david. (@DavidPaland)

*This post got me kicked out of the ‘Pursuing Jesus Christ’ group: The problem with guessing at & teaching Revelation.. Prophecy only ever reveals itself in hindsight. This is because foresight is only ever given to the prophet and the prophecy AND its interpretation is only ever given in part Foresight IS prophecy. So guesswork & self interpretation are the exact two things that ADD to & TAKE away from prophecy. The two things that John warned us of under curse. So if we are not the prophet to which the prophecy & interpretation are given, then our guesswork is literally a ‘prophecy of a prophecy. Scripture defines this as false prophecy It is what the Pharisees did to the OT prophecies about the coming Yeshua & Mashiach (who they actually thought were going to be two different men). This is why they got it all dead wrong ..they were focused on their own interpretations (narrative) of their prophecies of the OT prophecies. It wasn’t until after Christ was born that the prophecies began to reveal themselves, both in real time and in hindsight. The Pharisees took everything literal. So their guesswork was all wrong. Prophecy is given in figurative speech with idiom & metaphor for this very purpose. To expose false prophets and as a stumbling block for those who follow them. No one ever said that Daniel’s ‘7 years’ was a total amount of time, instead of a period within a greater amount of time. Plus no one ever said that Daniel’s prophecy was John’s prophecy ..except men who use guesswork as factual narrative. Daniel mentioned three separate periods of a little over 3 1/2 years. If they run concurrent, then they would add up to a little over 3 1/2 years But if they run consecutive, then they add up to over 11 years. Or of course they could overlap in some way and be anywhere in between. John ALSO mentions three separate periods of 3 1/2 years, but his are exactly 3 1/2 years. So they are not the same as Daniel’s. This is because if we look at Daniel, he gives one period as 1290 days, whereas John gives 1260 days ..this would make one of the prophecies false, if there are both the same. Yahweh is not specific in order to give room for Himself to be wrong, but rather to distinguish things from another. If consecutive, then John’s three periods add up to 10.5 years (a full stellar cycle). John never mentions any 7 year period, that is an assumption based on a tiny mention from Daniel, extracted from (and ignoring) his three ~3 1/2+ year periods (which none add up to 7 years when added together as they are longer than 3 1/2 years each) So we cannot ADD Daniel’s 7 years to John’s prophecy. Especially because of John’s curse to not add or takeaway (a direct indication that John’s prophecy was complete in & of itself and does not need anything added or taken away from it). Now yes, two out of three of John’s 3 periods can add up to 7 years, but with the third, they add up to 10.5. John never mentions how many of the three periods are good years & bad years as a consecutive sum total. BUT there is possibility that the first 3 1/2 years could be good years and the latter two periods of 3 1/2 years that might add up to 7 (if consecutive) are bad years. But we can’t close the doors of possibility, on this guesswork. We need to keep our minds open. John mentions 3 different categories of 3 1/2 year periods (years, months, days) as in.. 3 1/2 ‘times’ 42 months 1260 days ..but he mention actually one more of both the 42 months and the 1260 days. Giving us five periods, but in three categories. Plus John never mentions if they are consecutive or concurrent, so we must not #add these words in and risk #takingaway a possible longer total time. So my advice is to not #add words like ‘nuclear war’ to John’s figurative prophecy, because the partial interpretation that he did get, shows us that his prophecy was indeed figurative. When we draw (add to)the picture for others, we erase (take away) all other possibilities and change their focus, blinding them to what may be right next to them. Take the word #Cloud for example. In Greek and Hebrew, it was the same word as #Crowd. They were the same word under one semantic range. So one could say we were told to watch for Christ in the Clouds, and completely miss Him walking among us as ’Immanuel’ right next to them in the ‘Crowd’. Even the word #Air has a semantic range including both literal & figurative. As it refers to the lower part of the Expanse (skies) in which humans can survive below the ‘death zone’ above 8k meters (that climbers speak of). So Air literally refers to the breathable air below the Clouds. But it is also figurative for Speech, Praise, Testimony, Life. So being ‘caught up in the clouds in the air’, is common Hebraic metaphor for being ‘busy’ in a ‘great multitude’ of witnesses ‘witnessing’. So my point is just to encourage you to rethink the specific words that we are focusing on, in Revelation.👍🏼