New Testament. Is it New Testament studies? New Testament interpretation? Something New Testament? New Testament.
Dr. Stewart 0:16
New Testament language and literature. I think just New Testament.
Tyler Sanders 0:19
That's good. And we're talking about Revelation. Specifically, we're talking about principles to interpret Revelation. And this is our fourth episode, and we're talking about symbols. Symbolism. And this is a really good topic, I think. I think this is one that could make people a little uncomfortable. But it shouldn't, because as long as we're grounded in Scripture, we're going to be headed the right direction. So to kick things off, I was hoping you could tell us a little bit about some of the tension that people have when they read Revelation, and they don't see symbols, or they don't interpret symbols correctly.
Dr. Stewart 0:55
Well, there is a trend of interpreters and interpretation that try to read as literally as possible. So they'll say in the commentaries on Revelation, or their book on Revelation that they have a literal hermeneutic, or literal approach to interpreting it. And they try as much as possible to be as literal as possible. So there is that. And I tend to think that the goal there is probably...the motives are right. So the motives are, we want it to be accurate. We want it to be true to Scripture. We don't want to avoid the hard teachings of Scripture or find loopholes or weasel our way out. Rather, we want the truth of God undiluted, unmixed, uncorrupted. And so in their minds, it's a literal interpretation that gets them there. So that's sort of the appeal of that approach to Scripture. Because there is a lot of ways that theologians over the decades and centuries could get off track through a figurative interpretation or symbolic interpretations to get around what seems to be the plain meaning of the text. So there is this reaction to symbolic interpretation or metaphorical or figurative, when you start talking along those lines, people have this suspicion that it's somehow going to mislead. Because we want it to be literal and true and accurate and precise. And so that's the strength behind that approach to try to read as literally as possible.
Tyler Sanders 2:17
And I think a lot of the words you use, they're really helpful. The plain reading of the text, it's accurate. It's true. I think that's what people are going for. And that's what a lot people mean when they say like, I'm trying to read the Bible literally, because they really want to say, I'm finding the meaning, the true meaning of the text. But there is a, I guess you'd probably say it has to do with genre, but there are times we need to understand imagery and symbol, because that can still have a definite meaning.
Dr. Stewart 2:49
Yes. So sometimes I like to describe it, if you start with literal hermeneutic as the goal, that I'm going to read as literally as possible, it puts actually the cart before the horse, as the saying goes. So the goal isn't to read literally, or isn't to read symbolically, the goal is always to say, what did the author intent? And so if the author intended to write something, communicate, literally, say particularly with historical narrative or biography, historiography. Then the goal there is to present generally a literal historical narrative. And so that's what the author intended. That's the genre that fits it. And then that makes sense. And then if you read that symbolically, you'll misread it. You'll miss what the author intended. But the opposite is also the truth. If the author intended to communicate through metaphor or symbol or parable or figurative language and you read it literally, you will also miss read just as terribly. So the goal is not literal verse symbolic reading, the goal is what did the author intend to communicate. And it is linked to genre. So I mentioned historical narrative or biography, well that leads, lends towards, and is generally connected with a more literal reading of it. But we also know about poetry and Psalms. Psalms, poetry, Wisdom literature, it's filled with, you know, it's not historical narrative. So it's not that literal hermeneutic gets you very far in the genre. So that's when we come to Revelation, we have to wrestle a little bit with what's the genre? What kind of text are we dealing with here? And what did the author intent? Are these visions intended to be read as literally as possible? Or are they infused with symbolism? With symbolic and metaphorical sections.
Tyler Sanders 4:28
And we have some examples of other types of apocalyptic or similar genre stuff. Some in the Bible, but there's other outside or extra biblical sources, as well, where they kind of help us understand what the genre is,
Dr. Stewart 4:42
Definitely. So that's the first reason to read Revelation as primarily symbolic. So the principle that we want to take it as literally as possible, I would suggest actually needs to be reversed in Revelation. That it should be we assume that the visions are symbolic, and then we'd only want to read them literally if there are clear indications. Or we're forced into that. And the first reason for arguing that, is the genre. So it is apocalyptic literature. We have lots of other examples of what we call apocalyptic literature in the Bible. Sections of Zechariah, Ezekiel, Isaiah, Joel, that we have, Daniel. So there are sections within scripture itself. And then there's all sorts of other second temple Jewish literature from the same time period or similar time period, that also is filled with these symbolic visions and imagery, what we call apocalyptic literature. So first Enoch, second Enoch, fourth Ezra, second Baruch, testament of Moses, quite a few of the Dead Sea Scrolls, are fused with this genre. And so it is a recognized genre, sort of a visionary genre, symbolic genre. So that's the first reason when it comes to Revelation, I think that a literal hermeneutic here is not going to get me where the author wants me to go.
