[davidsun]

Originally Posted by BigJohn

You must admit, if something was mistranslated and newer versions come out (in this case the NEW King James Bible), you would go with the improved version.

No I don't. 'Small' improvements don't matter to me - I 'get' (meaning I personally interpret) all the meaning I need from the KJ version which is poetically unparalleled, IMO.

Originally Posted by BigJohn

As for the Book of Revelation, that is a different story. Revelation is written in symbolism. Ask yourself, if there is to be a Paradise Restored, how would it come about? What happens with the ones that do not want to change?

IMO, the entire Biblical world-view, even Jesus's Father=>Son paradigm, 'symbolism' based - even the notion of 'Paradise' and/or its 'Restoration', which you seem to imply iare literally true, not metaphorical.

Here's my interpretation of what Jesus mean when he spoke of the next 'coming' of the 'Son of Man', for example:

Jesus’ prescient depiction of the next such ‘coming’ event, wherein those who are prepared to do so soulfully ‘wake up’ to the Whole Truth and therefore enter into and thereafter continue to consciously live in communion with the Totality of Life while others ‘fall’ by the wayside and get recyled (so to speak), to wit: “As the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. … they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.” (Matthew 24:27‑30), does not mean that he will then literally flash across the sky and be seen everywhere as he ‘gloriously’ orbits the planet in person. People who are emotionally invested in worshiping Jesus himself as a super-magical genie kind of God will undoubtedly regard the explanation that follows as being unacceptably heretical, but assuming you are not one such..., let me submit that the above-quoted statement only makes real sense if one interprets it metaphorically, with “heaven” being understood as referencing the realm of consciousness and (so) “the clouds” as referencing the particularities of ideological constellations, or philosophies, within it.

“The Son of man” alludes to the corpus of human apprehension, or ‘knowing’ (often spoken of as Cosmic Consciousness) pertaining to Life as a Whole; that is, to the entirety of the living system composed by and of our creative Source (i.e. God, ‘the Father’), All That Is (i.e., The Entity of Creation, ‘the Son’, a/k/a Christ), and everyone’s relationally interfused interaction(s) therewith and therein, as postulated and discussed hitherto herein. The “lightning” that shines “out of the east … even unto the west” analogically dramatizes the way in which powerfully functional thoughts, i.e. ‘knowings’, are psychically transmitted and received and (so) spread throughout our noosphere. The overall implication, of course, being that consciousness of what the words “I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you” (John 14:20) super-succinctly signify will illuminatingly permeate the thinking of holistically inclined people wherever they may be located all over the world.

Do you really think that 'the Father' and 'the Son' are literal references and not 'symbolic' representations. If so, you and I have nothing further to discuss. In that case, this is (literally now!) my last attempt at communication with you.