Divinity United

At the close of last semester, I had the privilege of reviewing Anathea Portier-Young's recent book, Apocalypse Against Empire: Theologies of Resistance in Early Judaism (Eerdmans, 2011) . The review will hopefully be coming out in the Review of Biblical Literature  within the next six months (see review here ). The book is well done and I recommend it for those interested in early Judaism and Jewish apocalypses, as well as those who work in the area of New Testament. The background that she provides on the Seleucid and Hasmonean periods is stellar. Portier-Young presents a solid argument that Daniel, the Book of Dreams, and the Apocalypse of Weeks were written as apocalypses against empire. She provides an in depth look at the Seleucid regime under Antiochus IV Epiphanes and the terror of his imperial rule. Portier-Young also gives a helpful reminder that the Maccabean revolt against the Seleucid empire is not the same as Jewish rejection of Hellenism. Her book is a valuable l...

There is a day long Conference in Uppsala entitled "Faces of Apocalyptics" . There are three papers and two are by John Collins and Adela Yarbro Collins. If Sweden were only closer... "Apocalyptics", by the way, is being used to refer to "Apocalypticism". Another example of the slippery use of the terminology related to apocalypses.

John's Gospel and Intimations of Apocalyptic Colloquium sponsored by the School of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Bangor and the Bible Society begins tomorrow afternoon with a paper by John Ashton entitled 'John and Intimations of Apocalyptic: Looking Back and Looking Forward'. The colloquium as a whole will be exploring the ways in which the Gospel of John reveals connections with apocalyptic literature and apocalypticism. This relationship has been argued by Ashton in Understanding the Fourth Gospel (2nd ed.; OUP, 2007), but not many scholars have undertaken a serious examination of the connection. Highlights of the programme for me include the papers by John Ashton, Judith Lieu, April DeConick, Jorg Frey, Christopher Rowland, and Loren Stuckenbruck. It looks to be an interesting few days.

The Book of Jubilees is included in the list of Jewish apocalypses by John Collins in his Apocalyptic Imagination (also in his 1979 article in Semeia ). I am not sure that any would dispute its inclusion; however, the inclusion of Jubilees does seem to stretch the genre. The book does not include visionary or ascent experiences that most would expect of an apocalypse. The content of Jubilees is primarily the retelling of Israel's history from creation to Moses. This retelling (or rewritten scripture as it is often called) contains a heavy emphasis on keeping the law. We then must ask: What makes Jubilees an apocalypse? Jubilees can be considered an apocalypse because of the the framework in which the retelling occurs. The text begins with Moses' ascent up Mount Sinai where God tells him to write what he is told. The rest of Jubilees reports God's revelation to Moses. As far as the definition of 'apocalypse' is concerned, we find in Jubilees revelation mediated ...

Reading through the Jewish apocalypses again, I have found the definition of apocalypse given by the SBL Genre Group back in 1979 to be entirely appropriate. John Collins has been one of the main proponents of this definition, which states that an apocalypse is "a genre of revelatory literature with a narrative framework, in which a revelation is mediated by an otherworldly being to a human recipient, disclosing a transcendent reality which is both temporal, insofar as it envisages eschatological salvation, and spatial insofar as it involves another, supernatural world" (Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to Jewish Literature , 2nd ed. 1998, p. 5).        There have been a number of suggested additions to the definition, but this is the essential starting point for any discussion of "apocalypse" and therefore also of the adjective "apocalyptic".