Dr. Stewart 4:43
Maybe this is a good kind of transition question. What are some ways we can...what are some of the like sub principles, since we're already talking about principles of interpretation, what are some good principles to help us think through assessing something symbolic in Scripture?
Dr. Stewart 5:11
Yeah, well, that's a great question. Because the fear, again, the motives of those who want to read it as literally as possible are the right motives. And the fear is that if you start going down sort of symbolic interpretation, or recognizing the symbols, that it opens we might think of as Pandora's box. You open that lid, and all sorts of evil comes out that you lose control over. So once you go down that path of recognizing that divisions are heavily symbolic, than where are the boundaries, where are the constraints and that? How do you keep yourself from going off in so many weird directions to weird interpretations? So that's the fear is if we go that path, what are the constraints? And that goes to your question of what are the guidelines that would help protect us as we recognize symbolism, as we try to interpret. Along with Pandora's Box, another thing I thought sometimes about is the Roche Bach, that sort of psychological tests where you have the inkblots, everyone looks at it and they see what they want to see. And that's the other fear is that they're malleable. Or how would you have any fixed meaning if every reader is just seeing what they want to see in the symbols? So that's sort of the dangers.
Dr. Stewart 7:27
So some of the guidelines that I draw on this chapter on this principle; there's a couple of them. This isn't in any particular order here. But one is recognizing the repetition in the visions themselves will help us. And so that's sort of an intra textual guideline, that Revelation itself helps to interpret Revelation as we see how the different visions interact with each other. And some of the same symbols pop up in different ways. And so that's one potential help on it. So we could start with an example there'll be God seal. So in chapter seven, it talks about God's seal, and "the 144,000 are sealed." Chapter 14 talks with 144,000, again, our seal, and you can wonder, what is God's seal? In Revelation, what does that mean? And if you use Paul, and that is appropriate, you go to other New Testament, other early Christian authors, how was the seal of God being thought of in early Christianity? Particularly, these are the cities that are also part of Pauline mission. So Paul's letters could have shaped the early Christian understanding of what the seal of God is. And in Paul, it's often the Holy Spirit. So he'll talk about the Holy Spirit is the seal of God. But Revelation doesn't go that way. And we actually get to the end of Revelation in chapter 22, where it talks about all of God's people having His name on their foreheads. And so that makes that connection of the seal of God being His name, sort of being this mark of ownership. So it's His name, it's who they belong to. It's the orientation of their worship and their allegiance. So all that's expressed in the seal, but it is linked to God's name on their forehead. And so that's a way that the visions could help. That doesn't come through in Revelation seven. But it does come through in chapter 14, and then chapter 22. And so those are ways that the visions themselves intertextually could help us with the symbols. It's not whatever we want them to be, we want to try to compare the visions with each other and get some direction from that. So another thing we could look at is historical context. So that's another one of the principles we talked about a few episodes ago. And so, do other ancient authors use similar symbols in similar ways. And one clear one for Revelation there'd be fallen angels as fallen stars. So that's a really common connection and imagery in first Enoch and other Jewish texts at the time. And so that's sort of a widespread historical, cultural connection that the original hearers would have picked up on right away.
Tyler Sanders 9:54
Really quickly.
Dr. Stewart 9:56
Yeah, we learn that from just the historical background, just some awareness there.
Tyler Sanders 10:01
That's so helpful to know. Because we lose those thing so quickly, like in our modern culture, it's really easy. You could watch a movie from 30 or 40 years ago. And there will be references and things in it that the audience at that time would have immediately got this joke or whatever, because it was in the news. Whatever was happening, like there was a context that kind of informs that and makes it funny. And you could watch it now and have no clue.
Dr. Stewart 10:29
That's a great example. Because some movies age really quickly. They're really hilarious, but they're only hilarious within that decade.
