Revelation, Daniel, and Isaiah

I was quite happy when I learned that we were going to be reading from Daniel and Revelation. These two books in particular are among my favorite in The Bible for the simple fact that they integrate a nice amount of both literature and mysticism. Just as a side note, I would recommend that the book of Isaiah be given a read by anyone who found the assigned texts interesting; as I'll mention later, Isaiah is a bit more symbolic, but still along the same lines.

I would doubt that in any discussion about apocalyptic predictions that the book of Revelation does not come up; the name has become nearly synonymous with the end of the world. In recent years, I think that this and other prophetic religious texts have had more interest than previously. This is supported by the many predictions of the end times with so called Biblical foundations. I tend to take the stance that the reason Revelation is such an enduring text (and to a lesser extent, Daniel) is that it provides the sense that the end times are "near" or that the tribulation is about to happen. Obviously, this becomes a difficult prospect to dismiss when there's a chance that something's about to occur. I assert that this is a tool used by many modern evangelists to captivate and retain followers and by religious individuals as a justification for the actions they are "supposed" to perform (the precepts outlined in the Bible). That being said, I feel as though from the stance of influence on membership and spread of Christianity, few books are as influential as the prophetic texts. Personally, being told that if I didn't convert I had about a 33% chance of being killed by fire, rather than being told that there is a kind and just God who will forgive me for anything I do would perpetuate a more consistent practicing of religion than the latter case.

I almost want to entertain the question of the validity of these texts, but I have a difficult time doing so because of the great number of interpretations that have been assigned to them. For example, I read two separate, in-depth analysis of Daniel 9 and found two wildly different views, both of which differed from what I originally interpreted it as. I notice that with a 2300 year old text, it becomes quite easy to assign events as fulfillments of those ancient prophecies (consider the case of Daniel 9:24-27: the weeks are interpreted by many Jewish texts as "weeks of years"; in other words, 70 weeks/years in the Christian interpretation equates to 490 years in Jewish interpretations). This wide range of time obviously provides the space to assign any number of events that have even the slightest similarity to Daniel's visions.

I also want to discuss briefly what Norman Cohn said regarding the question "Was Daniel the first apocalypse?". I almost completely disagree with him when he suggests that the scale of the book of Isaiah is not as global as Daniel. The only way that I can see someone arriving at this conclusion is that they took Isaiah at complete face-value; an impossible misconception when reading Isaiah. In my opinion, Isaiah is one of the most difficult books of the Bible to comprehend as the author/s intended because of its almost cryptic nature. It certainly provides for a wonderful reading experience, if not a bit arduous. Anyway, Isaiah from what I've read certainly encompasses all levels of interpretation. It has the well-known prophecies for Jesus' life of course, but it also provides several prophecies regarding the end times, some of which correspond loosely with those in Revelation and Daniel. For a good example of this, read Isaiah 66. Note that many scholars have suggested that the correlation between this 66th chapter and the 66th book, Revelation, is of great significance. I disagree with this because of the arbitrary selection of books in the Bible, although I am not positive on this fact. I would also recommend giving a good look at some of the other sections of Isaiah, but I don't have the particular references memorized; a simple Google search would give you a good idea off what to check out.