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The author the book of Tobit presents Tobit as keeping the Covenant in the diaspora by consciously paralleling him to Joseph and Daniel, the two characters in the Hebrew Bible who lived in a foreign country yet remained true to the Mosaic Covenant. In both stories the hero is described as committed to the covenant and therefore as successful. Both Joseph and Daniel experience the blessings of the covenant and rise to powerful positions in the administration of a foreign government. Their commitment to the Law creates a crisis when required to do something which is against Torah (Genesis 39, adultery; Daniel 1, unclean food; Daniel 3 and 6, prayer to an idol). The hero is then persecuted and stripped of position, yet still remains faithful. Because of continued faith in persecution, they are restored once again to a state of blessing. In both the Joseph and Daniel stories, this cycle is repeated several times.
In Genesis, Joseph is selected as the heir, but his thrown into the pit by his brothers and sold into slavery. He is appointed head over Potiphar’s house, but is then thrown into prison (also a pit). He then rises to prominence in the prison, but is forgotten after he interprets the baker and butler’s dreams. In Daniel, Daniel is rises higher in the government in chapters 1, 2, 5, and 6, although only 1 and 6 are in direct connection to some form of pressure on Jewish traditions. The book of Tobit should not therefore be read as “an enchanting but nonetheless esoteric romance that lies outside the mainstream of authentic Judaism,” but rather as a “well-constructed narrative in the service of Israel’s religion” (Di Lella, Tobit, 387).
The book begins with Tobit in captivity in Assyria. Tobit claims to be the only Jew in the Diaspora who attends festivals in Jerusalem (1:6a) and to do all which the “everlasting covenant” requires (1:6b, cf. 5:14, he lists others in the Diaspora who attended festival with him). Tobit makes all of the appropriate tithes and offerings required by the Torah (1:6b-8). In Deuteronomy 14:26 the people were encouraged to come to Jerusalem and spend a “second tithe” on whatever they want, as long as the money was spent in Jerusalem (Tobit 1:7). A family might have participated in a shared sacrifice, providing them with meat for a banquet with friends and family. While the Law required participation in all festivals (Ex 33:17; Deut. 16:16) it was unlikely anyone living outside of Jerusalem made more than one a year, Diaspora Jews even less, perhaps once in a lifetime. Yet Tobit here claims to give all three tithes required in the law in Jerusalem! He married within this family rather than marrying either outside the clan or outside of Israel (1:9).
Like Daniel, Tobit states he has kept himself from Gentile food, despite the fact that many Jews at this potentially unclean food (1:10-11). Because he was “mindful of God” with all his heart the Lord gives him favor and good standing in the government of Shalmaneser. The verb translated “to be mindful” in the NRSV is μιμνῄσκομαι, a verb used in the LXX to translate זכר n several key texts in Deuteronomy. For example, Deut 8:18 Moses admonishes the people to “remember (using a future passive of μιμνῄσκομαι) the Lord your God” because he is able to give them the ability to produce wealth “and so confirms his covenant which he swore to your forefathers, as it is today” (NRSV).
Remembering the Lord God is linked to production of wealth and the blessings of the covenant. In 2:2 Tobit tells Tobias his son take some food from the feast and deliver it to the poor, to anyone who is “wholeheartedly mindful of God.” This description uses the verb “remember” to describe one the faithful among the diaspora Jews.
The book of Tobit would be an encouragement to Jewish readers living in the Diaspora to remain faithful to the covenant God gave to Israel. God still remembers his people even when they are living in exile and he will bless them when they remain “wholeheartedly mindful of God.” This may have resonated with early Christianity who sometimes described itself as “exiles” in this world (1 Peter 1:1).
Are the other examples of in Tobit of remembering the God of Israel?
