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  • From: George Athas <gathas AT mail.usyd.edu.au>
  • To: C-PAUL <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Apocalyptic
  • Date: Fri, 14 May 1999 09:52:43 +1000


In addition to Jeff Peterson's comment, let me offer these comments:

We need to be careful about the terminology we use. "Apocalyptic" certainly
is a noun (as well as
an adjective). I believe Collins' definition of Apocalyptic Lit doesn't go
far enough -- or rather,
it is misfocused. Not all apocalyptic lit is eschatological. This is crucial.
As Jeff pointed out,
some apocalypses are just works of curiosity. They are attempts to understand
the world, the
universe, and how they work. Remember, there were no such things as science
textbooks back then.
Everyone came from a theistic, non-scientific worldview. Some apocalypses are
just the ancients'
attempts to write an astronomical treatise, coloured of course by their
various personal
ideologies.

So, we should here be talking about eschatology and eschatologicalism (boy,
what a mouthful! Try
saying that 5 times fast) - not apocalypticism.

Secondly, Josephus is probably not a good example on which to put solid
conclusions about how far
ranging eschatologicalism was in his day. Remember that Josephus is writing
for a noble Roman
audience and so he tries to put the Judaism(s) of his day in a good light.
Obviously, this would
not involve divulging that every Jew in Palestine thought that Rome and the
Romans sucked and that
they thought Yahweh or his Messiah was going to come along and teach them all
a good lesson with a
sword and big stick and then throw them all into the Abyss to burn eternally
in damnation while the
Jews ruled the world. As such, we should expect Josephus to downplay
(probably significantly!) the
spread of eschatological sentiment amongst Jews of his day. I think the
events he describes in the
first century smack of eschatological sentiment, though Josephus doesn't
spell it out for his Roman
patrons.

(PS - a little plug for my Apocalyptic webpage - an introductory essay, found
at
http://members.xoom.com/gathas/apocalyp.htm)

Best regards.
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GEORGE ATHAS
Dept of Semitic Studies,
University of Sydney
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Tel Dan Inscription Website has a new home at
http://members.xoom.com/gathas/teldan.htm
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