Glossary

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Apocalyptic is a genre of Jewish and Christian literature. The word is derived from the title of the last book of the New Testament, Apocalypse, or Revelation to John (usually called simply Revelation). Its primary meaning is “unveiling.”

Apocalyptic literature regularly records visions in which the seer is shown things normally concealed from human sight, such as the secrets of outer space or, especially, of the near or more remote future. The seer is often, but not always, a named biblical figure of the past, who is given a vision of events future to his day but present or impending in the day of the actual author.

The term “apocalyptic” is sometimes used loosely as though it meant eschatological. But the two terms should be kept distinct. Apocalyptic, as has been said, is a form of literature; eschatology is the study of the “last things.”^a Eschatology is often the subject of apocalyptic literature, but not invariably so, and eschatology can be presented in factual, nonapocalyptic terms.

An even looser use of “apocalyptic” is in the general sense of disastrous, because much apocalyptic literature depicts cosmic disasters as presaging or accompanying the end of the world.

Apocalyptic displays the course of events, past or future, in terms of God working out his predetermined plan. Angels are God’s agents in accomplishing his plan or making it known, while demons are the agents of the hostile power which tries to frustrate the plan. The concept of two opposed cosmic powers, the “kingdoms” of good and evil, is a constant feature of apocalyptic literature. Ultimately, in these works, the power of evil is overthrown. Pagan empires, through which evil power exercises its control on earth, can endure only so long as God permits. His purpose cannot be thwarted; it must all be fulfilled.

Jewish apocalypses, written in Hebrew or Aramaic, occur from the second century B.C.E. to the late first century C.E.^b

The Apocalypse of Ezra was written not long before 100 C.E. in Hebrew or, possibly, Aramaic. However, it survived only in translations into Latin, Syriac and other Eastern languages. It relates a series of visions, ostensibly granted to the historical Ezra in the 30th year after the fall of the First Temple in 587 B.C.E. The visions reveal a sequence of events imagined by the author of the work as following the fall of the Second Temple, in 70 C.E.; these events would usher in a messianic reign of 400 years, after which would come the end of the current world, followed by the renewal of all things.

The only apocalyptic work included in the Hebrew Bible is the Book of Daniel, which looks forward to the establishment of the kingdom of the saints after the oppression of the Jews by Antiochus IV (175–164 B.C.E.), during the days of the Maccabees. The three centuries between that oppression and the Bar-Kokhba Revolt (132–135 C.E.) when the Romans defeated the Jews, mark the heyday of apocalyptic literature.

An important collection of apocalyptic writings, commonly called 1 Enoch, records visions purportedly granted to the antediluvian patriarch Enoch (seventh in the line from Adam to Noah), who was taken to heaven without dying.^c In the earliest of these writings, Enoch is transported through space to the prison house of the disobedient angels who were expelled from heaven when they were attracted by the beauty of mortal women (Genesis 6:1–4), in order to pronounce God’s judgment against them.

In another of these Enoch writings, the Parables of Enoch (1 Enoch 37–71), Enoch sees a heavenly figure called the Son of Man, who receives special authority from God. In the vision where the Son of Man first appears, God is called the Head of Days and is described in language derived from the portrait of the Ancient of Days in Daniel 7:9–14. The Son of Man—also called the Elect or the Anointed One (Messiah)—is judge of the wicked and vindicator of the righteous; his name was known to God before creation but is not otherwise divulged until the end of the Parables, when Enoch is told that, because of his righteousness, he himself is designated “that Son of Man” (1 Enoch 71:14).

In the one New Testament apocalypse, the Revelation to John (to be dated perhaps to about 69 C.E.), the seer is not from the ancient past (like Enoch) but is a contemporary prophet, John by name. Exiled on the isle of Patmos in the Aegean for preaching the gospel, John is taken to heaven and receives a succession of visions in which he sees Jesus, himself a victim of Roman imperialism (“the Lamb that was slain,” Revelation 5:6, 12:11, 13:8), conquering the persecuting power through the faithful testimony of his followers and establishing his reign of peace and glory. The visions are recorded in a scroll which the enthroned Jesus receives from God; Jesus sends an angel to deliver it to John, and John’s duty is to make its contents known to his fellow Christians—first to those in the province of Asia (Revelation 1:1–2, 9–11).

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Another Christian apocalypse, which hovered for several generations on the fringe of the New Testament, is a second-century work called Apocalypse of Peter. It included lurid pictures of the torments of lost souls in hell, which for many centuries influenced Christian art and literature, notably Dante’s Inferno.

Many apocalyptic visions depict world powers in the guise of animals. In Daniel 7:2–14, for example, the Babylonian empire and its three successors are portrayed respectively as a lion, a bear, a leopard and a monster more horrible than any known species, while the eternal kingdom of the saints is represented by a human figure. In Daniel 8:3–8, Alexander the Great’s overthrow of the Persian empire is portrayed as an irresistible assault by a he-goat on a ram. In 1 Enoch 90:9–19, the champion of the righteous (Judas Maccabeus) is a horned ram. In Revelation, the Roman empire appears as a seven-headed beast (a revival of Leviathan, a primeval monster mentioned in Psalm 74:14 and Isaiah 27:1), energized by the devil, a great red dragon (Revelation 17:3–18). The Christian Messiah, who, with his followers, conquers the beast, appears as a slaughtered lamb restored to life (Revelation 5:5–14).

Apocalyptic declined in the second century C.E. Among the Jews the Bar-Kokhba Revolt may have been seen as the disastrous fruit of hopes to which apocalyptic gave rise, thus creating a revulsion against it. Apocalyptic visions had already begun to take a more esoteric form in merkabah mysticism, a form of mysticism aimed at reproducing Ezekiel’s experience when he saw the merkabah, or chariot-throne, of God (Ezekiel 1:4–28). Among Christians certain features of apocalyptic developed along gnostic lines. The pictorial symbolism that characterizes much apocalyptic literature was used by the Gnostics to express conditions of human existence, which, according to them, must be redeemed from meaninglessness through the recovery of true knowledge (gnosis). By the second century C.E. the production of new apocalypses ended. From then until our own day, the canonical apocalypses, Daniel and Revelation, have been reinterpreted and reapplied to persons and events contemporary with the interpreter (or reinterpreter).

Apocalyptic is a genre of Jewish and Christian literature. The word is derived from the title of the last book of the New Testament, Apocalypse, or Revelation to John (usually called simply Revelation). Its primary meaning is “unveiling.”