it can be anything you want it to be – not so much with history – you can try and rewrite it – but you won’t get enough historians to agree with you – your interpretation of scripture can also  be anything you want it to be – so a literal interpretation is all you can really trust – as long as it makes sense – getting all the pieces to fit is also a necessary ingredient – the historicist cannot predict the future – he can only try to get historical events to fit a literal interpretation of what has been prophesied