Apocalyptic literature

Apocalyptic literature was a new genre of prophetical writing that developed in post-Exilic Jewish culture and was popular among millennialist early Christians.

"Apocalypse" is from the Greek word for "revelation" which means "an unveiling or unfolding of things not previously known and which could not be known apart from the unveiling" (Goswiller 1987 p. 3). The poetry of the Book of Revelation that is traditionally ascribed to John is well known to many Christians who are otherwise unaware of the literary genre it represents.

The apocalyptic literature of Judaism and Christianity embraces a considerable period, from the centuries following the exile down to the close of the middle ages. In the present survey, we shall limit ourselves to the great formative periods in this literature—in Judaism from 200 B.C.E. to 100 C.E., and in Christianity from 50 to approximately 350 C.E.

Apocalyptic literature is written in symbolism, poetry, and imageries, as well as in an Old Testament prophecy style (Matt. 24-25; Mark 13; Luke 21; Rev. 1:2-4; 19:9; 22:7-19), all woven as a tapestry to describe literal events but with a twist, using language with symbols that are cataclysmic, words that are exaggerated, and metaphors that may be lost to a twenty-first century person. Such imagery is often used for God’s judgments and the end of days, and when emploted in narrative style, provides exaggeration for a purpose, such as in Daniel and most of Revelation. Apocalyptic writing is a more specific form of prophecy that warns us of future events, but the full meaning is hidden to us for the time being.

Metaphors are very evident in apocalyptic writing, such as when Jesus says he is the bread of life (John 6:35) does that mean we only find him in a bakery? Does it mean Jesus is a door, a light, a rock, hears sheep, or that he went to every city, or the Lord’s Supper is cannibalism (Matt. 5:14; 9:35, Luke 22:19; John 10:9, 11)? We may not always know the meanings now, but time will flush them out.

The transition from prophecy to apocalyptic literature

Apocalyptical elements (αποκαλυπτειν, to reveal something hidden) can be detected in the prophetical books of Joel and Zechariah, while Isaiah xxiv.-xxvii. and xxxiii. presents well-developed apocalypses. In the Book of Daniel we have a fully matured and classic example of this genre of literature.

The way, however, had in an especial degree been prepared for the apocalyptic type of thought and literature by Ezekiel, for with him the word of God had become identical with a written book (ii. 9-iii. 3) by the eating of which he learned the will of God, just as earlier writing conceived that the eating of the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden imparted spiritual understanding and self-consciousness. When the divine word is thus conceived as a written message, the sole office of the prophet is to communicate what has been written. Thus the human element is reduced, and the conception of prophecy becomes stenographic. And as the personal element disappears in the conception of the prophetic calling, so it tends to disappear in the prophetic view of history, and the future comes to be conceived not as the organic result of the present under the divine guidance, but as mechanically determined from the beginning in the counsels of God, and arranged under artificial categories of time. This is essentially the apocalyptic conception of history, and Ezekiel may be justly represented as in "certain essential aspects its founder in Israel.

Sources of apocalyptic literature

The origin of the apocalyptic genre is to be sought in unfulfilled prophecy and in traditional elements drawn from various sources.

Unfulfilled prophecy

The judgments predicted by the pre-exilic prophets had indeed been executed to the letter, but where were the promised glories of the renewed kingdom and Israel's unquestioned sovereignty over the nations of the earth? One such unfulfilled prophecy Ezekiel takes up and reinterprets in such a way as to show that its fulfilment is still to come. The prophets Jeremiah(iv.-vi.) and Zephaniah had foretold the invasion of Judah by a mighty people from the north. But as this northern foe had failed to appear Ezekiel re-edited this prophecy in a new form as a final assault of God and his hosts on Jerusalem, and thus established a permanent dogma in Jewish apocalyptic, which in due course passed over into Christian. Another alternative is that the invasion from the north predicted in Jeremiah 4:6; 6:1 was fulfilled in the subsequent invasion of Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon, since Jeremiah 25:9 suggests that northern armies would assist Nebuchadnezzar in his invasion of Judah. Other scholars suggest that a Scythian invasion that possibly occurred during that time was intended by Jeremiah, though this seems unlikely. Thus, the Battle of Gog and Magog prophesied in Ezekiel 38-39 could be a quite different invasion altogether.

