Because some of these anti-dispensational/ anti-pre-trib/ anti-futurism folks must rely on a non-literal interpretation of the Bible so that their incorrect eschatology won't seem to conflict with the Scriptures, they continually attack and ridicule those who believe that a literal interpretation of the Bible is the best approach.

We "literalists" are thought of as being ignorant simpletons-- by self professing fellow Christians, no less!

Some of them go so far as to misrepresent those who hold our position. We are said to be woefully ignorant of literary style. What idiot DOESN'T know that as a work of literature, the Bible contains allegory, similes, metaphors, hyperbole and so on?

Who DOESN'T know that to arrive at a proper understanding of a text, that we must take the culture-- both literary and otherwise-- of the author into account? To argue otherwise is a straw man.

It's odd that some believe that taking the Bible at face value is wrong. What IS wrong is making the Bible out to be some sort of esoteric, Gnostic-type work: we need to unlock and decipher all that supposed symoblism that masquerades as literalism so that we can find what God REALLY wanted us to know about the End Times and other topics! --Some in this camp (ironically) criticize others who believe in the "Bible Code" (I personally do not believe in the Bible Code myself).

But we are expected to believe that God is a 'Heavenly Trickster' who doesn't mean what He says when He says it. We are supposed to whip out our Sherlock Holmes magnifying glasses and sleuth around to "figure out" passages that anyone with any sense could tell are straight-forward to begin with.

No, no, they declare, God expects us to go through every prophecy in the Bible and match it up to historic events and then erect a "preterist archive of realized eschatology" on the internet. Or, we are to arrogantly think that *we* can usher in God's Kingdom here on this planet when it's more than clear that only Jesus Himself can do this.

Or let's all be anti-Semetic and egotistically assume that Gentile Christians of Calvinistic/Reformed bent have "replaced" God's chosen people the Jews-- after all, there are only two covenants --and, wink, wink, we all know the Jews blew the first one!

But where was I?

And yet another faulty argument I've encountered on anti-pre-trib/ anti-dispensational sites is that we 1.) are not always consistent with literal interpretaion and 2.) we are supposedly guilty of interpreting symbolic areas as being literal.

I believe it is a graver error (and far more dangerous) for an individual to distort literal passages by claiming that they are "symbolic" (thus making that area of Scripture actually meaningless and null and void, or subject to the presuppositions and personal whims of the person in question which leads to an incorrect understanding and false doctrine), than for a person to misidentify a symbolic verse as being literal.

Related to this is the misrepresentation (or perhaps only a misunderstanding) that pre-tribbers/ dispensationalists take the symbolic parts of Scripture and read them as being literal, and this in turn is sometimes used with an attitude of 'see-these-dispensationalist-people-really-are-"stoop-wads" and Bible-illiterates'.

I do wish that anti-pre-trib, anti-pre-mil, and anti-dispensationlists would come to the realization that figurative, symbolic language is *used to convey literal truths* (hence the reason why pre-trib/dispensationalists seek to find a "literal" meaning in the symbolic language in books such as Revelation and Daniel).

At any rate, their insistence on an allegorical approach of interpretation makes them sound eerily like those on the "Jesus Seminar" and other liberals who maintain that certain passages (which are obviously meant to be taken literally) are really only "symbolic".

The liberal scholars maintain, for instance, that the physical, bodily resurrection of Jesus never actually happened; the resurrection, they say, was only "symbolic," in that the Apostles held warm, fuzzy feelings about Jesus in their hearts, but nothing more; there were no post-crucifixion appearances of Jesus, they believe. Some of them, such as Crossan of the Jesus Seminar, state that Jesus' corpse was eaten by dogs.

In the end, these liberals discard a literal approach to the Bible, say that it is a collection of stories based on the wishful thinking of some deluded Jewish men, and so, after Jesus was crucified, He died and stayed dead-- both physically AND spiritually.

In light of all that, I was appalled to discover that some self professing Christians at anti-pre-trib/ anti-dispensational websites deny that Christ physcially rose from the dead-- they claim instead that His resurrection was only "spiritual." (I also find the full preterist view that Christ's Second Coming has already happened and that it happened only in a "spiritual" or "symbolic" sense to be equally disturbing.)

If you are a Christian who is also a non-literal type, I strongly urge you to read the articles about the Jesus Seminar at this page, because you do sound very much like these non-Christian men and women of the Jesus Seminar who are determined to make the Bible into nothing more than Aesop's Fables, a nice little collection of fairy tales.

This approach of non-literal interpretation in regards to prophecy is a slippery slope. Once we take passages of Scripture that are clearly meant to be taken literally and deem them as being symbolic, then it becomes a free for all.

One can take any portion of the Bible one wishes -- whether it be about prophecy or something else-- deny its true meaning, and make the Bible say whatever one wants it to say.

Be sure to read this page (and if the link to it is not working, please try this link instead) on interpretation, which contains excerpts from Pentecosts's The Things to Come and points out the problems with an allegorical take on the Bible. I was happy to see that the author of this page reached the same conclusion that I did.

If I take the passages about prophecies to be symbolic, then why should I take the passages about Christ's deity to be literal? And who decides which literal-sounding passages should be seen as allegory - and why should I trust that person's interpretation?

(And again: yes, I realize that books such as Revelation are of a different literary genre than other books of the Bible-- but I repeat: symbolism is used to convey LITERAL truths. However, literal passages remain literal, but some wish to make them "symbolic".)

Thanks to the symbolic approach of interpretation (and also to the adoption of the "limited inerrancy" view of Scriptures), we now have Christians who believe in theistic evolution, as well as the "Day Age" creation view, and all sorts of other nonsense.

I feel that many of these Christians who prescribe to these views are either too easily swayed by new and savvy intellectual-sounding philosophies and theories, or that they, in our modern-day world filled with naturalistic- evolutionary-theory-loving skeptics, are embarrassed by the obvious supernatural elements of Scripture. (Witness the Christians who attempt to find naturalistic explanations for the miracles and supernatural components in the Bible.)

I am tired, disgusted, sickened, and angered by all of these anti- non-literal interpretation views as espoused (or held) by self-professing Christians. It does make me pause and think (sorry, full preterists!): the Bible does say that those in the Last Days would turn away from the truth, deny it, and accept false teachings. When you jettison literal interpretation, you are opening yourself up to false teachings and you may begin teaching them yourself.