1 The Preterist, or Contemporaneous-Historical School;

2 The Progressivist, or Continuous-Historical School;

3 The Futurist, or Future-Historical School;

4 The Symbolist, or Spiritual School.

The wide diversity of prevailing opinion is well indicated by the existence of four separate schools of interpreters, who represent as many different viewpoints that are currently attributed to the prophecy, and that are based upon two fundamentally different methods of regarding its purpose, viz. the Historical which specializes, and the Symbolical which idealizes the message of the book, conveniently referred to as the Historical and Symbolical Schools.