I think those prophecies are better interpreted as describing the spirits that infect nations/organizations. By "spirits", I mean things like "pride" "greed" "lust" "wrath" etc, and a population so far influenced by malignant spirits and so far from righteousness becomes likened to a "whore of babylon" or likened to some description of a fell unnatural beast/monstrosity.
When it was written it probably was describing nations influenced by those spirits in the times that it was written -- but pride/greed/lust/wrath are not things isolated to one time or place, so history repeats itself. When you do the same things repetitively, the results are predictable.
The reason I think its better interpreted this way is because we can do something about it in that case. We can repent and get back to righteousness so that we are not a whore or beast as a nation.
Literal interpretations (to me) have been like a mind trap. There are more questions than answers there.
Isaiah is a good example of this. You can put your brain through hours of speculation on parallels between Chaldeans and the US, or other who's who research and it goes nowhere. I think it represents nations overtaken by bad spirits and speaks of the consequences those nations brought upon themselves. I think the interpretation was made to say God inflicted curses on people when really people inflicted those curses on themselves.
My view of this isn't perfect, but it is functional and pragmatic and that's the best I can do.
I think those prophecies are better interpreted as describing the spirits that infect nations/organizations. By "spirits", I mean things like "pride" "greed" "lust" "wrath" etc, and a population so far influenced by malignant spirits and so far from righteousness becomes likened to a "whore of babylon" or likened to some description of a fell unnatural beast/monstrosity.
When it was written it probably was describing nations influenced by those spirits in the times that it was written -- but pride/greed/lust/wrath are not things isolated to one time or place, so history repeats itself. When you do the same things repetitively, the results are predictable.
The reason I think its better interpreted this way is because we can do something about it in that case. We can repent and get back to righteousness so that we are not a whore or beast as a nation.
Literal interpretations (to me) have been like a mind trap. There are more questions than answers there.
Isaiah is a good example of this. You can put your brain through hours of speculation on parallels between Chaldeans and the US, or other who's who research and it goes nowhere. I think it represents nations overtaken by bad spirits and speaks of the consequences those nations brought upon themselves. I think the interpretation was made to say God inflicted curses on people when really people inflicted those curses on themselves.
My view of this isn't perfect, but it is functional and pragmatic and that's the best I can do.