Corpus-Paul

[Ronald Troxel <rltroxel AT facstaff.wisc.edu>]

Liz wrote:

>I understand apocalyptic in this discussion to refer to the possession of a
>secret knowledge. Is that correct?

This is a crucial question.  "Apocalyptic" is a class of literature
purporting to offer revelation of information otherwise inaccessible to
humans (predicated on strong cosmic dualism) that is discovered and/or
interpreted with the help of a heavenly guide, set within a narrative
framework.  There are cosmic apoclaypses (designed to show the internal
structure and workings of the world) and historical apocalypses (designed
to show the unfolding of history that will result in vindication of the
"righteous," which [not surprisingly] is always isomorphic with the author
and his group).  Apocalypses typically rest strongly on determinism, as
reflected (for example) in the various periodization schemes used in
historical apocalypses.

It becomes problematic to transfer this literary term, "apocalypse," to an
ideology.  Typically what people mean by "apocalyptic" is really
"eschatological":  the in-breaking of a new era, introduced by God, that
realizes human and divine ideals.  This certainly is not "secret
knowledge," as such.  Even in apocalyptic literature the stress is not on
the secrecy of the information (even though Daniel is instructed to "seal
up the vision, because it refers to many days from now" [8.26] as part of
the conceit of ex eventu prophecy and pseudonomy), but on what has been
disclosed, whether about the structure of the world or the unfolding of
history.

By far the best work on this topic has been done by J. Collins.  See
especially his essay, "Towards the Morphology of a Genre" in Semeia 14.

Ron Troxel

Ronald L. Troxel, Ph.D.
Department of Hebrew and Semitic Studies
1340 Van Hise Hall
1220 Linden Dr.
Madison, WI 53706