[ealgeone]

Mary as the “new ark” of the covenant.....Mary as Queen of Heaven, etc, taking OT figures/events as being symbolic and not actual people or events.

[Grateful2God]

And I believe that reducing Scripture to a literal textbook, picked apart phrase by phrase leads to serious error and loss of meaning. The Bible is the living Word of God: dynamic, not static. There are prototypes! Jesus Himself is the Lamb of God. You're missing so much of the richness of God's Word if you treat it as a text book to study and repeat by rote. It is more than just a chronicle of events: those people and events point to Christ, in time and eternity. They were real, living people with reactions, feelings, traditions: not automatons.

Sad part of it is, if it were any other book, one would see the symbolism as well as the story. Without it, the OT would be a series of stories. It isn't. It's so much more!

As far as my Mother Mary goes, beginning with the first woman Eve, and God's admonition to the serpent, she, too is prefigured and mentioned in Scripture. I pray all men of God will will understand, know, and love her!

Studying Greek is nice, but putting people and events in the context of the times is also important. It can tell a great deal more about the people and who they were, and are, in the grand scheme of God's Holy Will.