Revelation discussion - 1 of 2

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>>>>> "Blume" == MF Blume <mfblume@ns.sympatico.ca> writes:

    Blume> Dee Goepel wrote:
    >> prophets, dreams, etc.).  By human nature, the first time we
    >> encounter something, we normally see the literal or surface
    >> message, but quite often when we analyze it further, there are
    >> symbolic implications as well.  (BTW, if God is presenting two
    >> (or more) messages through a scripture, who is to say what His
    >> "MAIN POINT" was?  They were all His points. I think the label
    >> "MAIN POINT" is rather subjective.)

    Blume> The main point is always a spiritual lesson on the heart
    Blume> and relationship with God.  What could be more important?

*YOU* are making an assumption here, unless you have scripture to back
this up.

    >> In any case, there are both literal and symbolic meanings to
    >> messages throughout God's word.  My point was only that one
    >> shouldn't dismiss a literal interpretation of Revelation.  It
    >> is certainly filled with sybolism and there is much we can
    >> learn by looking beyond the literal, but that doesn't in any
    >> way discount the literal message.

    Blume> To speak as you do requires a paradigm in thinking that
    Blume> Revelation MUST be literal.  But that basis of thinking is
    Blume> not accurate.  When nobody who wrote the Bible distinctly
    Blume> said that it was a literal issue then we only assume so.
    Blume> But I will say that perhaps it is literal.  I only propose,
    Blume> on the basis of the overabundant correlation between points
    Blume> given in revelation and the points blatantly said to be
    Blume> spiritual in other books of the Bible, along with the fact
    Blume> that never was a vision (which Revelation totally consists
    Blume> of) ever fulfilled literally as per the elements of the
    Blume> vision, that it is not what it SURFACELY appears to be due
    Blume> to its total visionary element.

I know a little bit about Dee's academic background, so I am going to
put this into computer science terms, and then ask Dee if I got her
viewpoint right.

Dee was saying the same thing Paul said when he said "scripture is of
no private interpretation."

I think I agree with her on this.  A given passage of scripture
provides a set of statements, called a "set of support", that rules
out a vast number of other statements as being able to be true, given
the assumption that this set of support is true.  There still remains
a set of statements that may be true in the light of this set of
support.  The set of all possible statements that may be made in the
light of this set of support forms a Hebrand Universe over the SOS.
Within this Hebrand Universe, some of these statements may be false,
and some may be true.  What Dee (and Paul) said is that we have no
right to expect the set of true statements to be a singleton.  In
other words, more than one truth may be expressed by a single
passage.  

There may be more than one valid interpretation to a passage of
scripture.  Furthermore, in the absence of any other affirmative
statement, we have no right to rank these interpretations according to
importance, since it would be us, not the scripture itself, that
assigns these inportances to the interpretations.

This is essentially what I understand the "meaning" of a scripture to
be.  Nearly the smae statement was made by Ehud Shapiro in his book
"The Art of Prolog" regarding the meaning of a Prolog program.

Did I read you correctly, Dee?

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