I’ve not done much reading on things apocalyptic, save for what I’ve read in commentaries on books of an apocalyptic nature. There are some titles out there that I would like to read to get a better handle on the subject, so I thought I’d ask all of you: what books/articles/monographs have been/are useful for you in this area?
Suggestions are appreciated!
Αυτω η δοξα,
Jason
Nick Norelli
/ March 28, 2010Christopher Rowland’s The Open Heaven: A Study of Apocalyptic in Judaism and Early Christianity (London: SPCK, 1982) is quite good.
Jason
/ March 28, 2010Nick: Thanks–I’ll add it to the list!
carl sweatman
/ March 29, 2010J.J. Collins, *The Apocalyptic Imagination* (1998) is a usable intro to the subject with helpful distinctions and things to watch out for; M. Bockmuehl, *Revelation and Mystery in Ancient Judaism and Pauline Christianity* (2009), which has a good treatment on the subject in the first third of the book (I think–it’s been a while); and, if you can get your hands on it, B. Matlock, *Unveiling the Apocalyptic Paul* (1998), which is more of a critique of modern scholarly discussions on apocalypticism in biblical studies.
Jason
/ March 29, 2010Carl: Thanks for the suggestions. In most bibliographies that appear in apocalyptic discussions I’ve read, Collins’ name often shows up more than once. I’ll look into his works.
Edward T. Babinski
/ March 30, 2010Have you read Dale C. Allison’s works (in one he dialogues with both Borg and Crossan, titled, The Apocalyptic Jesus: A Debate ). There is also a statement by Crossan in an issue of Bible Review sometimes in 2000 in which he admits that the apocalyptic Jesus view is indeed one that he has had to admit has more backing than he allowed in his Jesus quest books.
James D. G. Dunn has admitted in his historical Jesus books that Jesus was not only an apocalyptic prophet but wrong about his prediction of when the Son of Man would arrive.
See also the book, In God’s Time in which an Evangelical theologian studies first century apocalyptic and admits that Jesus definitely fit the bill of making apocalyptic-like predictions, even falsifiable ones, but that one should look not take prophecy of any sort in the Bible all that literally. (It’s a clear presentation of the rise of apocalyptic offered by one Evangelical to other Evangelicals, but Allison’s works are more detailed especially in his dialogue book above). Not only Allison, but a other theologians have new books this decade about apocalyptic in the N.T.
A new major work is from Edward Adams, The Stars Will Fall, a corrective to N.T. Wright’s works and denials of end times predictions in the N.T. One of Adams’ articles is also available online:
THE COMING OF THE SON OF MAN IN MARK’S GOSPEL
Edward Adams The Expository Times 121(4) 168–175, available online
http://www.tyndalehouse.com/tynbul/library/TynBull_2005_56_2_04_Adams_SonOfMan_Mark.pdf
EXCERPT FROM AN IMPORTANT FOOTNOTE IN THE ABOVE ARTICLE: In early Israelite hymns, God’s coming is a past intervention on behalf of his people (Deut. 33:2; Judg. 5:4-5). In OT prophecy, the coming of God is future. In early prophecy, it is connected (but not equated) with a political crisis on the immediate horizon (e.g. Isa. 19:1; Mic. 1:2-5). In Isa. 40:10, it is associated with deliverance from exile. In late prophecy, it is unambiguously a universal, final event (Isa. 66:15-16; Zech. 14:1-9). In subsequent Jewish texts, God’s advent is clearly envisioned as the final intervention and is associated with the last judgement (e.g. 1 Enoch 1:3-9; 91:7; 100:4; T.Mos. 10:1-10), the appearance of the kingdom (T.Mos. 10:1-10), the resurrection of the dead (Pseudo-Philo, Bib. Ant. 19:12-13) and the transformation of creation (Jub. 1:27-29). To a significant extent, the New Testament expectation of Jesus’ parousia is a christological specification of the Old Testament and Jewish hope of God’s end-time coming. As Matthew Black notes ‘[I]t is within this theophanic tradition that the New Testament Parousia expectation belongs.’ ‘The Maranatha invocation and Jude 14, 15 (1 Enoch 1:9)’, in Christ and Spirit in the New Testament: in Honour of Charles Francis Digby Moule, ed. B. Lindars & S. S. Smalley (Cambridge: CUP, 1973): 189-96, esp. 194.
Also…
Eschatology and exhortation in the Epistle to the Hebrews
By Scott D. Mackie
http://books.google.com/books?id=m98Au2mZpowC&lpg=PR5&ots=JdVg-LJhPl&dq=%22Edward%20Adams%22%20apocalyptic&lr=&pg=PA71#v=onepage&q=delay&f=false
Eschatology in Galatians: rethinking Paul’s response to the crisis in Galatia By Yon-Gyong Kwon
http://books.google.com/books?id=b8aWYXqmG00C&lpg=PR7&ots=wE-74yjHEv&dq=%22Edward%20Adams%22%20apocalyptic&lr=&pg=PA19#v=onepage&q=apocalyptic&f=false
Moreover, see this online dissertation:
THE HISTORICAL JESUS AND THE FINAL JUDGMENT SAYINGS IN Q–A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Notre Dame in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy
by Brian Han Gregg, B.A. M.Div. April 2005
http://etd.nd.edu/ETD-db/theses/available/etd-04122005-120750/unrestricted/GreggBDH042005.pdf
Also, check out my online paper, THE LOWDOWN ON GOD’S SHOWDOWN though it was composed before I learned about Allison, Dunn, and the other works mentioned above.
http://secweb.infidels.org/author77.html
The apocalyptic Jesus is tied in with cosmological beliefs at that time as other books demonstrate on my amazon lists:
http://amzn.com/w/1Z88CWX9UENVE
http://amzn.com/w/1R9SR6KOHHEKL
http://amzn.com/w/24H5USVKHA4ZK
Also keep an eye out for Dale C. Allison’s BIG book on the historical Jesus due out soon . . .