cter that the moral and administrative content of the world in the period leading up to the millennium ought to assume; the character that the moral and administrative content of the world during the millennium will assume. From these issues, which intersect in various ways, a whole range of subsidiary issues also emerges. In general, however, amillennialists and premillennialists strongly disagree about the interpretation of the issues, with the former urging the spiritual symbology of biblical scriptures and the latter insisting on the acceptance of the scriptures as literal descriptions of things to come. The premillennialists seem divided into mediated versions of amillennialist spirituality vis a vis the literal acceptance of scriptural prophecies, but they are not widely divided in their declared expectation that the millennium will be characterized by something on the order of a Christian theocracy. Postmillennialists cannot be said to mediate between the two positions. Rather, the principal aspect of postmillennialism may be found in a historiography that shows a view of the world in which the kingdom of God is (or, sometimes, should be) from time to time made manifest.
The premillennial position on the millennium can be described as falling almost entirely within the conservative Christian interpretation of Rev. XX and other parts of the Old and New Testaments. To the degree that some premillennialists view the texts as symbolic or spiritual rather than literal and strictly temporal, they are felt by their colleagues to depart from the correct interpretation of scripture. For example, Battle (116 17) says that the correct premillennial view of Rom. IX on the question of the conversion of Israel, or the time coming to pass when those who had been children of God (the Jews) and who then had been declared not to be children of God because they lived more by the law than by (Christian) faith, is a prophecy of something that...