Troublesome Topic: How Often am I Right in my Interpretation of Symbolism?

I had a retired pastor ask me this question during a Sunday School class I was teaching. We were covering my paraphrase of symbolism (either Song of Solomon or Revelation, I can’t remember) and he asked me how often I thought I was right in my understanding of how the original audience understood the symbolism.

 I told him I knew it was not 100% but I thought it was 90% or above. I had already thought about that very question and had come to this percentage based on how well balanced the paraphrase seems and how well all the pieces fit together once I have repackaged the word pictures into English. It also seemed to fit the culture and the overall message of Scripture as a whole.

In my first book on Song of Solomon (self-published), I did not do my own translation work but relied on a variety of other translations. It was truly a hodgepodge, or mishmash of Biblical translations. Some time later I decided I should go back and revise my book on Song of Solomon by doing my own translation from the original, as I had done with Revelation. I did that and I was glad I did. Here is the interesting thing that I found in the process – the translation column changed much more than the paraphrase column did, in fact the paraphrase column needed very few changes. I took that to mean that my ideas about where the symbolism was pointing were on track for the most part. Once again, I cannot prove that the degree of accuracy I claim is actually true; my paraphrase is my opinion about the symbolism, and I hope you find it helpful.

The next lesson in Prophecy and Revelation is Why No Greek of Hebrew in This Mobile Website?

The next lesson in Symbolism in the Bible is WOULD SOLOMON AND JOHN BE HAPPY WITH ME?