But the non-fulfillment of prophecies relating to this or that individual event or people served to popularize the methods of apocalyptic in a very slight degree in comparison with the non-fulfilment of the greatest of all prophecies—the advent of the Messianic kingdom. Thus, though Jeremiah had promised that after 70 years Israel should be restored to their own, and then enjoy the blessings of the Messianic kingdom under the Messianic king, this period passed by and things remained as of old. On the other hand, some scholars believe that the Messianic kingdom was not necessarily predicted to occur at the end of the 70 years of the Babylonian exile, but at some unspecified time in the future. The only thing for certain that was predicted is the return of the Jews to their land, which occurred when Cyrus the Persian conquered Babylon in c. 539 B.C.E. Thus, the fulfillment of the Messianic kingdom remained in the future for the Jews.

Haggai and Zechariah explained the delay by the failure of Judah to rebuild the temple, and so generation after generation the hope of the kingdom persisted, sustained most probably by ever-fresh reinterpretations of ancient prophecy, till in the first half of the 2nd century the delay is explained in the Books of Daniel and Enoch as due not to man's shortcomings but to the counsels of God. Regarding the 70 years of exile predicted by Jeremiah in Jeremiah 29:10, the Jews were first exiled in the year 605 B.C.E. in the reign of King Jehoiakim, and were allowed to return to their land in c. 536 B.C.E. when King Cyrus conquered Babylon. This time period was approximately 70 years, as prophesied by Jeremiah.

But some people claim that the 70 years of Jeremiah were later interpreted by the angel in Daniel as 70 weeks of years, of which 69 1/2 have already expired, while the writer of Enoch interprets the 70 years of Jeremiah as the 70 successive reigns of the 70 angelic patrons of the nations, which are to come to a close in his own generation. The Book of Enoch, however, was not considered as inspired Scripture by the Jews, so that any failed prophecy in it is of no consequence to the Jewish faith.

The above periods came and passed by, and again the expectations of the Jews were disappointed. Presently the Greek empire of the East was overthrown by Rome, and in due course this new phenomenon, so full of meaning for the Jews, called forth a new interpretation of Daniel. The fourth and last empire which, according to Daniel vii. 10-25, was to be Greek, was now declared to be Roman by the Apocalypse of Baruch. (Again, these two books were not considered as inspired Scripture by the Jews, and thus were not authoritative on matters of prophecy.). Earlier in Daniel chapter 7, and also in chapter 2, however, the fourth and final world empire is actually Rome, since Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome were world empires which all clearly arrived in succession. This may mean that according to the Book of Daniel, Rome would be the last world power before the kingdom of God.

Once more such ideas as those of "the day of Yahweh" and the "new heavens and a new earth" were constantly re-edited by the Jewish people with fresh nuances in conformity with their new settings. Thus the inner development of Jewish apocalyptic was always conditioned by the historical experiences of the nation. But the prophecies found in Jewish Scriptures, which have not changed over time, await their fulfillment.

Traditions

Another source of apocalyptic was primitive mythological and cosmological traditions, in which the eye of the seer could see the secrets of the future no less surely than those of the past. Thus the six days of the world's creation, followed by a seventh of rest, were regarded as at once a history of the past and a forecasting of the future. As the world was made in six days its history would be accomplished in 6,000 years, since each day with God was as a 1,000 years and a 1,000 years as one day; and as the six days of creation were followed by one of rest, so the 6,000 years of the world's history would be followed by a rest of a 1,000 years. Of primitive mythological traditions we might mention the primeval serpent, leviathan, behemoth, while to ideas native to or familiar in apocalyptic belong those of the seven archangels, the angelic patrons of the nations, the mountain of God in the north, the garden of Eden.

Object and contents of apocalyptic literature

The object of this literature in general was to solve the difficulties connected with the righteousness of God and the suffering condition of his righteous servants on earth. The righteousness of God postulated according to the law the temporal prosperity of the righteous and the temporal prosperity of necessity; for as yet there was no promise of life or recompense beyond the grave. But this connexion was not found to obtain as a rule in life, and the difficulties arising from this conflict between promise and experience centered round the lot of the righteous as a community and the lot of the righteous man as an individual.

