BoZ 04 Tom Bradford's Torah Class - Book of Zechariah Chapter 2 скачать в хорошем качестве

BoZ 04 Tom Bradford's Torah Class - Book of Zechariah Chapter 2

Zechariah asks the Interpreting Angel exactly what these horns are meant to represent, as opposed to asking “what is a horn?”. The Angel responds that the horns represent the powers that scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem. What this is to mean to us (that is, how is this to be interpreted) has never been fully agreed upon by academics. That is mainly because 1) indeed the interpreters are trying to find a precision match between the symbol and its meaning, and 2) the method they tend to go about interpreting it seems mostly concerned with Hebrew grammar and word etymology. This is certainly a needed discipline when studying the Bible. However, especially when it comes to study of the Old Testament Prophets, I have invariably found that one needs always to look first to the political, theological, and cultural context of the people and governments in that prophet’s era. As a comparison: it is difficult to apply similar metaphors and expressions commonly used in the Civil War, to literature and conversations of the 21st century. And, if one were to prophecy something in the Civil War era that would occur in the 21st century, what kind of symbols could possibly be used to get the message across? Thus, the best one can do in predicting the future is to use symbols that have meaning for the era in which the author wrote and the first readers read. Tom Bradford