With all respect, I think you’ve contradicting yourself here Alex, and are reading the Bible inconsistently according to your own ‘best practice’.
You’ve just conceded that you read a literal meaning from the saying of both Isaiah 65:19 and Isaiah 65:25, even though, as you’ve conceded, the verses contain apocalyptic elements that you don’t interpret literalistically.
In your words regarding Isaiah 65:19, “mourning WILL cease” in regard to all things (literal interpretation), even though you don’t take that this will actually occur in the actual city of Jerusalem literalistically. Again, in your own words regarding Isaiah 65:25, “there will definitely be complete peace everywhere” (literal interpretation), even though you don’t take that this will occur by wolves actually grazing grass with lambs on mount Zion itself literalistically.
But about Isaiah 66:24 and Mark 9:48 you’ve said “This passage is full of hyperbole … and imagery … so why should I see the “worm does not die” as [literal]?”
This is of course completely inconsistent not only to what you’ve said here about other verses, but to how I note you read the Bible usually, as I do. There is always a literal meaning for us (hermeneutics). You cannot dismiss it by avoiding a literal interpretation. But you seem to be content to ‘break the rules’ of reading here, in this circumstance, which seems like a blind-spot exception your making in this case, whether aware of it and doing it deliberately, or actually unaware of how inconsistent your reading here is in contrast to what you know to be otherwise ‘best practice’ reading.
But whether you like it or not it does have a literal meaning for us. The question what is it.
Now you have commented on what you ‘think the meaning’ might be. But before we go to the meaning for us (hermeneutics), you need to first work out what is the meaning to Isaiah and the hearers (Exegesis).
And before you work out the exegesis, you need to read the actual immediate text (comprehension). And before that for us comes translation.
So let’s just go back to the beginning of all this (comprehension):
- What do you read as the actual immediate meaning of the text, “their worm shall not die?” (You need to do that first, comprehension, before you can move on to the second step, which is, Consequently what was Isaiah’s intended message to his hearers, the recipients whose understanding came from comprehending that sentence in context of the passage).
(And also for clarity can I ask, can you confirm that you do not entertain the notion, contrary to Isaiah, that their worm MIGHT or WOULD in fact die, despite this prophecy?)
- And what do you read as the actual immediate meaning of the text, “their fire shall not be quenched?” (Let’s get this far first, comprehension, before we move to second step, exegesis, which in turn precedes hermeneutics).
(And also for my own clarity, can you confirm that you do not entertain the notion, again contrary to what is written here, that their fires MIGHT or WOULD in fact be quenched, despite this prophecy?)