When we read the Bible it is extremely important to consider the audience to whom the words were written and then spoken.
We also need to understand the timing and history involved. It is generally accepted by scholars that the New Testament was written in Greek about 2000 years ago. However, there is some debate as to when individual gospels and Paul’s letters were written. Some views place them before 70AD whilst others place them around 120-130AD. Most scholars take the view that the New Testament, which essentially consists of letters, was ‘collated’ into a book around 200-300 AD.
Anyway, most scholars agree that the original New Testament was written by Jewish people for a Jewish audience, in Hebrew and Aramaic. They were translated into other languages later and translations are still ongoing. (e.g. the Amplified version in 1965 and the Message in 1993). The original ‘Jewish’ version will therefore contain words, phrases, idioms, metaphors and analogies that would have been recognized by the Jewish audience, but may not necessarily be easily recognized by the modern 21st-century reader.
For example, if you go into a food shop today and ask for a burger, they will probably ask you what type you want; a hamburger, a cheeseburger, a veggie burger, or maybe a fish burger. They’ll know what you’re talking about. If, however, you went back to medieval Europe, particularly Germany and you go into a food shop and ask for a burger, they will send you off to maybe the local courthouse or to the office of some senior rich bureaucrat, because to them, that’s what a burger is. (Note this burger is spelled BURGHER but pronounced the same).
This word to medieval Germans means a high official who administrates and authorizes ‘things’. If we go back further in time to the ‘days’ of Jesus and go to a food shop and ask for a burger, they would say that they had never heard of the word and have no idea what you’re talking about. So the point is that words and phrases change over time and may have different meanings from one time period to another.
All the world should be taxed
A good example of this is found in Luke 2:1.
“And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed”.
Augustus wanted his servants to go out into all the world to take a census. He wanted to know how much tax he could get from his people. Now the Bible doesn’t say much more about it than that, however, one assumes that Augustus wasn’t telling his servants to go to China and count the people there, or to go ‘down under’ to Australia. Or to build a fleet of ocean-going ships to ‘rediscover’ the Americas and then go on and visit the many islands of Indonesia. Whilst people were living in those places at the time of Augustus, they were not part of ‘the world’ that he was referring to. Augustus was referring to the ‘Roman World’, the lands that the Roman armies had conquered.
If you speak to someone today and ask them to define the word ‘world”, they may mention the picture of the ‘blue marble’ that the astronauts on Apollo 17 took from space. Some may mention the globes of earth they have seen on news reports or movies. Or the ‘globe world’ they had in their class at school. That’s what the word ‘world’ means today to most people. It’s a round ball floating in space, that we humans live on. To the Jewish population in the time of Christ when asked to define the word ‘world’ they would say you are referring to the ‘Roman World’. They would have had no knowledge of other countries far across the sea; their view of ‘the world’ was that of the Roman Empire.
Interestingly, we use the word ‘world’ today in many different ways. Everyone understands that World War 1 and 2 meant ‘the whole world and all the nations within it’ were at war. We also talk about the sports world or the entertainment world particularly when some famous film star or musician dies. So, a word can have different meanings in different cultures and time frames.
The Millennium
Here’s another example, the Millennium. Those Christians who think there’s a rapture coming soon also believe in something called the Millennium. In their view, the Millennium comes after the Rapture and after the seven-year tribulation of trials and testing. As they have escaped this entire wrath, they will eventually return to Earth with Jesus who will rule and reign on the earth for 1000 years of peace.
Millennium is a Latin word, Mille in Latin means 1 thousand and anus in Latin means 1 year, hence millennium means one thousand years. Now the Bible doesn’t use the word millennium anywhere, just like it doesn’t use the word rapture anywhere. It does, however, use the number ‘one thousand years’ in many places. Revelation 20 does say that the resurrected people in heaven will “reign with Jesus for a thousand years”. Rev 20 also says that the devil will be bound in chains for a thousand years and that those who died ‘outside’ of Christ ‘sleep’ for a thousand years.
They didn’t use the word Millennium because it didn’t come into common use until the 1630s when it was first used in Latin translations. There are however many references in both the Old and New Testaments where the number ‘one thousand’ is used.
- “Behold, I have given your brother a thousand pieces of silver.” (Gen 20:16)
- “For every animal of the forest is mine, and the livestock on a thousand hills.” (Psalm 50:10)
- “Those who ate were about five thousand men, in addition to women and children.” (Matt 14:21)
- “For a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere.” (Psalm 84:10)
- “With the Lord, a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.” (2 Peter 3:8).
The scripture says that God owns the cattle on a thousand hills. Is this meant literally? That God only owns the cattle on one thousand hills, but not on the thousand and first hill, nor the thousand and second hill? No! The reader would interpret that scripture to mean that God owns everything!
The scripture that says
a thousand years to us is as a day to God. (2 Peter 3:8)
cannot be read as literal for several reasons. Firstly, God lives outside of our time so the concepts of days and years are meaningless. Secondly, we use the term day to measure the movement of the earth rotating around the sun in 24 hours. In heaven it is unlikely that a day to God is measured in this way, assuming that a concept like ‘day/year’ has any meaning in heaven.
