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Revelation: Verse by Verse is unavailable, but you can change that!

The book of Revelation tends to both fascinate and confuse us with its vivid and strange imagery. When we turn to trusted scholars for help, the widely divergent interpretations of the book can sometimes cause us to throw our hands in the air and stop reading. Are the visions to be taken literally or symbolically? Do they depict events from the first century or are they future, just before Jesus’...

completely literal miss the very nature of the apocalyptic genre, yet to take it as entirely symbolic misses the mark as well. In Jewish apocalyptic literature the two aspects are blended and interdependent, and each symbol must guide us as it functions in its context. For example, no one doubts that the seven heads and ten horns of the beast is symbolic, and it is in fact interpreted as such in Revelation 17:9–14. The seal, trumpet, and bowl judgments are not so easily interpreted: The Egyptian
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