cross-posted from: https://midwest.social/post/9492119
this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2024
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So the actual answer is that apocalyptic imagery is coded and not meant to be taken literally. It's the failing of modern Christians to understand this and correctly parse what's being discussed.
For instance, 666 is a reference to Nero, not some mythological figure at the end of human history.
Nearly everything evangelicals believe about "end times" is a failure to parse and understand their own texts.
So what is 7 eyes and 7 horns code for
I could look it up, but best guess from memory is:
Horns are related to power or authority. This is true of the apocalyptic imagery in Daniel as well. Seven is the number of completeness or totality. So combined they represent total and complete authority.
The eyes are almost certainly more direct and would represent complete and total knowledge.
In portugal and brasil, you get a pair of horns when you get cheated on.
To be fair, not just a problem with modern Christians, if you read 'Daemonology' by James the 1st (of England, 6th of Scotland and the one who wrote/edited the King James bible version) he took it quite literally too.
I'm still not sure if it's a case of 'wilful ignorance' of the bits they don't like, or a 'Forest Gump' "stupid is as stupid does" - probably both, with a sprinkling of grifters thrown in.
it's available at Gutenberg.org if you're interested; it's, um, an interesting take...
He wrote it as a response to the "proliferation" of witches in England - so with no agenda at all! /s
You're correct that bad interpretations aren't strictly a modern problem. There are, however, problems with interpretation that are distinctly modern (as in the last 200'ish years of church history). Modern Christian eschatology, aka "end times theology", falls distinctly into those modern interpretation problems.
That isn't too say previous generations of church history had it on lock, they just had different factors screwing with the perspectives.
A lot of all these issues comes down to antisemitism, which has been a dominant factor for Christian theology for most of its post-Constantine history.
The goal with literary scholarship is always to understand the authorial worldview and intent, something many church writers explicitly rejected for millennia.