Tyler Sanders 10:35
Yeah. It's like that shift can happen so quickly. So yeah, that makes a lot of sense to be able to look at.
Dr. Stewart 10:41
So some other principles is the Old Testament. So how are different symbols or images used in the Old Testament? And the more we know of that will shape our reading of the book Revelation. Some examples there would be like the seventh trumpet judgments, the seventh seal judgements, well they're all heavily linked to the plagues in Egypt. So that's important. There's different insights we could draw from that connection. A fun one I like to point out is in chapter 11, the two witnesses. So there they have adversaries who try to harm them, and the fire comes out of their mouths, and consumers their adversaries. And so I forget which end time movie it was, I saw one a number of years ago, where it had the two witnesses, literally, and the soldiers with their machine guns. And they started talking and then they breathe fire. And they're like human flame throwers and burned up the guards and whatnot. And I'm thinking, I'm not sure... That's a literal way of reading this. But some help from the Old Testament-well actually help from different directions. One is just observing within Revelation itself, most things coming out of people's mouths are symbolic. So there's a lot of things coming out of people's mouths in Revelation, swords and frogs and different things. And they're definitely symbolic. And sometimes that's explicit. So the frogs that come out of the mouths of the dragon and the beast and a false prophet in chapter 16. Well, they're demons, they are deceiving spirits that go after the kings of the earth. So there it's a symbolic interpretation, the frogs again, connecting to the plagues on Egypt.
Dr. Stewart 10:43
So that's one example within Revelation itself. The broader historical context, fourth Ezra has a visionary scene where the Messiah breathes fire. Fire proceeds out of his mouth and destroys the atmosphere, it's the great eagle symbolizing Rome, but then the fire is interpreted as the law. It's in fourth Ezra 13. So there again, it's a similar type imagery, but it's the law of God, that's how it's interpreted. But I think most importantly, for the point here, the Old Testament comes in Jeremiah 5:14. And there it says to Jeremiah, "Because you've spoken this word, behold, I'm making my words in your mouth a fire, and the fire shall consume them." So this sort of commissioning of Jeremiah, this message to him is that the prophetic message of speaking God's truth to the people will be like fire in his mouth and will consume the hearers. So that's what we see in Revelation 11, the two witnesses there, they spew out fire. And so I tend to think the Old Testament guidance from Jeremiah would help us to read that and understand that it's not these human flame throwers that we're talking about. It's not our home defense that Christians have, that we could just burn people up by breathing fire on them. But it's the truth of their witness. So they're bearing witness, and the truth of that witness has that power.
Dr. Stewart 13:20
Now not to take too much of an excursion. But I think this is getting into a pretty interesting topic that's pretty complicated. It's a whole field of study, really, but looking at how the New Testament uses the Old Testament. I mean, in some cases, it's interpreting the Old Testament, certainly we're getting that in like some of the Gospels and stuff we're seeing. Matthew refers back to things that kind of gives it new meaning or something. But in this, do you feel like this is more like pulling imagery to kind of make a point? Or are they talking about the Old Testament?
Dr. Stewart 13:57
Well, this is a huge topic in Revelation, and lots of dissertations have been written and more will be written on it. And the two main contrasting positions there; one is that the Old Testament is just a resource of images that are taken out, devoid of their context. And so John's just grabbing things to create something new, sort of like he smashed a picture or something, I guess for that metaphor to work out to it'd be like a stained glass or something. He smashed it and he has a ton of pieces and then he rearranges them all to make his own new mosaic. And it doesn't matter what it was originally, as he's he's completely changing it. That's sort of the one approach, that says he has no concern for the context. He's just grabbing things for either their rhetorical effect or the power of the imagery. And all that matters is the new thing he's making with grabbing these bits and pieces from all over the Old Testament. But another approach, and Greg Bilas argued strenuously for this through many of his publications, is that John was concerned about the context, that he is building on the context. And understanding much of his use of the Old Testament depends on understanding the original context. And I would lean more that way. That's most of my study, and this has been confirmed there. It's not always the case. So there's actually quite a diversity of how he uses the Old Testament. So it's not all one or the other. But he does tend to be in line with the ideas, the spirit of, as it were, the original context. But sometimes there are examples that he just, he grabbed something and it's not always evident, how that's connected the original context, but more often than not, you could see the connections. We also talked about that quite a bit more in the the next chapter on reading Revelation as Christian scripture, so we could talk about that again, in our next episode a bit more.
