[BipolarBob]

the understanding of an obscure or symbolic passage has to start with the literal meaning. You start with the literal meaning, then work from there to other senses of the text: the allegorical, the moral, the anagogical, etc.

Not when the prophecy is clearly allegorical. If Mary were clothed with the sun she would burn up. The moon under feet would be problematical from an astronomic standpoint much less the weight of twelve stars on her head. This was a new revelation given to John and any reference to Mary would be a footnote else we lose focus of the real meaning of this prophecy. There are plenty of examples of a church being represented by a woman in the Bible if one chooses to look though.
Peace be to you

[Mrs. Don-o]

You are quite right when you say that no woman could "literally" be clothed with the sun or stand on the moon. John is describing this phenomenologically: he tells what he saw. What if he said, "I saw the sun come up"? We all know that it's not the sun that literally "comes up," it's that the planet Earth rotates on its axis and the sun appears at the horizon every 24 hours. Nevertheless, if he writing what he saw, he "saw" the sun "come up."

John *saw* a Great Sign: a woman clothed with the sun. It does not mean that this woman was in the middle of a vast thermonuclear reaction surrounded by solar hydrogen fusion energy. It just means this is what he saw: a woman clothed with the sun. It's symbolic, but it's also literally what he saw.

I should have clarified that the "first" meaning of this passage would have to be what was in the plain text itself: that the woman is the mother of the Messiah: therefore Mary. Other meanings are derivative from that.

The passage strongly reflects the maternal nature of the Church, because Mary is, in a sense, the first embodiment of the Church. Mary/Church "hears the Word of God and keeps it." Christ comes and dwells in Mary/Church. Mary/Church carries Him in her wherever she goes. Mary/Church brings Christ into the world. She is with Him from beginning to end: from His conception, through His birth, through His growth in His human nature, faithfully following Him even to the foot of the Cross; present to receive the Holy Spirit again at Pentecost.

And she has this ongoing maternal association with the Body of Christ even in what you could call the ecclesial sense:

Revelation 12:17 "Then the dragon became angry with the woman and went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring, those who keep God’s commandments and bear witness to Jesus."

We -- you, me, all the believers --- are the Church, the Body of Christ, and Mary is likewise our mother, because we are "the rest of her offspring."

Revelation 12 is very, very rich with meaning, and repays careful reading.