Most literature is written to be taken literally and methods of interpretation is not an issue.  Some important documents however, such as the Constitution of the United States, involve language that many readers believe need to be interpreted, as the literal meaning may not fully satisfy the reader.  Literature that features philosophical concepts, statements of principles and axioms, and generalized truths, usually require considerable interpretation especially when it comes to application to the reader.  And then there is some literature which features symbology, imagery, and figurative language, which obviously has to be interpreted to have meaning to the reader.

In any case the method of interpretation, if it is other than purely literal, will always involve some kind of a priori assumptions and philosophical presuppositions, and probably the prejudices and preferences and motives of the interpreter.  In the case of the Constitution we have the conservatives who believe the “original intent” of the writers should be conserved.  They tend to be people who mostly agree with the known philosophical and religious beliefs of the founding fathers who worked together to formulate and draft the original document.  They believe in Constitutional government – the rule of Law, as opposed to leaving it in the hands of men – i.e. rulers and human judges.  The other major school of interpretation believes that it is what they call a “living document” and should be interpreted in ways that accommodate changes over time and modern trends in our society.  They mostly feel that “original intent” is largely irrelevant, since they believe in being “progressive.”  They tend to reject the philosophical and religious beliefs of the original author’s, to the extent that they know anything about them, and prefer to put their trust in modern human bureaucrats to administer justice more in keeping with the changing mores of our society today.  The former conservative school tends to be far more literal, while the latter liberal or progressive schools do not feel constrained by the literal language of the constitution.

When it comes to the Bible we have essentially the same kinds of issues with respect to interpretation.  It is even more the case when it comes to prophecy, which is full of symbology and figurative language.  We have the more liberal schools which tend to take the Bible as a whole as symbolic.  Their approach is known as “Idealism” or “spiritualism” in which everything is interpreted symbolically, and the prophecy is really more like poetry with spiritual applications which apply to any age.  Then we have other schools which take what is known broadly as an “allegorical” approach, meaning that they may take the prophetic parts of scripture as having been predictive when written, but was written in the hyperbolic language of poets, not to be taken literally.  This produces such prophetic views as what is known as “Historicists” and “Preterists” which believe that most if not all of what is prophesied has been fulfilled or is being fulfilled now (such as the Millennial Kingdom of God on this earth which is here now per the Preterists).  These are associated with what is known as “Amillennialism,” meaning that they do not take the 1000 year reign of Christ on this earth literally.

Interestingly the Peterists view was held by Catholic theologians because it argued against the Protestant Historicists view, which interpreted the Beast of Revelation as the Roman Catholic church, and the Antichrist as the Pope.  Obviously such interpretations suited the objectives of the Protestant Reformation.  In modern times the predominant view associated with Reformed Theology however is probably the Preterists view, which is divided between “Partial Preterists” (some things are prophetic about the future), and the “Full Preterists” (all the prophecies have been fulfilled already). Again, only the non-literal method of interpretation, the “allegorical approach,” allows for such schools of thought.

Finally there is the “literal” approach, which is more mainstream in the Evangelical circles, and is associated with what is known as “Dispensationalism.”  Being more literal in nature, this necessitates a “futurist” interpretation of much of what we call end-time prophecy, including parts of Ezekiel, Daniel and Revelation, and many other prophetic passages in both the Old and New Testament.  Simply put, much of what is prophesied, especially in the apocalyptic passages, have never yet happened in any literal sense of the words used to describe them – no end of the world with cosmic disasters and universal destruction has ever happened yet, at least as far as anyone has observed or recorded  in history.

The Idealists and Allegorists would seem to have a major discrepancy in their approach, if not several.  First, much of what is prophesied in the Bible has indeed already been fulfilled – not just spiritually and symbolically per the speculative interpretations of men, but literally fulfilled often in incredible detail.  In the book of Daniel we have considerable prophecy about the rise and fall of world-wide empires, with details about personalities and specific events, which have already been fulfilled in detail, just as they were literally described.  From the Babylonian Empire with King Nebuchadnezzar, through the Medo-Persian and eventually Alexandrian Empire with Alexander the Great, down through the Egyptian Ptolemys and the Seleucid Dynasty even down to Antiochus IV Epiphanies in the second century before Christ, we have literal fulfillment.  Some even recognize this, but then maintain that the parts that haven’t been fulfilled in history should be taken as symbolically, allegorically, and in many cases hyperbolically (meaning gross exaggerations in poetic, apocalyptic terms).  This is clearly nothing less than a glaring inconsistency in their approach to interpretation.

