Yes, but by expounding on this one argument (again, using WTBTS argumentation) you’ve ignored the argument where I asked about the other numbers where the original texts use the same exact phrases In the original language.
As I said, you also have to explain, if that 1 number is literal, by what argumentation, if the entire text around it is not to taken literal do you say so. There is no indication in the entire book (not even the arbitrary chapter selection in the books) that 12 tribes of Israel having 12,000 people selected is any different than the then completed number. Simple math, keep your units: 12 (apples/figurative) x 12,000 (apples/figurative) = 144,000 (pears/literal?). This isn’t anything like the other scripture, the writer did not use different units like you claimed before (years and heads), the writer used the SAME units. He multiplies people with tribes, there is no 12x12,000 animals resulting in 144,000 people are saved, which would make your argument at least plausible.
Again:
- without secret knowledge from WTBTS FDS, where in the scripture do you get the division between literal figurative in what is basically the same sentence (it must be evident from the same text, not by personal revelation)
- without secret knowledge from WTBTS FDS, why does your seemingly arbitrary selection of literalism not apply to the other numbers (666 and 2M) that uses the exact same Greek phraseology, which literally translated means “number or to count”, later on in the same text. We know 666 was not literal, the text explicitly says so, yet the word for number used there is identical. The book of Revelation uses a ton of numbers, typically Greek fractions and whole numbers, for things the writer claims to literally see and do. He writes to a countable number 7 congregations (assuming this was literally written, since the early text does have 7 sections with specific exhortation for specific congregations), he ‘sees’ a countable 4 creatures, he sees a countable 4 horsemen, yet only in those 3 section does the writer remind us “to count/to number” as if to draw attention that the section with those numbers is some sort of special number (Kabbalah) and not a common/literal number. So why does John of Patmos tell us to count special and then why do you ignore his direction in this case only.
- without secret knowledge from WTBTS FDS, what application does this have before a great tribulation, since the text obviously indicates the selection of the number happens during or post a great tribulation, ostensibly from a larger group (the writer makes a split between those who survive and those who do not) which does not get to wash their robes in the blood of the lamb (they do not get to wash sin off, hence, by scriptural/Christian consistency, they never get saved - which is the phraseology I specifically used prior which was rejected in the first argument,without reference to text, they always will sin/die).