Old Testament prophecy had addressed itself to both these problems, though it was hardly conscious of the claims of this latter. It concerned itself essentially with the present, and with the future only as growing organically out of the present. It taught the absolute need of personal and national righteousness, and foretold the ultimate blessedness of the righteous nation on the present earth. But its views were not systematic and comprehensive in regard to the nations in general, while as regards the individual it held that God's service here was its own and adequate reward, and saw no need of postulating another world to set right the evils of this.

Later, with the growing claims of the individual and the acknowledgment of these in the religious and intellectual life, both problems, and especially the latter, pressed themselves irresistibly on the notice of religious thinkers, and made it impossible for any conception of the divine rule and righteousness to gain acceptance, which did not render adequate satisfaction to the claims of both problems. To render such satisfaction was the task undertaken by apocalyptic, as well as to vindicate the righteousness of God alike in respect of the individual and of the nation.

To justify their contention they sketched in outline the history of the world and mankind, the origin of evil and its course, and the final consummation of all things. Thus, they presented in fact a theodicy, a rudimentary philosophy of religion. The righteous as a nation should yet possess the earth, even in this world the faithful community should attain its rights in an eternal Messianic kingdom on earth, or else in temporary blessedness here and eternal blessedness hereafter. So far as regards the righteous community. It was, however, in regard to the destiny of the individual that apocalyptic rendered its chief service.

Though the individual might perish amid the disorders of this world, he would not fail, apocalyptic taught, to attain through resurrection the recompense that was his due in the Messianic kingdom or in heaven itself. Apocalyptic thus forms the indispensable preparation for the religion of the New Testament.

Apocalyptic literature as a genre

The formulas of apocalyptic literature are the marks of a literary form; for we cannot suppose that the writers experienced the voluminous and detailed visions we find in their books. On the other hand, the emotional value of the visions is to some extent guaranteed by the writer's intense earnestness and by his manifest belief in the divine origin of his message. But the difficulty of regarding the visions as actual experiences, or as in any sense actual, is intensified, when full account is taken of the artifices of the writer; for the major part of his visions consists of what is to him really past history dressed up in the guise of prediction. Moreover, the writer no doubt intended that his reader should take the accuracy of those events already accomplished to be a guarantee for the accuracy of that which was still unrealized. How, then, it may well be asked, can this be consistent with reality of visionary experience? Are we not obliged to assume that the visions are a literary invention and nothing more?

However we may explain the inconsistency, we are precluded by the moral earnestness of the writer from assuming the visions to be pure inventions. But the inconsistency has in part been explained by Gunkel, who has rightly emphasized that the writer did not freely invent his materials but derived them in the main from tradition, as he held that these mysterious traditions of his people were, if rightly expounded, forecasts of the time to come. Furthermore, the visionary who is found at most periods of great spiritual excitement was forced by the prejudice of his time, which refused to acknowledge any inspiration in the present, to ascribe his visionary experiences and reinterpretations of the mysterious traditions of his people to some heroic figure of the past.

Moreover, there will always be a difficulty in determining what belongs to his actual vision and what to the literary skill or free invention of the author, seeing that the visionary must be dependent on memory and past experience for the forms and much of the matter of the actual vision.

Apocalyptic literature as distinguished from prophecy

We have already dwelt on certain notable differences between apocalyptic and prophecy; but there are certain others that call for attention.

In the nature of its message

The message of the prophets was primarily a preaching of repentance and righteousness if the nation would escape judgment; the message of the apocalyptic writers was of patience and trust for that deliverance and reward were sure to come.

By its dualistic theology

Prophecy believes that this world is God's world and that in this world His goodness and truth will yet be vindicated. Hence the prophet prophesies of a definite future arising out of and organically connected with the present. The apocalyptic writer on the other hand despairs of the present, and directs his hopes absolutely to the future, to a new world standing in essential opposition to the present.

