Corpus-Paul

[Jim West <jwest AT Highland.Net>]

At 12:27 PM 5/7/99 -0400, you wrote:
>Quoting from J.J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination, "an apocalypse is
>defined as 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."

Ah- your talking about apocalyptic LITERATURE, not movements.  I am talking
about movements.  There were a number of apocalyptic groups which merely
used the writings already in existence without penning their own.

>
>I think it is important to remember that apocalypse and apocalyptic refer to
>literary documents not to movements or to people. Paul's letters are not
>examples of apocalyptic even tho he mentions that he went to Heaven.

But that does not mean that Paul was not an apocalypticist.  It simply means
he did not write any apocalyptic!

>This has nothing to do with the belief that God would save the Jews from
>foreign oppressors. I think most everyone believed that.  The war against
>Rome would not have been started by Eleazar (the Sadducee) and supported by
>the majority of the populace if they did not believe that God would protect
>the temple and the city from Rome.  This belief is not what is meant by
>apocalyptic.

Sure it was.  The end comes and the kingdom is restored to its former glory
when the oppressors are done away with.  If this is not the goal of
apocalyptic literature what is?


Best,

Jim

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

Jim West, ThD
Petros Baptist Church- Pastor
Quartz Hill School of Theology- Adjunct Prof. of Bible

fax- 978-231-5986
email- jwest AT highland.net
web page-  http://web.infoave.net/~jwest