The book of Tobit is, on the face of it, a fairy-tale about a young man, Tobias, who goes out into the wide world, encounters many dangers, but is under the protection of the Heavenly Powers and returns with great riches and with Sarah, his wife, with whom he lives happily ever after. Benedikt Otzen
Tobias Saying Good-Bye to his Father by William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1860)
Tobit was written in either Hebrew or Aramaic, there dozens of fragments from five manuscripts found at Qumran. Little can be said of the author other than the fact he was likely a diaspora Jew. The book is difficult to date, but since there is no reference to the Maccabean revolt, but if the provenance of the book is outside of Judah then it is possible the author was not particularly concerned with the problems of living according to the Law in Jerusalem. Carey therefore gives a range of dates from 300 to 100 B. C. (ABD 6:1358).
Often studies on Tobit focus on two well-known literary features. First, the “Grateful Dead” motif refers to a character who does some kindness for the dead. The dead then reciprocate in some way. Tobit risks his own life and health to give the dead a proper burial, but this is not done in order to illicit a favor at all, he is simply performing a duty required by the Torah. In addition, it is not the dead who bless Tobit, but rather God (through the agency of an angelic being). If a Greco-Roman “Grateful Dead” motif is present it is adapted along Jewish lines since it is God who reward Tobit’s piety rather than the ghost of the dead person.
The second motif is the “The Poisonous Bride,” another common theme in the ancient literature. In the story Sarah is married seven times, but her husband is killed by a demon before consummating the marriage. As with the “Grateful Dead,” this motif is fairly minor in the book of Tobit and cannot be considered the driving motif of the book.
A far more fertile ground for literary parallels is the Hebrew Bible, especially the patriarchal narrative. Tobias goes on a journey and obtains a wife, recalling Isaac and Rebekah (Gen 24) and Jacob (Gen 29). In both of these stories a member of Abraham’s family leaves the Land and journeys to a distant country, yet finds both extended family and the blessing of God through marriage. That Tobit is a righteous sufferer clearly recalls the book of Job. Even the complaints of Tobit’s wife are not unlike those of Job’s wife (Job 2:9-10). While Job is not a part of the Pentateuch, the story of Job was thought to be patriarchal.
Tobit seems to be drawing on the most ancient stories of the Jewish people in order to demonstrate to Diaspora Jews that God still works in the same way he always has even if his people have gone well beyond the Land of the Promise (Weitzman, 60). Like Daniel, Nehemiah, Modecai or Esther, Tobit is a righteous Diaspora Jew.
Is this a fair reading of Tobit? Is there anything else in the book which might support this view?
Bibliography: Benedikt Otzen, Tobit and Judith (Guides to Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha; Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic, 2002), 2; Steven Weitzman, “Allusion, Artifice, and Exile in the Hymn of Tobit,” JBL115 (1996): 49-61; 60.
In a previous post I included rabbinic literature as a possible source for the study of the Second Temple period. I hesitated to include this on my list and placed it last intentionally. I was asked on twitter by @woofboy to expand on this point. (Sorry, I do not actually know a real name!)
Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Bava Batra, printed by Daniel Bomberg, Venice, 1522.
By rabbinic literature, I primarily mean the Mishnah, a collection of legal commentaries on the Torah. The Mishnah as we know it today was not written until about A.D. 250, but there are oral traditions which likely go back to a generation or two before Jesus. The rulings of Hillel and Shammai are often discussed in the Mishnah; Hillel died about A.D. 10 and Shammai died about A.D. 30. Before the Mishnah, the Tannaim (“the repeaters”) passed these traditional rulings along orally. After these oral traditions were written in the Mishnah, they were discussed and interpreted (the Amoraim and Savoraim), a process which eventually resulted in the Talmud. (This is a very simplified history!)
The rabbinic literature presents special problems as a source for studying the practice of the first century. First, what really goes back to the first century? In the Mishnah we read debates which occurred in the second century which sometimes cite rabbis who are from the pre-70 period. The evidence more solid when a debated topic also occurs in the Dead Sea Scrolls since we know they dated before the first century. But it is increasingly difficult to accept a tradition appearing only in the Talmud as reflecting first century practice.
