23 - Apocalyptic: the disclosure of heavenly knowledge

Summary

DEFINING APOCALYPTIC

Much of the material in the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha dealt with in chapter 12 in volume ii is concerned with what is referred to as apocalyptic. This is an aspect of Judaism over which there has been much dispute as to its interpretation and significance, and it is appropriate at this point in the history to attempt to assess it. This is not because, as has sometimes been erroneously asserted, apocalyptic became a spent force after the Roman period: it continued, and broke out with volcanic intensity in the Sabbatianism of the seventeenth century and is still alive. An assessment is necessary here for another reason. The increasingly dominant Rabbinic form of Judaism, which gained ascendancy after the collapse of the revolts against Rome in the first century, overshadowed apocalyptic, sometimes aggressively rejected it and often came to regard concentration upon it as a menace. Perhaps particularly under the vast influence of the great work of G. F. Moore, who had reacted against what he considered an over-concentration on apocalyptic to the neglect of Rabbinic sources, the view became common that, like Seventh Day Adventism, for example, within contemporary Christianity, apocalyptic belonged to the fringes of Judaism. As a result it was urged that apocalyptic materials should not be taken as representative of essential Judaism: this distinction was reserved for more strictly Rabbinic sources.

This view was contested by W. D. Davies and others who rejected any sharp distinction between Pharisaic or Rabbinic Judaism and apocalyptic. And in recent years there has been renewed interest in apocalyptic and in its place in Jewish and Christian theology.