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PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   24670 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 5, 2025

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But more to the point, I'm not sure that the default mode of interpreting a confusing 1st century apocalyptic passage in Scripture should be modern literalism! I don't think that this is special pleading on the part of Christians, either, Jewish pre-Christian literature has a lot of similarly (and intentionally) vague passages – Christ is quoting Daniel in this one – and I think that reading them symbolically/non-literally predates Christ. So I'm cautious about reading the text and taking the most obvious and straightforward surface-level interpretation (particularly in a translation) as the correct one. (That's part of what's been very interesting and helpful to me about this discussion, is getting a feel for why people think it should be interpreted this way. As I think I mentioned, I do not have a settled opinion).

Thanks for this! Actually helped me settle some of my own doubts here. Well said.

I'm glad to hear that! Really appreciate you taking the time to reply, that is very encouraging.

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