A second and perhaps more perplexing problem is the issue of authority. The Mishnah and other traditions record debates between rabbis and there eventual rulings. So these debates accurately reflect the practice of the first century? If the rabbi Hillel decided that a particular practice was lawful, does that mean that the average Jews of the first century accepted his teachings and followed his decision? The classic (and often reprinted) studies of Jewish practice by Jeremias and Schürer would likely answer both of these questions in the positive
E. P. Sanders disagrees with this in his Judaism: Practice and Belief 63 BCE – 66 CE. He argued it is not possible to know if the rabbinical decisions ever governed practice. These are only arguments, not civil law. A rabbi might state that a certain practice is not to be done, but it is quite possible the opinion never quite made it into the practice of the common people.
It is also possible rabbinical decisions in the Mishnah were ideal, perhaps the “way things ought to be” and not necessarily the way things were. The Pharisees did not have power to impose their decisions on the people in the first century. This is the biggest difference between Sanders and other scholars – the Pharisees did not control Palestine and the Mishnah does not describe actual practice in the first century.
Here is an example of what I mean. A Second Temple example of tithing multiple times a year is Tobit. He is described as giving a tenth to the Levites, spending a tenth in Jerusalem, a tenth to “those to whom it is his duty” (Tobit 1:7f). Jubilees 32:10-14 refers to a second tithe, and 32:15 mentions a tithe on cattle. Josephus also seems to say Moses required two tithes every year except the third and sixth, when three per year were required. This would be a total of fourteen tithes per seven years (Antiq. 4.69, 205, 240). The Mishnah developed the twelve-tithe system (see Ma’aser and Ma’aser Sheni), two tithes per year except the Sabbath year, and less tithe needs to be spent in Jerusalem than Josephus. An individual may have had a hard time convincing a Temple tithe collector he had already paid his share!
But did anyone actually give the tithes as described by a fictional righteous Diaspora Jew (Tobit) or the idealistic writer of Jubilees? Perhaps the Mishnah preserves a tradition which was practiced by some, or the opinion of the later rabbis about how tithes were supposed to be paid (whether they were or not).
The lesson here is to use caution when reading the rabbinic literature as “background” to the Second Temple period.
Christians have often called the Second Temple Period is sometimes called the “400 silent years” since there are no authoritative writers from the end of the Old Testament until Paul begins to write in the early 50s A.D. But this period is anything but silent! Jewish writers produced a considerable amount of literature during the Second Temple period, especially if we include Josephus and Philo. Aside from the New Testament, these are the main collections of texts a student needs to read in order to understand the Second Temple period
The Septuagint (LXX). The Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. The translation took place over a long time, although the prologue to the Greek translation of Sirach indicates all three parts were known by the end of the second century B.C. Jerome knew three different versions in the fourth century A.D. and Origin used two different in the creation of his Hexapla.
Histories. The main source is Josephus, who wrote twenty volumes on the History of The Jews and another six on the Jewish War against Rome. His autobiography was probably intended as an appendix to Jewish War. He also wrote an apology for Judaism, Against Apion. I will have a great deal more to say about Josephus later in this series.
The Apocrypha. The Apocrypha represents books popular in the Second Temple period but were not accepted as authoritative by the Jews. The earliest post-biblical writers use the Apocrypha in their own writings and worship and some early Church Fathers used some of these books as Scripture. The Apocrypha provides valuable insights into the development of the Jewish community in the period from the end of the Old Testament to the beginning of the New Testament. The origins of the sects and divisions of New Testament Judaism are seen in the Apocrypha as well as the influence of external forces like the Greeks and Romans.