It was understandable that theologians such as Origin and Augustine would adopt an allegorical approach, when there was no nation Israel in existence, since a literal approach focuses so much on the nation Israel and even Jerusalem at the epicenter.  However, the prophecies about Israel began to be literally fulfilled, beginning with Herzl’s Zionism in the late 19th century, and her official recognition as a nation again ( AD 1948).  Seeing that and many developments since then in the Middle East, which seem to be fulfilling more prophecy if taken literally, such an allegorical approach seems less and less defensible, and the Idealists’ approaches completely unnecessary at best.

In the mid 19th century the school known as Dispensationalism was formalized under the leadership of John Darby and the Plymouth Brethren.  Probably because of such developments as israel becoming a nation again, theologians began to gravitate back to a more literal approach.  The Dispensationalist view was popularized by the notes in the widely accepted Scofield Reference Bible.  Dispensationalism has now become a mainstream view among Evangelical Protestants, along with differing schools of theology such as “Covenant Theology” and its close counterpart, “Reformed theology.”  However, these schools are themselves quite different in many respects, especially with respect to interpretation of prophecy.  While Dispensationalism is more literal and hence futuristic in their approach, the others are more allegorical and interpret prophetic passages in such a way as to find their fulfillment mostly in the past.

Dispensationalism however has also taken on a persona of its own.  While claiming to be strictly literal, Dispensationalists have developed principles and interpretations which are actually extra-biblical, and in many cases contradictory to the literal understanding of relevant passages.  Although Dispensationalists do believe in a literal Millennium with Christ returning to judge the earth and to reign on this earth for a literal 1000 years, most tend to find in scripture a rapture of the church before the beginning of a seven-year tribulation period.  This Pretribulation Rapture precedes that “second coming” of Christ to judge and reign.  Since there is no explicit literal scripture to support that interpretation, they resort to their own logic, and then force their own interpretations on passages, such as their proof texts, 2Thessalonians 2:7 and Revelation 3:10.  This involves interpreting all of the relevant passages to actually mean that there will be two “second comings” of Christ.  One will be to the heavens to rapture out the church, and the other to the earth to judge and destroy it, and then to reign over it for 1000 years.  The problem is that no literal interpretation of those relevant texts support such a view.   Furthermore, a number of both scriptural and logical inconsistencies arise because of such interpretations.  As one renown Dispensationalists has stated, “Pretribulation rapturism rest essentially on one major premise – the literal method of interpretation of the Scriptures.  As a necessary adjunct to this, the pretribulationist believes in a dispensational interpretation of the Word of God.” (D.W. Pentecost, “Things to Come,” Chapter XIII).  Indeed, the literal method alone does not lead one to the Pretribulation Rapture position.

One of the key presuppositions associated with mainstream Dispensationalism is that the seven-year Tribulation Period is only for Israel, to carry out God’s program for Israel, and is not for the church.  Thus, the church will not be present on earth during that time, and all those passages related to this period are not for or about the church.  They thus insist that “the church is not in Revelation (chapters 4-18) or Matthew 24.”  Such presuppositions and stipulations do not come from any literal scripture – only from the fertile and creative minds of human theologians, which are not as logical as they seem to believe.

The approach being taken in the following articles, and their related publications, is in fact a literal approach.  Scripture is used to interpret scripture, including all of the symbology found in these prophetic passages.  What we know from science (especially with respect to the cosmic catastrophes – the “falling stars, and affects on the sun and moon, and the huge hailstones for example), and current events and developments are brought to bear on the application of these prophecies in terms of actual real-world happenings and developments.  Scenarios developed however are based on interpretations which are as literal as possible, include all the information given in scripture on the various subjects, and are entirely logical, and consistent with known realities.  At least that is the intent and the objective of this whole exercise.