<While I promote Bible studies and prayer meetings both in the home and at
church, and was encouraged that someone wanted to study,  the "what does it 
mean to
you" approach implies that there is no certain meaning to be found in
Scripture.  The method implies the texts can have a variety of meanings,
rather like looking at modern art.   Charles+>

Of course, to paraphrase Aristotle, every virtue taken to an extreme becomes 
a vice.   Just as " RC Popular Piety" may devolve into malignant and lethal 
superstition, so poor education or ability may make a discussion of 
literature a waste of time.  The exegesis below adequately demonstrates for 
me the variety of meanings that may be found in biblical texts!   (Some 
years ago in this forum, Fr. Ward said about the Book of Revelation:  "It's 
as clear as mud!"   I agree.)  Only individual training, memory, facility 
with words, "point of view," etc., could produce your exegesis.  It does 
remind me of a well-informed commentary on an abstract painting, i.e., 
"modern art."  Meaning is a perceptual, personal process occurring within 
the individual, dependent upon many factors, not the least of which is "the 
way God wired us."   Words in the dictionary are compiled from how writers 
have used them, and rare is the word that has only one discrete meaning 
listed.  Meaning has to be taken from context.  All words are  symbolic 
"figures of speech," representing the activity or thing described.  "The 
word is not the thing, the map is not the territory."  Mathematics is the 
most precise language, but as  Einstein wrote:  "As far as the laws of 
mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are 
certain, they do not refer to reality."   For translating the Bible into 
English, that is, encouraging individual reading and interpretation of 
Scripture,  William Tyndale was burned at the stake for heresy.  My Anglican 
heritage of full intellectual freedom rejects the dictates of a Roman curia 
as well as that of Biblical literalism.  As Judge Learned Hand admonished, 
the freedom to hear and debate divergent ideas is of crucial importance: 
"Because once you get people believing that there is an authoritative well 
of wisdom to which they can turn for absolutes, you have dried up the 
springs on wich they must in the end draw.  ...As soon as you rely upon 
accredited bodies of authoritative dogma...the days of our liberty are 
over."    Regards. X KnoxDuncan@...







----- Original Message ----- 
From: "charles scott" <crscottblu@...>
To: <faithandlife@...>
Sent: Friday, October 27, 2006 5:55 AM
Subject: [FaithandLife] Queen "Mother"


> Jack+
>
> Your post below and the one about the relation of the
> Queen of Heaven to the persons in the Trinity was
> another way of getting at the hermeneutical question
> in Revelation 12.  Who is the woman?
>
> The 12 star tiara suggests 12 tribes and 12 apostles
> that adorn the Woman who brings forth the man-child.
> Doesn't the Tiara suggest that the woman is the Israel
> of God?  The end of the chapter brings us back to that
> thought.
> After the abreviated Gospel story, the woman does not
> go away to be cared for by John, she flees to the
> desert to avoid persecution by the Dragon.  The Dragon
> continues to make war against her offspring who are
> those who obey God's commandments.
> In Matthew 24:4-25 there is recorded a prophecy of
> Jesus that appears to refer to the fall of Jerusalem
> that occured in 70 A.D.  I know this is speculation,
> but it seems to me that John the Revelator and his
> audience were well aware of the fall of Jerusalem and
> the persecutions that the church endured in the
> succeeding decades.  I wonder, the vision in
> Revelation of the flight of the woman into the desert,
> could it be a remembrance of the flight of the
> Jerusalem Christians prior to the fall of Jerusalem?
> Jesus said, "Pray that your flight will not take place
> in winter or on the Sabbath. . .How dreadful it will
> be in those days for pregnant women and nursing
> mothers!"
>
> John the Revelator gives us a vision in Revelation 12
> that conflates Israel of the 12 tribes with the New
> Israel with the apostles.  That Woman brings forth the
> man-child caught up into heaven, and she later has
> offspring who keep the commandments and who continue
> to be pursued by the Dragon.
>
> Charles+