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Course 6 · Lesson 5.4

Reading apocalyptic images responsibly

11 minute read

Lessons in this course

Course 6 outline

Module 1: Israel in the Ancient Near East

  1. Egypt, Mesopotamia and Canaan: the world of the Old Testament
  2. What archaeology and ancient texts can and cannot show
  3. Genesis 1 to 3 beside other ancient creation accounts
  4. Ancient cosmology and how Christians and Jews read Genesis

Module 2: Covenant: Abraham and Moses

  1. What a covenant is, and covenant forms in the ancient world
  2. The covenants with Noah and Abraham
  3. The exodus and the covenant at Sinai
  4. The Torah: law, worship and the tabernacle
  5. Covenant in Jewish, Catholic, Orthodox and Reformed thought

Module 3: Kingship in Israel

  1. From the judges to the first kings
  2. David, Jerusalem and the promise of a lasting house
  3. Solomon, the temple and the divided kingdom
  4. How Samuel and Kings tell the story: sources and purpose

Module 4: The Prophets, Exile and Restoration

  1. What a prophet was in Israel and in the ancient world
  2. Amos, Hosea, Isaiah and Micah: justice, loyalty and judgment
  3. Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the fall of Jerusalem
  4. The return, Ezra, Nehemiah and the rebuilt temple
  5. How the prophetic books were formed: the debate over Isaiah and others

Module 5: Wisdom and Apocalyptic Writing

  1. Proverbs and the way of the wise
  2. Job and Ecclesiastes: wisdom that questions
  3. What apocalyptic writing is: Daniel and its setting
  4. Reading apocalyptic images responsibly

Module 6: Second Temple Judaism and the Development of Jewish Thought

  1. Persian, Greek and Maccabean periods
  2. Temple, synagogue and the main groups in Jewish life
  3. Development in Jewish thought: angels, resurrection, wisdom and law
  4. Sources: the Dead Sea Scrolls, the deuterocanonical books and Josephus

Module 7: Messianic Expectation and the Shape of the Covenants

  1. Anointed ones in the Old Testament: king, priest, prophet
  2. Messianic texts in the prophets and psalms
  3. How Jews and Christians read the messianic texts
  4. The promise of a new covenant
  5. Mapping the development of covenant across the Old Testament

All courses

Program / Course 6: Old Testament Theology and History / Lesson 5.4

What you will learn

  • State practical rules for reading symbolic visions in Daniel, Ezekiel and Zechariah.
  • Describe the main Christian schemes for reading apocalyptic texts.
  • Explain why attempts to fix dates for the end have a poor record.
  • Describe how Jewish, Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant traditions handle these texts.

The big idea

Apocalyptic images are powerful and easy to misuse. Beasts, horns, numbers and cosmic upheavals were meant to console and warn their first hearers, and they have often been turned into timetables for events in later centuries. A responsible reading starts with the original setting, treats symbols as symbols, follows how the Bible itself explains them, and holds conclusions about the future with humility. Christians agree that history is in God’s hands and differ on many details.

Key terms

Preterist
A reading that sees most of the visions as fulfilled in events of the writer’s own time or soon after.
Historicist
A reading that sees the visions as a map of all history from the writer’s time to the end.
Futurist
A reading that sees most of the visions as describing events just before the end of the age.
Idealist
A reading that sees the visions as pictures of recurring spiritual conflict, not tied to specific events.
Millennium
A thousand-year period named in Revelation 20. Christians differ on whether it is literal, symbolic, past, present or future.
Date-setting
The attempt to calculate the date of the end from numbers in apocalyptic texts.
Gog and Magog
In Ezekiel 38 and 39, Gog is a ruler from the land of Magog who attacks Israel. In Revelation 20 they are symbols of the nations in revolt.

Background

Apocalyptic texts have fascinated readers for two thousand years. They have also been misused. Groups have claimed to find the pope, a modern country or a political leader in the beasts of Daniel and Revelation. Predictions of the date of Christ’s return have been made and have failed many times. Jesus himself said that no one knows the day or the hour (Mark 13:32).

A responsible approach does not mean ignoring these texts. They are part of Scripture and have given comfort to the faithful in hard times. It means learning the habits of the genre, so as to hear what the visions say without forcing them. This lesson gives rules of thumb and a short guide to the main schemes.

