Literal Belief is not the Only Belief

Newsweek currently has an interview with Tim LaHaye in which he discusses current events in the middle east and their relationship to the end times. I find myself in pretty nearly complete disagreement with LaHaye on his interpretation of Revelation, but that should be no surprise to anyone. But he emphasizes one point in his interview that I think needs to be examined, and that’s the attempt to interpret things literally whenever possible.

When the interviewer asks him about Biblical scholars who might disagree with his viewpoint, he says:

These are usually liberal theologians that don’t believe the Bible literally.

When asked whether Revelation should be interpreted as a polemic against Rome, he says:

That’s what they say. We believe that the Bible should be understood literally whenever possible. [Emphasis in original.]

Asked about support for Israel amongst Christians, he says:

I think those two things are related. Christians who take the Bible literally are generally supportive of Israel because God promises to bless those nations that are a blessing to Israel and curse those nations that are not. And the history of America bears that out.

It is clear that he regards the issue of whether one interprets the Bible literally as of central importance. I agree with him. But literal vs. non-literal is only one way of dividing Biblical interpreters, and he is not correct in suggesting that it is mostly liberals who would disagree with his position. There are, in fact, numerous interpretations of Revelation that are supported by people who take a very conservative view of the inspiration of the Bible, and many of these are directly contradictory to LaHaye’s interpretation.

If you take simply the issue of timeline of events, you can see some of the substantial differences. Three key events involved are 1) The Rapture, 2) The Second Coming of Jesus, and 3) Creation of the New Earth. Two periods of times are proposed that might divide these events, the seven year tribulation period and the 1,000 year millenium. Interpreters mix and match events. Pre-tribulationist [using hyphens to emphasize prefixes] pre-milleniallists, like LaHaye propose a rapture at the beginning of the seven year tribulation, the second coming in the clouds of glory at the end of the tribulation, followed by the millenium, followed by the establishment of the new heavens and the new earth. Mid-tribulationists move the rapture to the middle of the seven years, post-tribulationists to the end. Pre-millenialist, post-tribulationsists would see the rapture and the second coming in the clouds as simultaneous. Post-millenialists see the second coming in the clouds, the rapture, and the creation of the new heavens and new earth as simultaneous. A-millenialists see the millenium as a symbolic period, and have significant scriptural support for such a view, though I personally doubt they’re right.

I haven’t even begun to exhaust the possibilities, and there are probably people who hold one of the views I describe that will think I’ve missed it on some details, but those are the hazards of summarizing such views of interpretation. The problem here is that these various elements come from different scriptures at different places and times, and it’s very difficult to tie them all together, thus honest interpreters can differ on how they should be combined.

But not all problems of interpretation are due to combining texts from various locations and contexts. Revelation 6:2 introduces a rider on a white horse with a bow. The IVP Bible Background Commentary relates the image to the Parthians, who had mounted archers, and takes the white horse to mean conquest and war. Matthew Henry, surely not a liberal, says that the rider on the white horse is Jesus Christ. The Wycliffe Bible Commentary, citing Thomas F. Torrance, provides an identification with the antichrist. Surely just these three interpretations, all from conservative commentators, suffice to show that one cannot be as confident of a single interpreation as LaHaye is.

It’s always easy to be convinced of an interpretation of Revelation, provided that one studies only that one interpretation, does not look too critically at the text itself, doesn’t ask too many “why” questions, and avoids reading other people’s interpretations that often will seem just as convincing when seen independently.

All of this avoids a more important question of precisely what it means to “interpret literally.” I have personally encountered quite a number of different interpretations from people who claimed literal interpretation. In terms of Revelation, “literally” often seems to mean taking even obviously symbolic numbers as literal values. The number 144,000, 12 X 12 X 1000 cries out for a symbolic reading, as do various groupings of seven, and the millenium itself. “Literal” can mean taking John’s visions as actual viewings of modern vehicles. But really understanding Revelation, something I don’t claim to do, needs to begin by understanding that our language is symbolic and the symbols are separated by different distances from any concrete meaning. This means that in Revelation, which is a vision, we can expect to be distanced from the literal meaning, often by layers of symbols. This doesn’t mean that Revelation can mean just anything, but it does mean that any simple principle, such as LaHaye’s idea of taking it literally whenever possible, is likely to mislead. One will be equally wrong whether one takes something too literally or too figuratively. The idea is to discover what the writer intended.

In my own study guide on Revelation, rather than proposing a timeline of the end, I suggest a way of looking at the book and getting spiritual lessons. There are a number of good commentaries. I believe the best one for the lay student is Ben Witherington’s Revelation in the New Cambridge Bible Commentary series. Witherington fairly examples multiple views and helps the serious student sort through the evidence.

LaHaye’s greatest error, in my view, is in implying that ” . . . liberal theologians that don’t believe the Bible literally.” This is wrong in two ways: 1) It is not only liberal theologians who take many Biblical passages figuratively, and 2) It is not only those who don’t take the Bible literally who will disagree with some of LaHaye’s interpretations.