Here we have essentially a dualistic principle, which, though it can largely be accounted for by the interaction of certain inner tendencies and outward sorrowful experience on the part of Judaism, may ultimately be derived from Mazdean influences. This principle, which shows itself clearly at first in the conception that the various nations are under angelic rulers, who are in a greater or less degree in rebellion against God, as in Daniel and Enoch, grows in strength with each succeeding age, till at last Satan is conceived as "the ruler of this world" or "the god of this age".

Under the guidance of such a principle the writer naturally expected the world's culmination in evil to be the immediate precursor of God's intervention on behalf of the righteous, and every fresh growth in evil to be an additional sign that the time was at hand. The natural concomitant in conduct of such a belief is an uncompromising asceticism. He that would live to the next world must shun this. Visions are vouchsafed only to those who to prayer have added fasting.

By pseudonymous authorship

We have already touched on this characteristic of apocalyptic. The prophet stood in direct relations with his people; his prophecy was first spoken and afterwards written. The apocalyptic writer could obtain no hearing from his contemporaries, who held that, though God spoke in the past, "there was no more any prophet." This pessimism and want of faith limited and defined the form in which religious enthusiasm should manifest itself, and prescribed as a condition of successful effort the adoption of pseudonymous authorship. The apocalyptic writer, therefore, professedly addressed his book to future generations.

Generally directions as to the hiding and sealing of the book were given in the text in order to explain its publication so long after the date of its professed period. Moreover, there was a sense in which such books were not wholly pseudonymous. Their writers were students of ancient prophecy and apocalyptical tradition, and, though they might recast and reinterpret them, they could not regard them as their own inventions. Each fresh apocalypse would in the eyes of its writer be in some degree but a fresh edition of the traditions naturally attaching themselves to great names in Israel's past, and thus the books named respectively Enoch, Noah, Ezra would to some slight extent be not pseudonymous.

By its comprehensive and deterministic conception of history

Apocalyptic took an indefinitely wider view of the world's history than prophecy. Thus, whereas prophecy had to deal with temporary reverses at the hands of some heathen power, apocalyptic arose at a time when Israel had been subject for generations to the sway of one or other of the great world-powers. Hence to harmonize such difficulties with belief in God's righteousness, it had to take account of the rôle of such empires in the counsels of God, the rise, duration and downfall of each in turn, till finally the lordship of the world passed into the hands of Israel, or the final judgment arrived. These events belonged in the main to the past, but the writer represented them as still in the future, arranged under certain artificial categories of time definitely determined from the beginning in the counsels of God and revealed by Him to His servants the prophets. Determinism thus became a leading characteristic of Jewish apocalyptic, and its conception of history became severely mechanical.

Old Testament Era Apocalyptic Literature

Canonical books

• Isaiah xxiv-xxvii; xxxiii; xxxiv-xxxv
• possibly Jeremiah xxxiii 14-26?
• Ezekiel ii. 8; xxxviii-xxxix
• Joel iii. 9-17
• Zechariah xii—xiv
• Daniel

Non-Canonical Books

• Book of Noah. This is a lost work, known through fragments.
• 1 Enoch, or the Ethiopic Book of Enoch. This is the most important of all the apocryphal writings for the history of religious thought.
• Testaments of the XII Patriarchs. This book, in some respects, is the most important of Old Testament apocryphs, has only recently come into its own. Owing to Christian interpolations, it was taken to be a Christian apocryph, written originally in Greek in the second century C.E. Now it is acknowledged by Christian and Jewish scholars alike to have been written in Hebrew in the second century B.C.E. From Hebrew it was translated into Greek and from Greek into Amenian and Slavonic. The versions have come down in their entirety, and small portions of the Hebrew text have been recovered from later Jewish writings.

The Testaments were written about the same date as the Book of Jubilees. These two books form the only Apology in Jewish literature for the religious and civil hegemony of the Maccabees from the Pharisaic standpoint. To the Jewish interpolation of the first century B.C.E. (about 60-40), a large interest attaches; for these, like I Enoch xci.-civ. and the Psalms of Solomon, constitute an unmeasured attack on every office—prophetic, priestly, and kingly—administered by the Maccabees.