Tyler Sanders 15:41
Okay. Well, let's stick to symbols then for this one.
Dr. Stewart 15:43
Symbolism, yeah. Great, some other examples of why to read Revelation as primarily symbolic, we talked about the genre. but there's also a fun indication right in the beginning of Revelation, in chapter one, verse one. There's a word that's used there, lets flip there in the Bible. It's Revelation 1:1, "The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave to him, to show to His servants what's necessary to happen soon and he", and here's the word, "he made it known" or "he communicated it by sending through his angel to his servant, John." But esemaman, as it were, saymyno is the lexical root there or the dictionary form, and it's a verb, "communicating" as it were. So it can be just translate, "he communicated it", but it's related to sameon, the noun for sign. So the word itself is connected to "communication through symbols", or "communication through signs". And that word is used elsewhere in antiquity, for sort of the deeper meaning of something. So there's examples in a non Christian literature. so Heracletus talks about the Delphic Oracle, where they use that word. The Delphic Oracle is the most famous Oracle in antiquity. And people would go and they'd receive the message from the prophetess or the prophet there. And then it would always be cryptic, though. It would always be hard to interpret, and there's a lot of ancient stories about how people interpreted it wrongly. They thought it meant one thing, and they took action on that, and then it gets reversed. There's lots of fun action stories about misinterpreting this. But they also had their professional interpreter, so you could pay them money, and they would help you interpret it. But this word is used there. For those who would help them interpret the deeper meaning, what was signified or communicated symbolically through the message. And Philo of Alexandria uses this word several times about how he interprets the Old Testament to get to that deeper meaning, the symbolic meaning behind it. And so it can be just generically communicated. But there's more to this word, that he communicated through signs or through symbols. So that's the way in the very first verse of Revelation were it's signaling this for us.
Tyler Sanders 16:09
And that can be a really powerful way to communicate an idea. That's still true today. I mean, like, I was an English major, so I'm very interested in this, because in a lot of my college classes, they would want us to do what they called close reading, where you would maybe just take a word or a phrase, and kind of reinterpreted a text through that. You're always looking for new ways to think about Moby Dick or something like that. But what I found interesting was that a lot of times in my poetry classes, that wasn't really what they were expecting you to do, they wanted you to kind of find that deeper...the assumption was the author had something very specific they were trying to say, and the language they use is very, very particular to not only get that idea across, but express it in a certain emotional context or something to kind of draw something out. But it can be a very powerful way to connect with the person very deeply.
Dr. Stewart 18:50
So when you asked why symbols or why apocalyptic in general, you know, why did John communicate this way, as opposed to some other way? Couldn't he have written more like Paul? Then Revelation would be a better book if it just was more like Paul. Why all these visions? And I think there's quite a few different ways to answer that, and one is what you're hinting out there, but the emotional impact of imagery and of symbols and metaphors, that it does connect with us in various ways. Sometimes the historical distance of being 2000 years past it, so we've talked about the movies and missing those illusions, because it's from a prior decade so we don't get the joke. So some of that's harder for us, but in general, a lot of it's still there. Even just reading Revelation, they're scary. The scary imagery and the terror and it can motivate us emotionally in different ways. The scenes of confidence and hope and security and contrast with judgment and danger. You know, there's all sorts of stuff going on that can move us emotionally to respond to the message of the book through the genre. I also think though there is something-we talked about the danger of Pandora's box or just seeing the inkblot and interpreting it any way we want to, but there's also something about the visions that they can't be pinned down so easily to specific context. So they are written to the seven churches and they were relevant, they were meaningful, they had a message to communicate.