This scripture just means that time is immaterial to God. He exists outside of time and is endless. Whilst our “time” on the earth is finite; i.e. we have a definite beginning and a definite end. Therefore, when we read the Bible, we have to consider all these things and try to understand the words and phrases and discern their original Hebrew/Jewish meaning. To do this effectively we need to adopt a Jewish mindset and try not to interpret what we are reading using 21st century teachings and understandings.
So what does one thousand mean?
What does it mean to the Jewish audience when they heard the words ‘one thousand years’, did they consider this meant a literal one thousand years? Many Hebrew scholars state that this number is almost always used symbolically to refer to a large number. Thus, when we read scriptures that mention ‘one thousand years’ we should not interpret it as a literal number but as a figurative term for a long time’.
Now it can be quite difficult for us to do this. We have gained so much knowledge about many aspects of the world; science, medicine, art, health, engineering, and astronomy, than the early Hebrews did. We have almost immediate access to a wide array of information via the internet; we just ask questions to Google, Siri, ChatGPT and a plethora of AI apps and they provide us with ‘answers’.
Various historians have estimated that at least 80 – 90% of the Jewish population during the time of Jesus was illiterate. Some could sign their name but most could not read or write. Almost all females were illiterate as the women’s role in Jewish society, as in most Middle Eastern countries did not encourage female literacy. (Unfortunately, that is still a fact in several Middle Eastern countries today. 2000 years later!). The priest class could read and thus most preaching and teaching was done verbally. Paul’s letters were sent to the churches and then read out to the congregation. Remember that Paul, who started out as Saul, was a highly educated man who was referred to as a “Pharisee”. (Acts 23:6).
What does this mean for our understanding of the Bible? In addition to understanding the language and what words, phrases and idioms actually mean, there is another aspect to be considered. Some people state that everything in the bible is literal because it is the word of God. There are some passages that most scholars agree are literal, however, other parts are considered metaphorical, others anecdotal, whilst some are apocalyptic. The term apocalyptic is used to describe a type of literature that was common in the time of Christ. Today we would think it to be more like our modern-day science fiction or fantasy.
Since the beginning of ‘story writing,’ there has been a huge variety of writing styles. For example, today we have satire, romance, horror, crime, science fiction, fantasy plus many others. When we read such stories, we almost immediately know what ‘style’ we are reading by the context. If we read a book about zombies coming up out of the grave and biting us, which then causes us to turn into zombies, we know straight away that it’s a horror story; We know that it is not true. We know that zombies don’t exist and that the story is a work of fiction.
However, some authors, who want to convey a ‘message’, may ‘hide’ that message in a fictional story but in such a way that the ‘message’ will only be understood by the discerning reader.
Animal Farm
In George Orwell’s classic book “Animal Farm”, Orwell describes the farm animals as being in control of the farm, along with the hierarchies of authority that the animals had. The abuse of power by the ‘elite’ animals is clearly shown in the story. Orwell used the device of talking animals to highlight the dangers of communism. Many of the ‘elite’ animals were based upon Soviet communist leaders, and the reader (if they knew what was happening in Russia at that time) would be able to identify this.
So on the surface, a casual reading of Animal Farm might be seen as being a children’s book as it has talking animals. Other readers might miss the ‘hidden’ messages about the perils of communism but would know that the story is not real because they know that animals don’t talk.
An informed reader who was aware of events in the Soviet Union at the time Orwell wrote the book (1943), would understand the ‘hidden’ messages in the story and realize that Orwell was ‘describing life’ under a communist government.
The Book of Revelation
What about the bible, does it have stories with hidden meaning? Revelation, the last chapter of the New Testament certainly does. When most people read Revelation, it is very easy to form the view that the book is like some modern fantasy novel. For example, Revelation 20 describes two beasts, The ‘Sea Beast’ and the ‘Scarlet Beast’, both of whom have seven heads, and ten horns and the horns each have a crown on them.
They look a lot like illustrations we have seen of dragons. When early Jewish people read or heard stories like this, they knew what style it was, what certain phrases and words meant, along with any ‘hidden’ context. They would have known that ‘horns with crowns’ always referred to kings and kingdoms. Dragons or beasts always referred to an enemy of the Jewish people and their presence always indicated that some form of danger was imminent. They would not have thought that these ‘beasts’ were real.
Many scholars believe that John, who wrote the Book of Revelation, was talking about the Romans and their occupation of Israel and the upcoming destructive war. The ‘beast’ and ‘antichrist’ was referring to Nero. The ‘mark of the beast’ which was needed to ‘buy and sell’ was referring to the law that only Roman coins could be used in commerce. Israel had their own coinage and did not want to use Roman coins as they had an image of the current Roman emperor on them. The Jews knew the commandment that said not to make ‘craven images’ so they were very much against any coins that had images on them.
However, there were times when the current Roman governor of Israel mandated that only Roman coins could be used as currency. No one could therefore ‘buy or sell’ unless they used coins that had the ‘mark of the beast’ on them. John knew that if he openly opposed the Romans he would probably be killed, hence he wrote the book of Revelation in a sort of ‘fantasy code’, which the Jewish readers would be able to decipher.
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