• Psalms of Solomon. These psalms, in all 18, enjoyed but small consideration in early times, for only six direct references to them are found in early literature. Their ascription to Solomon is due solely to the copyists or translators, for no such claim is made in any of the psalms. They protest against the Asmonaean house for usurping the throne of David, and laying violent hands on the high priesthood (xvii. 5, 6, 8), and proclaim the coming of the Messiah, the Son of David, who is to set all things right and establish the supremacy of Israel.
• The Assumption of Moses. This book was lost for many centuries till a large fragment of it was discovered by Antonio Maria Ceriani in 1861 (Monumenta Sacra, I. i. 55-64) from a palimpsest of the sixth century. Very little was known about the contents of this book prior to this discovery. The book was written between 4 B.C.E. and 7 C.E. As for the author, he was a Chasid of the ancient type, and glorifies the ideals which were cherished by the old Pharisaic party, but which were now being fast disowned in favor of a more active role in the political life of the nation. His object was to protest against the growing secularization of the Pharisaic party through its adoption of popular Messianic beliefs and political ideals.
• Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch. This apocalypse has survived only in the Syriac version. The Syriac is a translation from the Greek, and the Greek in turn from the Hebrew. The book treats of the Messiah and the Messianic kingdom, the woes of Israel in the past and the destruction of Jerusalem in the present, as well as of theological questions relating to original sin, free will, and works. The views expressed on several of these subjects are often conflicting. We must, therefore, assume a number of independent sources put together by an editor or else that the book is on the whole the work of one author who made use of independent writings but failed to blend them into one harmonious whole. In its present form the book was written soon after A.D. 70.
• 4 Ezra. This apocryph is variously named. In the first Arabic and Ethiopic versions it is called 1 Ezra; in some Latin MSS. and in the English authorized version it is 2 Ezra, and in the Armenian 3 Ezra. With the majority of the Latin MSS. we designate the book 4 Ezra. In its fullest form this apocryph consists of sixteen chapters, but i.-ii. and xv.-xvi. are of different authorship from each other and from the main work iii.-xiv. The book was written originally in Hebrew.
• Greek Apocalypse of Baruch. This book survives in two forms in Slavonic and Greek. The Slavonic is only of secondary value, as it is merely an abbreviated form of the Greek. Even the Greek cannot claim to be the original work, but only to be a recension of it; for, whereas Origen states that this apocalypse contained an account of the seven heavens, the existing Greek work describes only five, and the Slavonic only two. As the original, work presupposes 2 Enoch and the Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch (2 Baruch) and was known to Origen, an early Christian scholar, theologian, and one of the most distinguished of the early fathers of the Christian Church. It was written between A.D. 80 and 200, and nearer the earlier date than the later, as it would otherwise be hard to understand how it came to circulate among Christians.
• Apocalypse of Abraham. This book is of Jewish origin, but in part worked over by a Christian reviser. The first part treats of Abraham's conversion, and the second forms an. apocalyptic expansion of Gen. xv.
• Lost Apocalypses: Prayer of Joseph. The Prayer of Joseph is quoted by Origen as speaking and claiming to be "the first servant in God's presence," "the first-begotten of every creature animated by God," and declaring that the angel who wrestled with Jacob (and was identified by Christians with Christ) was only eighth in rank. The work was obviously anti-Christian.
• Book of Eldad and Modad. This book was written in the name of the two prophets mentioned in Num. xi. 26-29. It consisted, according to the Targ. Jon. on Num. xi. 26-20, mainly of prophecies on Magog's last attack on Israel.
• Apocalypse of Elijah.
• Apocalypse of Zephaniah. Apart from two of the lists, this work is known to us in its original form only through a citation in Clem. Alex. Strom. v. II, 77.
• 2 Enoch, or the Slavonic Enoch, or the Book of the Secrets of Enoch. This new fragment of the Enochic literature was recently brought to light through five MSS. discovered in Russia and Servia. The book in its present form was written before A.D. 70 in Greek by an orthodox Hellenistic Jew, who lived in Egypt.
• Oracles of Hystaspes.
• Testament of Job. Apocrypha Anecdota, ii. pp. lxxii.-cii., 104-137, holds that the book in its present form was written by a Christian Jew in Egypt on the basis of a Hebrew Midrash on Job in the second or third century.
• Testaments of the III Patriarchs. This work was written in Egypt, according to James, and survives also in Slavonic, Romanian, Ethiopic, and Arabic versions. It deals with Abraham's reluctance to die and the means by which his death was brought about. With the exception of chaps. x.-xi., it is really a legend and not an apocalypse.
• Sibylline Oracles. Of the books which have come down to us, the main part is Jewish, and was written at various dates, iii. 97-829, iv.-v. are decidedly of Jewish authorship, and probably xi.-xii., xiv. and parts of i.-ii. The oldest portions are in iii., and belong to the second century B.C.E.

