Is the 144,000 persons mentioned in Rev 7:4-8 literal or symbolic

by trem 59 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  Legolas

  Welcome to the board!

  It is symbolic!
• 

  stevenyc

  who ever wrote Revelation was either inspired through some schizophrenia, on drugs, or a little of both with a whole bundle of mysticism and myth thrown in. The whole book is a numbers game. Math has played an important role in mystic writing and religions throughout history. Go to magnificent cathedrles, mosques, eastern temples, or myan relics, and you'll see the numbers game.

  Some of the obvious ones are 3, 7, and 12. How many time have you seen these numbers in the bible?

  steve
• 

  Cygnus

  One explanation I've heard of guesses that the "hear and then see" motif of Revelation applies to chapter 7. The angel speaks and John "hears" the number of those sealed, then he "sees" the great crowd standing in front of the throne. They are one in the same.

  The two tribes are replaced because they ended up proving unfaithful.

  Can't remember any more than that. Don't really want to either.
• 

  googlemagoogle

  Some of the obvious ones are 3, 7, and 12. How many time have you seen these numbers in the bible?
  
  or in fairy tales by brothers grimm... 7 dwarfs, striking 7 flies at once, 3 little pigs, 3 bears, 7 mile boots, 12 apostles.. wait. that was not brothers grimm...
• 

  AuldSoul

  Focusing on the tribes is what throws people off the scent. The 12 instances of 12,000 add up to 144,000. Since Jehovah's Witnesses teach that the 12 12,000s are symbolic, how could their sum be literal?

  AuldSoul
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  Legolas

  My vote is that he was stoned!
• 

  Nate Merit

  In a book brimming over with truly bizarre imagery and symbolism, you ask if 144,000 is literal or symbolic. Let me see...hmmm...is the Great Whore literal or symbolic? How about the four riders? How about the monster?
  
  Since the number is actually 144 thousands (plural)+, check it out in your Kingdom Linear), I'd say that's a further reinforcement of its symbolic nature.
  
  Nate
  
  

  Be courteous, kind and forgiving,
  Be gentle and peaceful each day,
  Be warm and human and grateful,
  And have a good thing to say.

  Be thoughtful and trustful and childlike,
  Be witty and happy and wise,
  Be honest and love all your neighbours,
  Be obsequious, purple, and clairvoyant.

  Be pompous, obese, and eat cactus,
  Be dull, and boring, and omnipresent,
  Criticize things you don’t know about,
  Be oblong and have your knees removed.

  Be tasteless, rude, and offensive,
  Live in a swamp and be three dimensional,
  Put a live chicken in your underwear,
  Get all excited and go to a yawning festival.

  O.K. everybody!

  Be courteous, kind and forgiving,
  Be gentle and peaceful each day,
  Be warm and human and grateful,
  And have a good thing to say.

  Be thoughtful and trustful and childlike,
  (O.K. everybody on this!)
  Be witty and happy and wise,
  Be honest and love all your neighbours,
  Be obsequious, purple, and clairvoyant.
  (Let ‘em hear you outside!)

  Be pompous, obese, and eat cactus,
  (Everybody sing!)
  Be dull, and boring, and omnipresent,
  Criticize things you don’t know about,
  Be oblong and have your knees removed.

  (Ladies only)
  Be tasteless, rude, and offensive,
  (Now the men)
  Live in a swamp and be three-dimensional,
  (Everybody)
  Put a live chicken in your underwear,
  Go into a closet and suck eggs.

  — Steve Martin
• 

  Forscher

  The teaching that 144,ooo is a literal number is one of the few teachings of Russell the WTBTS still holds to. In my opinion they hold to it since their authority structure is bound up with it. Russell got around the question of the numbers of Christians since Pentecost 33 a.d. by teaching that "the great crowd" was a secondary heavenly class made up of those who couldn't quite make the grade. I tend to think more in terms of the number being symbolic. However, I am not certain.
  
  Forscher
• 

  Leolaia

  The context in ch. 7 shows that the 144,000 is the remnant of Christians on the earth at the time of God's judgment (imperiled by the divine woes that the angels are about to cast to the earth, whose sealing protects them from the woes, cf. ch. 9), while the "great crowd" is the total number of all Christians in heaven AFTER God executes his judgment and achieves victory. The whole "Bride of Christ" is assembled in heaven for the "marriage feast" later in Revelation, then God and the Bride come down to a "new earth" from heaven in ch. 20-21. Note that even before the sealing of the 144,000 is complete, there were martyred Christians already in heaven (ch. 6), who were waiting for their number to be completed. The enumeration of the 144,000 mimics OT military censuses; the image is of the 144,000 as God's army of Christians on the earth to testify to Jesus and become victorious over the Dragon and the Beast through their deaths. It is not the total number of Christians who have ever lived throughout history (or a "class" of them as the Society puts it), it is simply the total number of Christians on the earth at the time of the end (most probably symbolic) who receive divine protection from God's wrath.
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  Forscher

  Now that is interesting L. I disagree with you at times (for instance on the dating of Daniel, though I didn't voice that when that was part of a topic), but your theory makes sense.
  
  Forscher