The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. James Davila called the Pseudepigrapha “a motley collection of some scores of quasi-biblical books.” The name “pseudepigrapha” means “false writings.” These are books which most believed were not inspired or authoritative. There is no canon of the pseudepigrapha and early publications of this literature included some apocryphal books and one rabbinic text. Some texts are only available to us in translations dated centuries later than the Second Temple Period. For example, 2 Enoch (The Slavonic Apocalypse of Enoch) may date to the late first century A.D., but there are no manuscripts which date earlier than the fourteenth century and any “supposed Greek composition need not have been produced before A.D. 1000.”
An additional measure of popularity is the amount additional pseudepigraphal material created based an earlier text. 1 Enoch and 4 Ezra seem to have sparked a whole series of books which are based on the earlier versions (i.e. 2 Enoch, 3 Enoch the various other books of Ezra). That Enoch was being read and re-created to reflect a later historical context is a witness to the influence the book may have had in the first century. The main collection for this literature is James Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (2 vols; Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1983–85).
The Dead Sea Scrolls. The DSS is a collection of manuscripts dating from as early as 200 B.C. to as late as A.D. 70. They appear to be the sacred library of a sect of Judaism known as the Essenes. Prior to the Roman destruction of their community in Qumran, they hid the scrolls in caves. The scrolls were placed in sealed ceramic jars and hidden in caves near the Dead Sea. This collection includes copies of biblical books and literature collected by the community. It is difficult to know why a particular book appeared in the library. A given book in the library may or may not reflect the thinking of the Qumran community. Many of the documents are fragmentary so it is difficult to use them in reconstructing the thinking of the Qumran community in the first place.
Philo of Alexandria. Philo was a Hellenistic Jew who wrote a philosophical apology for Judaism. In doing so, he wrote 39 books of commentary on biblical books, historical-apologetic works (Against Flaccus, Embassy to Gaius), and philosophical works. He sought a philosophical interpretation of the rituals of Judaism by using Hellenistic allegorical interpretation to find ethical teachings in the rituals.
Rabbinic Literature. The Mishnah is a commentary on the Jewish Law reflecting the oral tradition of the teachers of the Law up to about AD 250. The rabbinic literature presents special problems as a source for studying the practice of the first century: what really goes back to the first century?
For most Christians the sources are an unknown territory, and perhaps intimidating. But there is nothing shocking in any of this literature. There are no hidden dark secrets which undermine Christianity and if anything in this literature shakes a Christian’s faith, that faith was fairly weak to begin with.
How should we use these sources? What cautions would you recommend before wading into this vast literature? Are there some of the limitations which will prevent full understanding of this literature?
Bibliography: James Davila, “The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha as Background to the New Testament,” The Expository Times 117.2 (2005): 53-57.
Why would someone interested in the New Testament study the history of the Greco-Roman world? This history is important because the key to understanding the New Testament is context….If we do not try to put ourselves into the context of the original readers of the Scriptures, we can very easily read our own culture into a passage and reach wrong conclusions about what it meant to the author and therefore what it should mean to us. James S. Jeffers, The Greco-Roman World of the New Testament: Exploring the Background of Early Christianity (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1999), 293.
The years between the two Testaments are critically important for understanding the New Testament. Let me offer two easy examples. First, the conflicts between Jesus and the Pharisees are often based on-going discussions in the Second Temple Period over Jewish practice. The Pharisees have a rich history prior to their role in the Gospels. Most Christians think of the Pharisees as the evil, works-for-salvation religious leaders who hated Jesus and were constantly trying to trick him into saying something worthy of death. But this is far from the case! Anyone who thinks this mischaracterization of the Pharisees is accurate is reading their own culture back into the New Testament (As Jeffers says in the quote above).
A second example is Paul’s struggle against what he calls Judaizers in Galatians. This group of Jewish Christians insisted Gentile converts submit to circumcision in order to fully convert to Judaism. There are a number of factors here, but these Pauline opponents should be understood in the light of circumcision as a boundary marker during the Maccabean Revolt. What define a person as “Jewish” 200 years before Paul’s day was the ritual of circumcision and to reject that practice struck at the heart of what it meant to be Jewish at that particular time.