New Testament Era Apocalyptic Literature

When we pass from Jewish literature to that of the New Testament, we enter into a new and larger atmosphere at once recalling and transcending what had been best in the prophetic periods of the past. Again the heavens had opened and the divine teaching come to mankind, no longer merely in books bearing the names of ancient patriarchs, but on the lips of living men, who had taken courage to appear in person as God's messengers before His people. But though Christianity was in spirit the descendant of ancient Jewish prophecy, it was no less truly the child of that Judaism which had expressed its highest aspirations and ideals in pseudepigraphic and apocalyptic literature. Hence we shall not be surprised to find that the two tendencies are fully represented in primitive Christianity, and, still more strange as it may appear, that New Testament apocalyptic found a more ready hearing amid the stress and storm of the 1st century than the prophetic side of Christianity, and that the type of the forerunner on the side of its declared asceticism appealed more readily to primitive Christianity than that of Him who came "eating and drinking," declaring both worlds good and both God's.

Early Christianity had thus naturally a special fondness for this class of literature. It was Christianity that preserved Jewish apocalyptic, when it was abandoned by Judaism as it sank into Rabbinism, and gave it a Christian character either by a forcible exegesis or by a systematic process of interpolation. Moreover, it cultivated this form of literature and made it the vehicle of its own ideas. Though apocalyptic served its purpose in the opening centuries of the Christian era, it must be confessed that in many of its aspects its office is transitory, as they belong not to the essence of Christian thought. When once it had taught men that the next world was God's world, though it did so at the cost of relinquishing the present to Satan, it had achieved its real task, and the time had come for it to quit the stage of history, when Christianity appeared as the heir of this true spiritual achievement. But Christianity was no less assuredly the heir of ancient prophecy, and thus as spiritual representative of what was true in prophecy and apocalyptic; its essential teaching was as that of its Founder that both worlds were of God and that both should be made God's.

Canonical apocryphal works include Apocalypse in Mark xiii, 2 Thessalonians ii, and ApocalypseRevelation). Non-Canonical apocryphal works include Greek Apocalypse of Peter, Coptic Apocalypse of Peter, Testament of Hezekiah, Testament of Abraham, Oracles of Hystaspes, Vision of Isaiah, Shepherd of Hermas, 5 Ezra, 6 Ezra, Christian Sibyllines, Apocalypses of Paul, Thomas, and Stephen, Apocalypse of Esdras, Apocalypse of Paul, Apocalypse of John, Arabic Apocalypse of Peter, Apocalypse of the Virgin, Apocalypse of Sedrach, Apocalypse of Daniel, Thee Revelations of Bartholomew, Questions of St Bartholomew, and the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius.

Perspectives on the apocalyptic

An apocalypse is a literary report of a fearful, often violent, vision that reveals truths about past, present, and future times in highly symbolic and poetical terms. The poet may represent himself as transported into a heavenly realm, or the vision may be unveiled— and even interpreted— by an angelic messenger. Apocalyptic exhortations are aimed at chastening and reforming their hearers with threats of punishment and rewards in the coming "end times." A brief apocalyptic vision is found in Gospel of Mark 13 is sometimes called the "Little Apocalypse" and parallel passages can be found in Matthew 24 and Luke 21.