Dr. Stewart 20:13
And I'm convinced Revelation is also designed where it could speak powerfully to every generation of Christians through Christian history. That every generation could see ourselves in these visions. We can identify with characters in the visions, the vision shape our identity, our sense of who we are, and what we're doing. The visions interpret our conflicts, the challenges we're facing, the dangers we're facing. The visions call us to persevere. And they do that because of the imagery. It's not exhausted in the first century, it's not exhausted by Rome. So even if we say, well, the beast is connected to Rome in the first century, Rome doesn't exhaust the symbolism. And so then every generation is identifying, where's Babylon in my generation? Where's Rome operative? Where's the dragon at work? Through Babylon. Through the beast, to oppose God and harm God's people, oppose God's purposes. And every generation is invited to identify with that and see that. To identify themselves in the story. So I think there's something about the apocalyptic genre that invites us as hearers in, in every generation that is transtemporal in some way. So it is, again, the first century it's grounded there. A couple episodes ago, we talked about interpretations that would have made no sense in the first century, are less likely, they're less probable. So there is a historical grounding to these visions, but also the polyvalence of the symbolism is able to speak multigenerational-intergenerationally.
Tyler Sanders 20:42
And that's still distinct from a kind of bad interpretive principle of reading David and Goliath and saying, What's your Goliath? And I want to make that distinction, because that is very different. This is very particularly...it isn't vague, but it's broad, I guess, is maybe a better word, where you can kind of take the truth on these principles and still see and question how that is operating. Ask that question of how that is operating today.
Dr. Stewart 22:11
That's a great observation. The comparison with David and Goliath is fun, you know. What's the Goliath in your life that you need to slay? And some of the difference is genre. So David and Goliath is historical narrative, and so then you say, yeah, we could we could make that jump to what Goliath am I facing today? But it is much easier to make that jump appropriately with apocalyptic literature. So yeah, the dragon is employing the beast and the false prophet to either kill and punish, or to deceive and seduce. So Babylon is a seductive figure with luxury. This is what's happening spiritually. So the apocalypse unveils a spiritual reality of what's happening behind the scenes that was relevant in the first century and relevant in every generation of Christians through history. It was how in my life is the dragon at work, trying to destroy? Steal, kill, and destroy, and doing it in these ways. Either through the seduction to compromise in different ways, or through just direct persecution and oppression. And that's what these adversaries are doing in the visions of Revelation.
Dr. Stewart 23:16
Good. One point that I can make about why assume that the visions are symbolic. And it's a phrase that occurs at the end of each of the letters to the seven churches that occurs again in chapter 13. "He who has ears to hear, the one has ears to hear, let him hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches." So this directly echoes Jesus's words. Jesus said it in His earthly ministry, and he said it here to each of these churches, in this proclamation to the seven churches. But in His earthly ministry, it's linked with parables. So he's saying when he says parables, there's a call for this sort of deeper insight, to have the perception, the insight to see what's going on beneath the obvious narrative. So it is a call to spiritually discern deeper meaning. And so I think that's an intertextual connection back to say, this is...apocalyptic literature are more like the parables than they are the historical narratives.
Tyler Sanders 24:06
Yeah, that's a really good example. Because again, it's like naturally, we don't necessarily read a parable and think it's explicitly true. Or this is like an exact story.
Dr. Stewart 24:19
Or historical.
Tyler Sanders 24:21
Oh, yeah. That'd be a better way to say it, because it is true. But it isn't historical, it's a story for a purpose.
Dr. Stewart 24:29
And the truths are real. And that's the other danger. People fear if we say it's symbolic, then it ceases to mean anything at all. Well, those symbols have real reference, and one example of that could be like of the Lake of Fire imagery. So that's the dominant motif for eternal punishment of the dragon, the beast, and the followers of the beast, those whose names are not written the Lamb's book of life is this fire imagery. So it's well known, it's come to us all through church history in lots of different ways. Paradise Lost, you know, all this stuff about Hell. And that is the main imagery but in chapter 22 there's also this description of the New Jerusalem comes down, and then it's those who are excluded from the city are the dogs, the sorcerer's, the murderers, adulterers, etc, that goes through a vice list there of those who are excluded. So there it's the same end result. It's the same eternal punishment, but it doesn't use the fire symbolism. It uses a symbolism of exclusion from the endtime city, God's new creation, where God's dwelling with his people. So there the dominant metaphor of that, sort of symbolic exclusion, is exclusion. So it's not necessarily the torment of fire, but it's being locked out and separated from, excluded from, the fulfillment of God's promises. And you can say, Well, which one is it? Is it one of the other? And it's like, well, I'm not sure that Revelation's worried about that. It's not pitting them against each other. And you can say, are you saying the fire is symbolic? Well, there's lots of ways that the Eternal Punishment is described. And so it could literally be a Lake of Fire. But even if it's not, even if the Lake of Fire is symbolic, it's still symbolic for something terrible. Like it's not that it's suddenly a good outcome. Exclusion from God eternally, and from God's promised future, is the terrible outcome. And then whether it's described with fire-and Jesus at one point talks about outer darkness. So again, that's not directly compatible with fire imagery, but it's still terrible. And so all these different imageries are expressing this reality that there will be judgment, and there will be an eternal punishment. But the symbolism itself, it's hard to know exactly the physical reality that will lie behind that. But that doesn't mean it's void of this external reference, like there is still an external reference.