The lesson uses examples from the Old Testament but touches on Revelation because later readers have often read the two together. A student in this course is asked to learn the old background first.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: Five rules of thumb

First, ask what the text meant to its first audience. Daniel’s visions were given to people who needed comfort in a time of danger, and any reading that would have meant nothing to them is suspect. Second, treat symbols as symbols. In Daniel 7 the beasts are explained as kingdoms (7:17 and 23), and the writer expects the reader to take the explanation. Third, look for the Bible’s own interpretation. The horns of the ram and goat in Daniel 8 are identified by the angel as Media, Persia and Greece.

Fourth, notice the shared stock of images. The sea, beasts, clouds and thrones come from older texts, and the same image can mean different things in different books. Fifth, respect the purpose of the genre. Apocalyptic writing is meant to produce faithfulness, courage and hope, and a reading that produces fear, speculation or contempt for others has probably lost the point.

Step 2: Four schemes and their uses

Preterist readers stress the original setting and find the fulfillment of Daniel’s visions in the persecution under Antiochus, and of Revelation’s in the Roman Empire. They are praised for historical care. Critics ask whether they leave nothing for the future that Christians expect. Historicist readers, common in the Reformation, saw a continuous history from the early church onward, and some identified the papacy with the antichrist. Catholics rejected this reading, and it has declined, in part because its schedule had to be revised repeatedly.

Futurist readers, common in modern evangelical and dispensationalist circles, hold that the main visions belong to the final period. Critics note that futurism can detach the text from its first audience. Idealist readers see the visions as portraits of the constant struggle between God and evil. Critics ask whether this removes concrete hope. Many interpreters combine elements of the four, and a student can learn from each.

Step 3: Daniel 9 and Ezekiel 38 as test cases

Daniel 9:24 to 27 speaks of seventy weeks, or seventy sevens, decreed for the people and the holy city. Interpreters agree that the weeks are weeks of years, but not on where they start or end. Some begin from the decree of Cyrus, some from that of Artaxerxes, and some from the word to Jeremiah. Some end the count with Antiochus, some with Christ, some with the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, and some with a future time. The variety is a warning against confidence.

Ezekiel 38 and 39 describe Gog of Magog attacking Israel and being destroyed. Some modern readers identify Gog with a specific modern nation, but ancient and medieval commentators read the passage in a range of ways, as a symbol of the final assault of the nations, and Revelation 20 uses the names that way. The text gives no basis for pairing it with a headline.

Step 4: The millennium and the church’s teaching

Christians have held several views of the thousand years in Revelation 20. Premillennialists, including some early writers such as Irenaeus, expect Christ to return before a literal reign on earth. Amillennialists, following Augustine, take the thousand years as the present age of the church. Postmillennialists expect Christ’s return after a golden age. The Catholic Catechism rejects forms of millenarianism that expect a political kingdom in history (paragraph 676). The Orthodox church does not read Revelation in its regular liturgical cycle and places little weight on timetables.

Jewish tradition has its own end-time hopes, including the coming of the messiah, the resurrection of the dead, and the ingathering of exiles. It does not read Revelation. It reads Daniel and Ezekiel within the Jewish tradition of interpretation, which has seen many calculations of the end proposed and refused as unreliable by respected rabbis.

  1. Which rule of thumb would prevent the most errors in your own reading?
  2. Why do you think symbols are more suited than plain statements to comfort people under persecution?
  3. What are the strengths and weaknesses of each scheme of interpretation?
  4. Why have attempts to date the end repeatedly failed?
  5. How does Jesus’s saying in Mark 13:32 bear on date-setting?
  6. How should a reader treat an interpretation that identifies the beast with a modern leader?

Examples

The Great Disappointment

In the 1840s, William Miller and his followers calculated from Daniel 8 and 9 that Christ would return in 1844. When the date passed without the event, many left the movement, and some groups reinterpreted the date. The episode is a common case study in the risks of date-setting.

Daniel’s own explanation

In Daniel 8, the angel Gabriel tells Daniel that the ram is Media and Persia and that the goat is the king of Greece. The text itself identifies its symbols, and a reader who follows the explanation reaches a clear historical frame.

