Revelations is not a book of prophecy.

Pardon my debate etiquette or whatever formalities I may neglect due to my inexperience – this being my first "debate". Revelations is not a book of prophecy. I will be taking the Con/Against stance in this debate. I believe Revelations IS a book of prophecy in which its writings pertain to future events and their fulfillment. I just recently heard of the stance on the biblical book of Revelations that it is not a book of prophecy, that is, a book predicting (with authority) of future events to come. I do not know how prevalent this view is and I am very curious to see if anyone will pick this debate up. I am skeptical that there is such a view on the book of Revelations that can be held by any Bible-believing level-headed Christians. So if you can, prove me wrong. One spin I've heard from a friend's friend is that: "It is not a literal book." That I agree on. It is a very symbolic book. The book is arguably the most complex and difficult book to interpret of the books of the Christian bible. But as I understand it, it's being argued that it's not a literal book in the sense that it doesn't hold any legitimacy as a prophetic book. The reasons I believe it is a difficult book to interpret is that: 1) All books of the Bible must be interpreted with the author, time/date, to whom the book was written and cultural aspects understood and kept in mind. Most theologians seem to agree on these aspects though their nature can incorporate an element of ambiguity being that we were not actually there ourselves. 2) A great portion of the book is John's describing of the visions he received regarding the future. Why the book is difficult to interpret is because John had to use the best words of his language to describe things literally, almost, "out of this world". Not only that but things of the future, if it is indeed a prophetic book. What if John's visions had certain technologies (that may still even yet have to be invented) in them and he was trying to describe them? I think that is pretty likely. 3) God has a flair for creativity and seemingly chooses to hide stuff from us in a way. For example, Luke 10:21 says, "At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure." The heavy symbolism may be partly due to this aspect of God's character that he hides certain things from us. Certainly he will not hide these things from us forever and we will one day know as He knows, but for now we do not know fully and the book of Revelations exposes the pride of the "wise and learned" because they do not know yet and things are still hidden from them. http://www.biblegateway.com... Though it is a difficult book to understand and there is a lot of symbolism as well as things with ambiguous meaning, I still think the book is a legitimate prophetic book of the Bible. I take it for granted that this is the convention view of the book as well. It says directly in Revelations 1:1-3 that it is a prophecy. Rev. 1:3 "Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy…" I find that very difficult to side step. http://www.biblegateway.com... I am interested to see if anyone will take this debate. Please note that I'm no Revelations expert or theologian, but an inquiring mind to a foreign viewpoint.