Understanding Biblical Symbolism: A Deeper Look

I ran across this meme this morning and though I understand the person’s difficulty with the text I take issue with the meme. And my issue is this, if you reject the Bible on the simplistic grounds of the story of a talking snake and a seven-headed monster my guess is you are not reading the text appropriately. Now perhaps you learned to read these stories in a church that had a very simplistic understanding of these stories and never helped you understand the nature of the text with its deep use of symbolic language. For that I am truly sorry. But to out of hand reject a text because you are reading at face value something that is supposed to be read with deeper meaning is not a deficiency in the text.

Now it should be obvious that Apocalypse (Revelation) 13 is a vision and metaphor and that the monster depicted is a visualization of the character of an individual. But perhaps it is not to this person. If not, we are supposed to take this image and picture it and think about the kinds of people who fit into this character. Not to call them out as “the Beast” as some Christians want to do, but so that we can recognize Christlike character in ourselves and others, particularly those leaders we support.

Now the talking snake is more difficult, but the Hebrew term is again a play on words. It is similar to the word for bronze. In other words, it is a stand-in for a shining one (bronzed +shining). The snake is a nearly universal symbol for hidden danger and deception and in this case, it serves a double meaning with that of something that is bronzed or shining like a heavenly being. It is a visualization of what it does, looks heavenly but is ultimately deceptive– like sin.

Yes, I agree that there are a number of Christians who don’t meditate on the Bible deeply enough and present simplistic and unfulfilling interpretations. And yes, not everyone will be convinced by my interpretations nor pushing people to read scholars like David DeSilva “Seeing Things John’s Way” or John Walton “The Lost World of Adam and Eve” but simply being dismissive of the text shows more about the person who is dismissive than it does about the text.