Tyler Sanders 26:42
Yeah, there's a clear limit to how far you could...like you wouldn't just all of a sudden say like...we wouldn't say because this is fire, this has some other good meaning. Like, it's clearly being used in this kind of negative context. But you know, you could use a image of fire in some other kind of story in a positive context.
Dr. Stewart 27:07
You know, sometimes it's purification. Like some who are trying to argue against a traditional view of hell would argue it's a purificatory fire. But, yeah. I think the imagery is definitely negative, and there's no purifying, there's no hints of that, I see. And then chapter 20, again, the main way of describing the eternal punishment there is exclusion from the city, which is a different way of thinking about it, but it's still terrible.
Tyler Sanders 27:33
It's not where you want to be.
Dr. Stewart 27:34
It's eternal separation from God. So one other thing we can say about the symbolic interpretation in Revelation is that quite a few times, he gives us the interpretation. So he doesn't do it nearly as often as we'd like. But there's enough times that we could say this is a heavily symbolic series of visions. So some of the examples are the lampstands he talks about, and then the stars in chapter one. The lampstands are the churches and the stars are the angels of the churches. The torches in front of the throne are the seven spirits of God, the eyes of the Lamb are the spirits of God, the clothing of the bride in chapter 19 is the righteous deeds of the saints. So there's lots of these examples throughout, where we get sort of the author interpreting the symbols for us. Which does confirm this is heavily symbolic, but he doesn't do it nearly as much as we would wish. But if he did it every time then the narrative itself breaks down. Like there is no visionary flow, if he's stopping to interpret every color and sound.
Tyler Sanders 27:54
And we get something similar with parables. Some parables get a very explicit, "this is what this means, here's what the different elements of this are." Sometimes you don't get that and you need to sit with it and kind of parse it yourself.
Dr. Stewart 28:30
Yeah, no, I think it's a great analogy there. Good. So that's largely what we talk about in this chapter on symbolism and the principle is just recognizing the symbolism. And then we give the guidelines for it.
Tyler Sanders 28:55
My hope is that listening to this, people are comfortable with that. And that they're comfortable in the knowledge that this doesn't mean...one of the things you use in there is that a symbol can have explicit meaning. That being symbolic doesn't mean it's devoid of truth.
Dr. Stewart 29:14
It doesn't mean there's not a reference. There's not an external-there is more than the symbol. The symbol is not all there is. It is pointing to something.
Tyler Sanders 29:23
And I think as we get into-we'll talk about it in the next episode-the next episode gets into a way to integrate a lot of these pieces. I think it kind of helps. It's a bit more of an integrative principle, but I think that will be helpful to listen to the next one and think back about symbols. We have a couple of principles here for how to think about it, but to go back and be comfortable and confident in our symbolic interpretation of Revelation.
Dr. Stewart 29:51
I think so. And that's, again, the main point of this chapter is trying to flip the narrative a little bit on the argument that literal interpretation is the way to read Revelation. Some argue that and some try to be consistent. But it leads to just really bizarre interpretation. And so Revelation is not easily interpreted with a literalistic hermeneutic. And so the observation here is instead of going that route, which leads again very bizarre interpretations, you have to recognize the symbolism, and to recognize the symbolism as in line with the author's intended meaning. So it's not something to be ashamed of. It's not something to feel like we're misinterpreting, but to recognize this is part of how the author communicated and meant to communicate through the symbols.
Tyler Sanders 30:33
I think that's really good. Okay, well, thank you so much. I'm looking forward to the next one.
Dr. Stewart 30:37
See you next time.