A Range of Prophecy

Prophecy in the Bible can be viewed as a mountain range, which when looking at it straight-on, we might only see one peak, but when looking at it from even a slight angle, we see the various peaks along a ridge that once appeared to be one. In a very similar way, when the prophets of old foretold the future, they foretold it as if there were but one instance or realization of the prophecy to be had, when, in fact, there was more than one. Thus, the prophecy of God in Genesis 3:15 is fulfilled all throughout the Bible, whenever Abraham or one of his descendants triumphs over evil, and finally when Jesus completely triumphs over evil on the cross. Or the prophecy of Isaiah 7:14 is fulfilled in Isaiah’s lifetime in Isaiah 8:3-4 as well as in the birth of Jesus in Matthew 1:22-23.

Biblical prophecy should not be viewed as one and done, but as continual and cyclical, to be fulfilled at various instances in history, all throughout history, by various persons of history. In this way, biblical prophecy is very much a matter of application by means of appropriation, that is, appropriating the words or text of a particular prophecy for the sake of some current or relevant instance or moment in time. In this way, biblical prophecy can be viewed as a kind of metaphor for life, where applicable. For example, we might well be able to apply the prophecy of Genesis 3:15 to not only every descendant of Abraham who has defeated and overcome evil as well as to Jesus in his crucifixion, but also to every instance in history where good triumphs over evil.

Indeed, any prophecy that is rightly appropriated by correct application may be about anyone or anything. That does not mean that biblical prophecy is then just about any old thing at all; it does mean, however, that biblical prophecy is about anything at all that fits within the context, message, and meaning of that given prophecy. For example, the prophecy of Isaiah 7:14 applies to the child that Isaiah’s wife has and how before that child is weaned, the enemies of Israel, namely, Damascus and Samaria, will be vanquished by the Assyrians. This prophecy also applies to Jesus in that he is truly and most fully Immanuel, that is, “God with us.” Furthermore, this prophecy might even be expanded to apply to anyone who is like unto God, bearing his power and his presence to those around them.

When considering biblical prophecy, we ought to think of them not as some mystical and esoteric mysteries to be solved by recited incantations and deep meditation–though mediating does not hurt and incantations can be beautiful. Rather, we ought to think of them as communications from times past about times to come that would be as clear as the noonday sun, had we had the understanding of the context in which they were originally presented.

Some of the trouble in rightly appropriating and hence applying prophecy is that time has passed and so the text and the context of the text of a given prophecy has been buried in the sands of time. Another bit of the trouble is that text is lost in translation or in the failure of translation, in that the words chosen by translators may fail to reflect the meaning of the message of the text as it was originally intended. A third bit of trouble is that when we read the Bible, we might tend to read it with an ahistorical lens that leads us to believe that the Bible and its prophecies don’t apply to us in the here and now, nor are they historically grounded in their original context or in the future context of which they foretell.

Context! Context! Context!

When reading anything of ancient literature, it is important to immerse ourselves in the original context of the text, its socio-historical context, its linguistic and grammatical context, its religious and ideological context, in order to read it as an original reader of that time and day would have read it. Though this is rather a herculean tasks, it is not wholly impossible; it may be accomplished by comparing the given text with other texts of the time as well as discoveries and findings made by archaeologists and the like. For we must understand what was being said, how it was being said, to whom it was being said, why it was being said, and by whom it was being said. When contextualizing a text from the ancient past, we cannot expect to comprehend it without first understanding it in its original context.

We do this all the time today, when we read various bits of text, reading the sports section of the newspaper differently than we do the business or cooking sections–if we even read the newspaper! We read the text of an ad differently than the text of an email or message from a dear friend. We read the text of a schoolbook for class differently than we read the text of a receipt from the store. We read the directions of a cookbook differently than the directions of a map.

Context is king when it comes to reading and understanding a text, especially a text that comes to us through time and space from another era so foreign to our own. The problem with not contextualizing a text is that we tend to impose our own context onto a text and thereby interpret it as if it were written to us, when it was not. An ancient text like the Bible, let alone the prophecies therein, is not written to us, however much it may be written for us. Indeed, all ancient texts may be for, though not to us, as they transmit accounts of times past, bringing to life what has been so long passed.

We must be careful, though, when handling these texts, for the message, the meaning, the truth of these texts can only be rightly read and received until we are out of the way, with our understandings and preconceived notions of what is, and of what is right and what is wrong. The ancient texts come to us unchanging, but we ourselves are ever changing–hopefully, conforming our understanding to that of what has come before, lest we be so modern and contemporary as to be dead to the ancient past.