The main struggle of the Jews during this 400 year period was how to integrate into a world which was decidedly not Jewish. As Greek and Roman culture came to pervade the post-exilic world, how could a Jewish person live out their lives in faithfulness to God’s Law yet also live in a pagan world?
One option is it withdraw entirely, as the Essenes will in the mid-second century. I do not think the Essenes were a monastic community who lived completely separate from other people (this is a misreading of the evidence and imposes a later Christian view of asceticism on the Essenes). But they certainly separated themselves from the mainstream of Judaism as we know it in the first century. For the group at Qumran, it appears they sought to live in a state of ceremonial cleanliness required for priests in the Temple as the waited for the messiah (or messiahs) to come to their community and lead them into battle against the “sons of darkness,” the Jews who were in charge of the Temple!
A second option is to become wholly integrated into the culture, as many Jews did. Philo of Alexandria’s brother is a chief example of this, since he rejected Judaism entirely. Although Herod the Great kept some Jewish practices, for the most part he intentionally lived as a Roman and he certainly ran his kingdom as a Roman. Throughout the Second Temple period there were Jewish people who completely Hellenized and walked away from their ancient Jewish practices.
Pharisees, Sadducees, and Christians fall in-between these two extremes since they found ways to remain loyal to God’s Word, yet also found a way to interact with the pagan world. In the case of Christianity, the motivation was to reach the lost world with the Gospel of Jesus.
This is exactly the same struggle American Christians face today as our culture becomes increasingly post-Christian. It is the same struggle Christians face in countries where Christian was never the majority religion. It is impossible to completely withdraw from the world, although some Christian communities have tried to be as separate as possible. It is also the case many Christians have become so integrated into their culture they have ceased to be Christian by any objective definition of the word.
Can the struggle of the Jewish people in the Second Temple period be a model for contemporary Christians as they struggle with similar issues?
Over the next few months I will be posting on the history and literature of the Second Temple period. I had an opportunity to teach an eight-week series in my church on the “Time between the Testaments.” This began with the Persian period and ran through the Jewish War in A.D. 70, and I included on session on Herod the Great so I could show pictures of Masada and the Western Wall from a recent trip to Israel. The series was well received and I had the chance to develop the material in more detail for a semester long undergrad class.
In teaching the class two things were clear to me. First, Most Christians have little or no knowledge of the history or literature of this period. There is some general knowledge of the Maccabean revolt and the Apocrypha as literature produced during this time, but most people attending an Evangelical church have not spent any significant time learning about this period. However, in general I think most people are hungry for this kind of study because the recognize the importance of knowing what went on before the New Testament for the purpose of understanding the New Testament. Whether or not this is a good motivation is beside the point, there is a hunger for a study like this in Christian churches.
Second, as I worked through the material in order to present it to a generally conservative, Evangelical congregation, I was struck by how applicable the struggle of the Jewish people could be to western Christians today. For the most part the Jewish people find themselves a small minority within the larger Greek or Roman world. They struggle to define what elements of their ancestral faith is important and what can be adjusted to the culture in which they finds themselves. This struggle speaks to western Christians who find themselves marginalized in a post-Christian culture. To what practices and beliefs should Christians tenaciously cling, and what should they leave behind?
Two questions before I begin. First, what do we call this kind of study? Is this “New Testament backgrounds”? Or is this an afterward to the Old Testament? By calling this period intertestamental, am I prejudicing myself to a Christian worldview?
Everett Ferguson begins his introduction to New Testament Backgrounds with a brief discussion of the misleading nature of the title of his book, “Backgrounds.” In many cases the material covered in a course like this is critically important for understanding a text properly; calling it “background” seems to make this study somewhat secondary. A few other options have been suggested, such as environment, milieu, context, culture, but the term “background” has become as accepted description for what we do in this sort of a course, or Ferguson in the textbook, however misleading it may be.
