[Quix]

In my experience with The Word of Almighty God--Written for sure but often otherwise as well . . .

HE HAS CONSISTENTLY MEANT WHAT HE SAID AND SAID WHAT HE MEANT--AND HE HAS TENDED, IN MY EXPERIENCE OF HIM AND HIS WORD

TO BE VERY LITERAL OVERWHELMINGLY BY FAR MOST OF THE TIME--WHAT 99.9%? He may be literal AND symbolic--but VERY, VERY RARELY ONLY symbolic.

Of course you can declare otherwise.

You can even believe otherwise.

God seems to have never been bothered for the last 100 years of archeological research by those who claimed this or that title or event or location or place name etc. was symbolic only to be proven wrong over and over and over and over again by later archeological finds.

Of course you can claim to have a hotline to God's secret map of symbolic vs literal. You can claim to have the secret code decrypting ring from your Cheerios box into God's secrets on such scores.

For my money, I think I'll stick to expecting prophecies to be fulfilled AT LEAST LITERALLY first and foremost. History has shown that to be the far safer assumption.

But hey--you don't have to believe history. You can believe your decoder ring.

[Destro]

I do know otherwise. Revelations is written in the apocalyptic style popular in the Hellenistic world at that time. Revelations is not to be taken lteral in the sense that 666 on the forehead means a tattoo will be branded with the number 666 on the forehead, etc. You actually do need a decoder ring of sorts for Revelations.