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Some of the old timers here, like me, can remember a time when their grandparents were alive. Mine lived with our family when I was about 6-10 years old for my mother's side, and from around 19-23 for my father's side. My mother's parents were amazing by today's standard. He was a former supervisor at GM, throughout the great depression. He taught me things and was very smart. His vocabulary was extensive. Using words I never heard of. He was born around 1890 I believe. He was alert right up to his death in his 80's. I never saw him drink or smoke. My fathers, father, was interested in baseball. Every week he would receive a small publication of the game from the previous weeks. He knew the statistics of every player. His children would test him, and he always had the answer. He knew the "at bats", RBI's, everything. On hundreds of players. This was in the 60's and 70's. This was before television. He lived to be 94. Smoked occasional cigars until in his eighty's. I never saw him drink. I don't remember any of them taking any medicine. There was no Alzheimer's then. But today, we have videos converted from film, of life in the 1960's and 1970's . There are not many candid interviews of ordinary people back then, but enough that we can understand the culture. Ordinary people from this time were smarter and more knowledgeable than people in their age group today. Few ordinary people went to college in the 60's and 70's . Yet they had a great understanding of social dynamic, life skills and very different values. People were thin back then. The people have changed so much in my lifetime. They have changed so much in the last 50 years. There is even a big change in the last 10 years.

Kevin, appreciate your response. Please correct me if I am wrong in my assumption. Are the four steps you listed in your first paragraph, the hermeneutics of which “Historical” expositors have used in centuries past to produce the interpretation which “ Historicist” promote to this day, or are they rules that you think are appropriate for interpreting apocalyptic prophecy? I ask the question because I have not been able to find a standard set of hermeneutics used by “Historicists” through the past ages. The following quote taken from our SDA Bible Commentaries, vol 7, pg. 130 seems to support my conclusion. “IN Conclusion. Obviously, this discussion of the history of prophetic interpretation is brief all to brief to do full justice to the subject. It has not been possible to turn aside to consider those basic principles of interpretation that must serve as the criterion of the worth of the variant views of the Apocalypse that have been held by different expositors through the centuries. Nevertheless, the simple recital of those views, which reveals an ever-enlarging understanding of the meaning of the apocalyptic symbols of the Revelation, can prove of help in the interpretation …” This statement would be akin to a first grade teacher teaching on the subject of math. Class, when it comes to math, I am not going to bother teaching you the laws that govern math, addition, multiplication, subtraction and division, instead I will just teach you the answers to math problems. Any individual who desires to understand apocalyptic prophecy must first understand the hermeneutic or lack of any, (a private interpretation) on which that interpretation is built. In the quote from our commentaries, none is given, and I suspect their were none recognized or proven to be true based on fulfilled prophecy of the past. Instead it is stated a simple recital of those views prove of help in the interpretation of Revelation. But what is those view were never correct to start with. No concrete hermeneutics are given for one to prove, wether they are correct or not. Am I making sense here?

I just read that!! I loved that show!!