One additional problem is what to call this period of history. Traditionally the “time between the Testaments” is called the Intertestamental Period, This is a cumbersome title and not always accurate since these sorts of studies focus on the Pharisees or Samaritans for the purpose of understanding the Gospels, or go a little beyond the New Testament era by including the Jewish War.
Others have called this period “middle Judaism” to distinguish it from ancient Judaism and later rabbinic Judaism. I am attracted to this as a designation for the period from exile to the destruction of the temple, but the title also implies a three-part history of Judaism (early, middle and late). There is far more complexity in the development after the events of A.D. 70 and 135, but calling this period “late-early Judaism” is really too much.
Often this history and literature will be called the “Second Temple Period,” indicating the time from the rebuilding of the temple until A.D. 70. There is some protest to this designation because Herod’s temple is sometimes considered a third temple. Of the several suggested titles for the period, I will use Second Temple (period, history, literature) while recognizing it is not perfect.
I hope you find this series as exciting as I do, I look forward to your comments as I work through this important section of history and literature.
Despite the fact the book of Revelation is usually mined for what it has to say about future events, it is not a “roadmap for the future.” It is, rather, an exhortation written to very real churches to encourage them to live a different kind of life in the shadow of the Second Coming. This life means enduring persecution for their belief in Jesus and their non-belief in an imperial system that was becoming increasingly hostile to that faith.
There are many examples of this in Revelation, but I will offer one from the letter to Pergamum (Rev 2:12-17). In Rev 2:13 the church is commended for not renouncing their faith even though one faithful witness was put to death. The city is described as the place where Satan has his throne (v. 13) and “where Satan lives” (v. 14).
There are several suggestions for what is meant by “Satan’s Throne” (in fact, David Aune lists eight major possibilities). The Temple of Zeus Soter overlooked the city, and this throne was well known in the ancient world. On the other hand, this may refer to the Imperial cult represented by two temples to Emperors Augustus and (later) to Trajan.
In support of this view, it is observed that the term “throne” is used as an “official seat or chair of state” in the New Testament, Pergamum was the center of Satan’s activities in the province of Asia much the way Rome becomes the center for Satan’s activities in the west. The Temple of Augustus in Pergamum was built in 29 B.C., and was the first of the imperial cults in Asia Minor. In TJob 3:5b pagan temples are called “the temple of Satan.”
Even though the imperial cult is strong in their city, the church of Pergamum remains true to the Lord’s name, even to the point of death. Nothing is known from scripture about the martyr Antipas, which is a shortened form of Antipater. The title given him is “faithful witness,” title given to Jesus in Revelation 1. Eventually Pergamum will become known for several important martyrs. The fact that the city was the center of the imperial cult would make the Christian refusal to accept the cult a serious crime.
There is a principle running through several of the letters in Rev 2-3 that the witnessing church will be a persecuted church (Beale, Revelation, 427). Since the church has had a reputation for being a strong witness in the community, the church has had to face persecution, perhaps in the form of financial hardship and other social complications; but more importantly, members of their community have been killed for their faith.
Let me draw this back to the application of Revelation to the present church. How should the modern church “resist” the culture of this world? In western, “first world” countries this would look different than in some parts of Africa or Asia where the church is illegal and being persecuted for their faith. It is possible that the lack of persecution in the west is an indication that we have embraced culture and are no longer “faithful witnesses” like Antipas?
How would this “resist the culture” theology play out in modern American Christianity? It seems to me evangelicals have seized on some social issues and ignored others. Recently, resisting and protesting changes in same-sex marriage laws are the only place it appears Christians resist culture–but what about rampant consumerism or American exceptionalism? How do we adopt Revelation’s theology of resistance on a wider range of issues?
