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Key Orientations for the Study and Understanding
of the Book of Revelation

Different starting points leading to the same termination point. Fascinating, instructive Figures of Speech and startling Symbolical Images. Appreciating their value instead of being put off by them.

Dear Reader, please take a moment to consider “Two Key Orientations” fundamental for understanding the Book of Revelation.

Key 1. Reading the Book of Revelation from Chapter 1 to the end of Chapter 22, as I have done scores of times, is not like traveling forward on a single highway, straight ahead all the time, without ever returning to travel the same stretch of road. Rather, it is like exploring an immense territory, varied to the highest degree, taking different routes, but not always starting at the same point, nor always seeing the same landscapes or scenes, but, nevertheless, always arriving at the point and the hour when said “territory” is violently shaken and "...the ELEMENTS shall be DISSOLVED with fervent heat, and the earth and the works that are therein shall be burned up.” 2 Peter 3:10-12 

This type of exploration of the “Territory of the Universe and of Time,” with incursions into the “Celestial Regions” above, is made possible by the “different routes” traced by the Prophecies and Visions of the Book of Revelation, corroborated and expanded in some areas by prophecies given in other books of the Sacred Scriptures of the New Testament of Jesus Christ, and, in some cases, by data in the Old Testament.

Key 2. The Book of Revelation is replete with “FIGURES of SPEECH and SYMBOLICAL IMAGES.” An attribute which some readers may find exciting, exhilarating, and enriching, broadening understanding, while it confuses and bewilders others, even to the point of their dismissing the Book as largely fantastical and riddled with ancient literary forms, content, distorted world views, etc., irrelevant to the 21st century world. Key 2 to understanding and appreciating the value of the Book is to avoid the ERROR of trying to FORCE TOTALLY LITERAL INTERPRETATIONS and APPLICATIONS on all those “FIGURES of SPEECH and SYMBOLICAL IMAGES.” Search, rather, to understand what they represent, where they become realities on the TIMELINE of HUMANITY and the WORLD, and their applications, if any, to the 21st century.

Some “FIGURES of SPEECH” are Metaphor, Simile, Hyperbole,  Personification, Symbolism, Allegory, Allusion, Analogy, Metonymy, and Synecdoche. Figurative language “is any way of wording something other than the ordinary literal way, often to provide the audience some heightened feeling, more complex meaning, or deeper connection.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literary_device

These “FIGURES of SPEECH” can be marvelously fascinating, very instructive, impactful, and, at times, difficult to decipher. Certainly, “other than the ordinary literal way” of communication, providing, to be sure, “complex” meanings and “deeper” connections for intelligent, seeking minds. Above all, spiritually educating in ways that only the objective, open-minded, and dedicated reader comes to fully appreciate. In a word, World and Life-View altering.

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