One image, two meanings

The sea appears in Daniel 7 as the source of the beasts and in Revelation 21 as vanishing in the new creation. The image signals chaos in each, but it does so in different ways. Reading the image requires reading the whole book.

Different perspectives

Jewish readers

Jewish tradition treats the end of days with reverence and caution. The Talmud records a saying that the bones of those who calculate the end should rot, a sharp warning that such calculation leads to disappointment. The hope for the messianic age remains central in prayer.

Catholic readers

The Catholic Church teaches that Christ will come again in glory and that the time is unknown. It cautions against reading the Bible as a map of current events. Catholic exegesis typically uses preterist and idealist approaches with an expectation of final judgment.

Orthodox readers

The Orthodox read apocalyptic texts in light of the liturgy and the fathers, with an emphasis on repentance and watchfulness. Orthodox writers generally avoid prophetic charts and speculation.

Protestant readers

Protestants hold the widest range. Reformed and Lutheran traditions are generally amillennial. Many evangelicals are premillennial, and dispensationalists expect a pretribulation rapture, an idea developed in the nineteenth century. Some mainline traditions read the texts mainly as expressions of hope and resistance.

Scholarly views

Scholars of the genre stress the original setting, the use of earlier images and the political critique of empire. They are skeptical of predictions of specific modern events from ancient visions.

Why it matters

Apocalyptic texts are among the most misread parts of Scripture, and the misreadings have real effects: fear, false hope, political violence and disappointed faith. A reader trained in the habits of the genre is better able to hear its call to endurance and hope, and to discuss it with people of other views without hostility.

Common misunderstandings

Misunderstanding: Biblical apocalyptic is a code for events in the news.

Correction: Its first purpose was to console its first readers. Claims that it points to particular modern events have been made in every century and have been refuted by events.

Misunderstanding: All Christians believe in a pretribulation rapture.

Correction: The idea arose in the nineteenth century and is held mainly in some evangelical circles. Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran and Reformed teaching does not include it.

Misunderstanding: Symbolic means unreal.

Correction: Symbol is a way of speaking about real things. A reader may hold that the judgment and the renewal are real and still read the images as figures.

Misunderstanding: Ignoring these books is the safest approach.

Correction: They have strengthened believers under persecution for centuries. A better remedy is to study them with care.

Knowledge check

State three rules for reading apocalyptic texts responsibly.

Ask what the text meant to its first audience. Treat symbols as symbols and follow the explanation the text itself gives, as with the beasts and horns in Daniel. Hold conclusions about the future with humility, remembering Jesus’s saying that no one knows the day or hour. Also notice the shared stock of images and the genre’s purpose of encouraging faithfulness.

Name the four main schemes for reading apocalyptic texts and describe one.

The preterist, historicist, futurist and idealist schemes. For example, preterist readers hold that most of the visions were fulfilled in the writer’s own time or soon after, such as the persecution under Antiochus for Daniel. Historicists see all history, futurists see the end time, and idealists see recurring spiritual conflict. Each has strengths and weaknesses.

Why do the seventy weeks of Daniel 9 show the difficulty of interpretation?

Interpreters agree that the seventy sevens are probably weeks of years, but they differ on the starting point, which may be the word to Jeremiah, Cyrus’s decree or Artaxerxes’s decree, and on the ending, which may be Antiochus, Christ, AD 70 or a future time. The variety shows that confidence on specifics is not warranted.

How do traditions differ on the millennium?

Premillennialists expect Christ to return before a literal thousand-year reign. Amillennialists, following Augustine, read the thousand years as the present age of the church. Postmillennialists expect a golden age before his return. The Catholic Catechism rejects a political millenarianism, and the Orthodox place little weight on timetables. These differences concern one chapter of Revelation.

Think it through

  1. Which scheme of interpretation have you met most often, and what did it assume?
  2. How would you respond to a friend who is certain that a modern event fulfills a prophecy?
  3. What do apocalyptic texts offer to people who are not in danger of persecution?
  4. Why might it be hard to hold hope without wanting a schedule?

Independent assignment

A short guide to reading Daniel 7

In your own notebook, write a one-page guide to reading Daniel 7 for a friend. Include the rules of thumb, the angel’s own interpretation, two possible readings of the little horn, and a warning about date-setting. Then add 150 words on what the chapter offers to a reader today. Keep it for yourself.

Further study