How is it even possible to approach the book of Revelation a literal hermeneutic? The presence of such bizarre symbolic language seems to preclude the possibility of reading the book literally. The presence of highly figurative language does not preclude the possibility of literal meaning. “The prophecies predict literal events, though the descriptions do not portray the events literally” (Klein, Blomberg and Hubbard, Introduction to Biblical Interpretation, 369).
To take an example from modern language, a news reporter might attempt to describe a speech by the President as well done, something which exceeded all expectations, etc. To do this, he says “The president ‘hit one out of the park.’” Most Americans will understand perfectly well what the phrase means, hitting a home run is “ultimate success,” a literal event, although it is described in a metaphor, symbolic language.
Really? That’s It?
To use a simple example in Revelation, chapter 12 describes a red dragon which persecutes the child of a woman. The dragon is clearly Satan, an image which is fairly obvious from the context (and interpreted for us by John in 12:9). Is Satan really a big red dragon? Probably not, but the image suggests things about Satan which are in fact true.
The function of a metaphor highlights certain aspects about a “great red dragon” which are true about Satan, but not everything about the dragon is true of Satan. The difficult problem for the reader is sorting out what John intended to highlight and hide when he chose that metaphor.
When Revelation refers to something with straightforward language, we ought to take the words at face value. For example, Revelation 2-3 refer to seven churches, the ought to be read as real churches rather than epochs of church history.
Literal interpretation of Revelation does not deny figures of speech in the book. When the Bible says “like a…” it is clear that a figure of speech is being employed and that we should try to understand what the author meant by that figure. In each of the following examples, there is a metaphor / word picture which is interpreted for us by the text. Revelation 1:20 refers to seven stars and seven lampstands. The plain interpretation of these verses is that the stars are the angels of the seven churches and the lampstands are the churches themselves.
There are a few examples which are more difficult to know how far to press the “literal” meaning. For example, is the temple in chapter 11 a literal temple in Jerusalem, or a “spiritual temple,” such as the Church? When chapter 16 describes a great battle in Armageddon, should we understand the location as the literal valley of Megiddo?
The problem for readers of Revelation will always be entering into the metaphorical world of John. The more we understand that world, the better we can answer questions about how his metaphors originally functioned.
What are other potential examples of “clear” or “unclear” imagery in Revelation? Are there elements of the book we simply cannot understand at this point in history? If so, how does “all Scripture is profitable” apply to Revelation’s more difficult elements?
Because of its unusual character, Revelation has been approached from a number of interpretive principles, some of which raise serious questions concerning its value as divine authoritative revelation. All of the methods used by evangelicals today have a high view of scripture. Most commentaries 
use the grammatical-historical method of biblical interpretation and each claims to be developing a theology of Revelation which is applicable to the first century audience, the present modern audience, and every reader of Revelation in church history. But everyone who seriously tries to read the book of Revelation struggle with the question of how interpret the apocalyptic symbols of the book.
The differences between the views have to do with theological assumptions (millennial positions) and hermenutical assumptions (how literally do we take Revelation?) These elements are interwoven, so that a preterist is normally post-millennial and takes Revelation in a fairly literal way, although the symbols are interpreted as referring to A.D.70. An idealist, on the other hand, is often a-millennial and very non-literal in their approach. Futurism is the most literal, with some unfortunate extremes in interpretation. But not all futurists want to identify the Antichrist nor to they all claim “Revelation is about to be fulfilled.”
Let me offer a somewhat embarrassing example of literal interpretation gone wild. Hal Lindsey’s now famous identification of the scorpion / locust from the Abyss as helicopters with tail-gunners. Lindsey is an example of an allegorical approach to the text rather than a literal approach since his goal is to “read into” the text modern warfare.