Apocalyptic poetry concentrates the character that Northrop Frye has found in the Bible as a whole: "a series of ecstatic moments or points of expanding apprehension—this approach is in fact the assumption on which every selection of a text for a sermon is based" (Frye 1957 p 326).

In connection with a PBS documentary "Apocalypse!" Dr. L. Michael White said, "Apocalyptic thinking has been called "the child of prophecy in a new idiom." White drew attention to the new direction prophecy took after the Hebrews' return from the trauma of the "Babylonian captivity." Earlier prophets of Israel and Judah had spoken of the word of God, calling the children of Israel to their duty. The newer apocalyptic writings, in the aftermath of the destruction of Solomon's temple looked forward to coming divine retribution and made forecasts of the future that contrasted hope and despair.

The throne of David, itself, as it was not unshakeable as events had proved, took on metaphoric meanings. Early examples of the apocalyptic world-view can be found in the late additions made to Isaiah by the pseudepigraphical writer called the "Third Isaiah" (chapters 56 to 66), and in the collection of prophetic forecasts of this new kind that are collected as Ezekiel

The new cultural element included extreme and vivid polarized contrasts, a distinctly realized Satan in opposition to Yahweh, a city of Evil (Babylon) contrasted to the city of God (Jerusalem), the evil, corruption, and despair of the visible world contrasted with the blinding light of the world to come and often embodied in demons and dragons, elements deriving from Zoroastrian dualism. A new focus on eschatology, the End of All Things, was also foreign to the earlier Hebrew tradition. Some, though not all apocalyptic literature was messianic, predicting the imminent arrival of a savior—even in Essene writings, of more than one savior.

The overtly allegorical nature of this new literature inspired new allegorical readings, now applied to every kind of earlier statement, a detailed unravelling of texts, often to give results not originally foreseen, which influenced the development of techniques of exegesis for Jewish and Christian scholar alike and became a foundation of the medieval hermeneutics, which are still practiced today in some traditionalist circles, as "Biblical hermeneutics."

Among books of prophecy of this new kind, the Book of Daniel was accepted into the Hebrew Bible, among the "Writings," as the sense of a canonic literature developed in the Rabbinic tradition during the first centuries of the Common Era. Other apocalyptic literature did not make the cut: The Book of Enoch, some of which is older than Daniel (though it has received some Christian interpolations and editing in the versions that have survived) was never considered canonical by Jews or Christians, though it is quoted or paralleled dozens of times in the New Testament. Enoch has been called "an ecstatic elaboration" of the line in Genesis (v.22): "And Enoch walked with God three hundred years after he begat Methuselah."

The book of Jubilees (second century B.C.E.) also contains some apocalyptic poetry. The so-called Sibylline Oracles, which were assembled partly in Alexandria, are filled with pseudo-prophecy (vaticinium ex eventu, written after the fact) and threatening generalities; they bridge any apparent gap between late Jewish apocalyptic literature and early Christian writings in the genre.

Within the Christian tradition, the Apocalypse of Peter and The Shepherd of Hermas are examples of apocalyptic literature that devotees of Revelation would also enjoy, though their poetry never reaches the same intensity.

Apocalyptic literature has had a long history. Some aspects of apocalyptic visions can be found in the Kabbalah.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Chartsworth, James H. Apocalyptic Literature and Testaments, Anchor Bible, 1983. ISBN 978-0385096300
• Cook, Stephen L. The Apocalyptic Literature: Interpreting Biblical Texts, Abingdon Press, 2003. ISBN 978-0687051960
• Collins, John Joseph. The Apocalyptic Imagination: A Introduction to Jewish Apocalyptic Literature, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1998. ISBN 978-0802843715
• Goswiller, Richard. Revelation, Pacific Study Series, Melbourne, 1987.
• Reddish, Mitchell G. Apocalyptic Literature: A Reader, Hendrickson Publishers, 1995. ISBN 978-1565632103

External links

• L. Michael White, "Apocalyptic literature in Judaeism and early Christianity" Thorough historical introduction.
• Prof. Felix Just, S.J., offers definitions of apocalypse.
• David M. Williams, "The Book of Revelation as Jewish Apocalyptic Literature" Concise introduction to the genre.

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