Reading through Translation

Whenever we read or hear something, as in a book or a conversation, we immediately and without compulsion interpret. What we have read, seen, or heard, we explain to ourselves in terms that we can best understand. This is the process of interpretation: moving something from one way to another way so that we can best and better understand it in terms that we comprehend.

Translation involves interpretation, as it is itself a kind of interpretation. As with something like the Bible, where we have many various English translations of the ancient Greek, Aramaic, and Hebrew texts, all the various translations are really interpretations of the original text, with each one presumably doing its best to be as unbiased as possible and present to us in our modern and contemporary English something that makes as much sense to us as is possible. No translation is without bias, however, and the work of translators is to make decisions that make the most sense to them and, hopefully, to us.

One major problem with translation, of course, is that so much can be lost in it, as is evidenced by translating the words from Ancient Greek into contemporary English for “love.” There are at least six words for “love” in Ancient Greek: agape, eros, philia, storge, philautia, and xenia. Four of these appear (in one form or another) in the New Testament: agape, eros, philia, and storge. What is lost on us in the English in translating from the New Testament Greek must be made up somehow, but what is in the original text, in its linguistic and sociocultural sentiment, will forever be lost on us, unless we come to not only understand but truly appreciate the original text within its context.

In order to do this, we must read through translations so as to best understand and appreciate the original text in its context. Reading through translations is a bit like reading between the lines, ascertaining what is implied as well as what is plainly stated, in addition to what is not said (beyond what is implied). Additionally, when reading through translations, it is important to compile various translations of a given text and to read them in comparison to one another. Of course, if we were to learn the original language in which a text was written, we would avail ourselves of an even greater and better opportunity to comprehend and interpret the text–though language-acquisition is only a part of the process of understanding a text; we must go beyond mere understanding of a text’s original language and understand the whole and comprehensive context of the text’s original context.

One practical way to read through translations is to read a number of different and divergent translations, in order to get a sense of the elasticity of the terms of a given text: language, words, and terms are in a flow of flux and there is a range of meaning that any given word can have. If we limit ourselves to only one translation, we will miss out on the range of meaning of terms and words in a given passage of text. We can then compare the different translations to get a better sense of what the text might be trying to say.

The Historicity of Biblical Prophecy

When a biblical prophecy was given, it was proclaimed in the midst of a historical context, an event or situation, grounded in the stuff of history, in response to some other event or situation, which was also historical and grounded in the stuff of history. Biblical prophecy does not come out of thin air or nowhere at all; it comes out of a historical context in which it is essentially rooted.

For example, when Isaiah pronounced the prophecy of Isaiah 7:14, he spoke concerning the immediate context of his situation, the imminent threat of Damascus and Samaria, threatening to attack and conquer Jerusalem in Judah. The prophecy of Isaiah 7:14 was as historically rooted as was the situation to which it responded. When Matthew picks up this prophecy and applies it to the birth of Jesus in Matthew 1:23, he is appropriating the ancient prophecy, infusing it with new and ultimate meaning, and making sense of the prophecy in terms of Jesus as well as Jesus in terms of the prophecy. Today, we might take the prophecy of Isaiah 7:14 to apply to a similar situation or person: the prophecy of Isaiah 7:14 was as much for Isaiah and the people of his day as it was for Jesus in the time of his birth as it is for us in our day, whenever someone is “Immanuel” with and for us.

Grounding biblical prophecy in a historical context affords us two keys we need in order to unlock the door of understanding. Without these keys, we may well end up decontextualizing or recontextualizing the context of a particular prophecy, incorrectly making it about us or what we want it to be about, rather than about what it is really about. The two keys are (1) comprehensive contextualization and (2) appropriate application.

We have already look in brief at the contextualization of a text, but allow me to take this moment to emphasize the need for a complete and comprehensive contextualization of a text, lest we come up short of really and best understanding the text as it was intended and originally meant to be understood. The great importance of this cannot be overstated: without the context of a text correctly understood, we may as well be reading it as if it were anything at all, as if it were something that fell out of the sky. A text without a context, it has been said, is a pretext for a prooftext. What this means is that if a text is not contextualized, it can be made to say whatever we might want and prove any point we might want it to prove. However, contextualizing a text affords us the opportunity to see it within its context as it was meant to be seen.