This is ironic since Lindsey came from a Dispensational tradition which valued literal interpretation, especially when reading Old Testament prophetic texts. This point is made more generally by Malina and Pilch, who comment that all popular modern approaches to the book of Revelation are in some way allegorical – it is hard to disagree with them on this point! (Social-Science Commentary on the Book of Revelation [Minneapolis: Fortress, 2000], 215). To interpret a scorpion as a helicopter is no less allegorical than a 16th century commentary identifying the scorpions the rise of Islam.
When we read Revelation, we need to employ the “hermeneutics of humility” (Osborne, Revelation, 16). We must approach the book as best we can, employing all the proper tools and methodologies, but ultimately there will be elements of the book we cannot understand because of our distance from the first century.
So is it impossible to read Revelation “literally”? I think that it is not only possible, but required if we are to make sense of the book.
The real problem is properly defining what “literal interpretation” means. Literal interpretation does not mean that we take the words as the read on the page, but rather we recognize when the author intentionally used metaphors or other figures of speech and attempt to read those metaphors as he originally intended them. Returning to my helicopter illustration, I would say that there is no way that John intended us to hear the metaphor of a locust rising from the Abyss and understand a modern military machine. He intended something – our job as readers is to figure out what that original intention was.
How would this understanding of literal interpretation help us to read Revelation?
Apocalyptic thinking often divides history into various periods. Daniel’s outline of history as four coming kingdoms is one example, but there are others in apocalyptic literature. Perhaps the most common way for apocalyptic thinking to divide history is to describe this age as evil and the coming age of God’s kingdom. In the future this evil age come under judgment and be replaced with the way God intended it to be in the first place. Although it is possible an apocalyptic thinker may also took back to an ideal age in the past, the basic “this age and the age to come” is fundamental for apocalyptic thinking.
Paul uses this language in Galatians 1. At the beginning of the letter, Paul develops who Jesus Christ, or Jesus Messiah is. Jesus is the one who “gave himself for our sins” and in doing so, Jesus set us free from this “present evil age.” The wording is reminiscent of Isaiah 53:5, 12 in the Greek Old Testament. It is possible Paul describes Jesus in this way because it was already familiar to his readers. Jesus has already provided salvation through his work on the cross and those who are in Christ are already saved out of the present evil age.
This “evil age” is a common way of describing the present time in Paul’s letters as well as other Jewish first century writings. In the Dead Sea Scrolls, for example, one important document calls the present age the “epoch of evil” (1QpHab 5:7) and the late-first century Jewish apocalypse 4 Ezra describes the present age as a time when Belial (Satan) is opposing God’s will (7:12). Like these other Jewish writers, Paul is looking forward to a future kingdom. But he also thinks believers in Christ are already participating in the blessings of that future age. Paul contends we have already been rescued from this evil age.
But it is equally obvious we do not live fully in the Kingdom of God yet. Although some streams of theology have summed up the Kingdom as the church, this does not seem to do justice to Paul’s overall theology. He really does look forward to the return of Jesus as a time when perishable will become imperishable and this old, evil age will finally be replaced by God’s rule.
For Paul, we live in a time “between the ages.” Christ’s death stands between the Old Covenant of the Law and the future establishment of the Kingdom of God. The book of Galatians is one of the earliest witnesses we have to what the first generation of Christians thought about the death of Jesus. It is clear from Acts the earliest followers of Jesus expected his return very soon (Acts 3:19-20). Paul believed some who are now alive may live until the return of the Lord (1 Thess 4:17).
This “between the ages” perspective drives much of Paul’s ethics as well. We are to live our lives motivated by the nearness of the return of the Lord. A passage like Romans 13:11-14 bases proper ethical conduct on a clear understanding of the “present time.” Since the night of this dark age is almost over, it is time to wake up and “clothe ourselves with Christ.”
Good apocalyptic thinking drives proper ethical conduct in Paul, not paranoid rambling about the Anti-Christ taking away our freedoms. Nor does Paul ever suggest we take our survival kits and guns into the hills and fight the government to the death. This evil age ought to drive us to more good, loving behavior toward those who hate.
