Bible Question:
I am looking for a good site or book that deals mainly with "types" or "symbols" i.e. the sea is the people....wine is gladness....the number 7 is completion...so on and so forth..... thank you in advance God Bless |
Bible Answer: Christian7 - What I have to say on the topic will most likely come across as being no answer at all or, at best, as being a very jaded one. Among web sites and printed materials that attempt to deal with biblical symbolism and typology it is difficult to find any two that wholly agree with one another. Thus the definition of what constitutes a "good" site or book is largely subjective: a "good" source is one that agrees with the reader's preconceptions and a "bad" one is one that does not. Along with a number of other subjects that treat of "high theology," -- eschatology comes readily to mind -- symbolism and typology encompass a very broad spectrum of beliefs that range from conservative to wildly speculative. Some years ago I had occasion to talk on the subject of the symbolism in the Book of Revelation with a good friend, a retired minister of a very large Methodist congregation in my community. He readily admitted that he did not have all the answers to the symbolism of Revelation and had never known anyone who did, though he said he had known a number of people who claimed to. Known and beloved for his wit and humor, he summed the matter up with the observation, "I have come to believe that anyone who claims to understand everything about Revelation will probably lie about other things too." ..... Of course one of the first problems one meets in his efforts to ferret out possible meanings of biblical typology and symbolism is determining whether a passage under consideration is, in fact, typology, symbolism, or merely a literal statement of fact. For instance, there are schools of thought that interpret the first few chapters of Genesis, the story of creation, as being symbolic. When this premise is accepted, it materially and dynamically influences the interpretation of all Scripture that follows. When one attempts to establish as a universal principle throughout all Scripture "that one day is with the Lord a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day" (2 Peter 3:8), then all other biblical time lines become symbolic and can be interpreted largely as one wishes. ...... It is not at all uncommon among the various sects and cults in our time to see a whole system of doctrine based upon nothing more than a single verse or a small number of isolated verses of Scripture that have been, whether ignorantly or deliberately, lifted, if not out of their immediate context, out of their broader context of Scripture and used as "proof texts" to advance their false teaching. Genuine exegesis holds that the interpretation of any portion of Scripture that contradicts the clear teaching of any other portion or portions of Scripture is faulty interpretation. Yet this sound interpretative principle does not stop false teachers from parading their lies in the pulpit, in the media, on the street corner, and even on this forum. .... So, dear brother Christian7, see, I never promised to be able to answer your question definitively, and you will no doubt agree that I've kept my promise! :-) --Hank |