An example here might suffice: imagine you overheard a phone conversation while walking down the street. You happen to be walking the same direction as the person who is talking on the phone. They talk very loudly and you hear everything that they say. Now, you have only heard one side of the conversation, but we are inclined to draw conclusions, even with our limited understanding. Suppose the one side of the conversation you were able to hear went something like this:

“When?!”

A long pause, while listening into the phone.

“Now?!”

A short pause.

“Then there’s nothing I can do! What do they expect…”

Listening into the phone.

“Well, I will…but they have to understand that I can’t just pull something out of thin air! I mean, I’ve only just started to get my feet wet, and they can’t expect that I will know exactly everything there is to know!”

Hangs up, exasperated.

From hearing this side of the conversation, we might presume any number of things, which would be rectified, if we were to hear the other side of the conversation. In a similar way, when we read a biblical text, as a prophecy, we are reading but one side of a conversation, and to get the full meaning or message of the conversation, we must understand both sides of the conversation.

Comprehensive contextualization ties in with appropriate application, in that once we have fully and best understood the context of a text of prophecy can we then begin to properly and appropriately appropriate and apply the text to some other context. This is the process of recontextualization, which may be summed up in the word “application”; it is the process of applying the general gist or meaning of a text from one context unto another.

When we apply a text of prophecy, we must be wary of divorcing it from its original context as well as not fully understanding the original context in which it was written. Also, we must be wary of even our understanding of the text, even after we have done all our homework, recognizing that we are biased by our preconceived notions of reality and of right and wrong, which we must set aside in order to best and better understand the original context of the text of a prophecy as well as how it in its most general and true form might fit or apply in another context, even our own.

A Brief Word on Apocalyptic Prophecy

Oftentimes, when people think of prophecy, it seems they think of apocalyptic literature and apocalyptic prophecy. While there is apocalyptic biblical prophecy, much of prophecy in the Bible is not apocalyptic in nature. To begin with, the term “apocalyptic” comes from the term “apocalypse,” which derives from the Greek apokalupsis and means “uncovering” or “unveiling”; hence, why the Book of Revelation is so named: it is revealing what has been or is or is to come. Thus, apocalyptic literature or prophecy is revelatory in nature, revealing or uncovering, unveiling some truth beforehand hidden. It is not meant to confuse or distort the truth, but to reveal the truth and make it plain as day.

The trouble with apocalyptic literature is that it is an ancient style or form of writing that has long since gone out of vogue–like some 2000 years out of vogue, which means that when we read it today, we don’t get it, and we get confused and it seems to distort the truth and obscure what we want to know. When it was written for the ancients, they presumably understood it as clear as day, so long as they were in the in-group that understood the imagery, symbolism, and language utilized to communicate. The point of apocalyptic literature was to afford the in-group an understanding of its truth and message while not being so clear to the out-group. The trouble with this is that today we are largely in the out-group, necessarily so, being some 2000 years removed from the coded language and imagery utilized then.

The good news is that much of biblical prophecy is not apocalyptic and so can be understood in a much more facile manner than apocalyptic literature. Much of biblical prophecy can be divided into one of two categories, which we shall name as legal interpretation and as historical extrapolation. As legal interpretation, biblical prophecy is a call for the people of God, namely, Israel, to return to the Law of God given to Moses; rather than foretelling the future, this kind of prophetic message “forth-tells” the truth, recalling the words of the Law and adherence to the Law.

Historical extrapolation is a matter of foretelling the future, predicting what will happen, though much of even this is not so mystical as to be beyond the scope of reason or reasonable expectation at the time that the given prophecy is given. Take, for instance once more, the prophecy of Isaiah 7:14: while it is predictive of the coming deliverance of Judah, the prediction is not so much out of the scope of reasonable expectation at that time. To be sure, had King Ahaz, the king of Judah, known what Isaiah knew, he would not have been so afraid of the the imminent threat before him. How Isaiah knew, though, only God knows.

As Isaiah read the times of his day, so he made sense of his day in light of the past presence and power of God, who fights for his beloved people. The purpose of prophecy is not to confuse but to clarify, not to elude understanding but to elucidate understanding. When it was written, it was meant to give hope or to warn and call people to repentance.

When we read prophecy today, we ought to find comfort in its very words or we ought to find conviction, but we ought need not find confusion. If a text is confusing, we ought to dig into its original context, get ourselves out of the way, and allow the text to speak to us as it might very well have to its original readers and hearers. While prophecy surely is complex, we need not complicate it or obscure it with poor readings of the text. We can read the biblical prophetic texts with confidence, when we read them within their context and appropriately appropriate them to apply to another context by rereading them from their original context into a new and similar context, as like begets like.