Interpreting the New Testament Text: Introduction to the Art and Science of Exegesis by Fanning Buist M

Author:Fanning, Buist M. [Fanning, Buist M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Good News Publishers
Published: 2006-10-31T00:00:00+00:00

10

Apocalyptic Genre

Visions and Symbols

W. HALL HARRIS III

Suppose an intelligent visitor from a distant planet, unfamiliar with the Bible or ancient Near Eastern culture, set out to read the Gospel of Mark or Paul’s letter to the Romans. Our otherworldly visitor would be able to understand without a great deal of difficulty the major thrust of the Gospel narrative or the main argument of the letter, though he would certainly not be able to resolve every detail. But if the same visitor were to begin reading the book of Revelation (aside from the letters to the seven churches in chapters 2–3), he would soon be reduced to asking, “What is this all about?” and “How am I to understand all these images?” These problems are not new, nor are they limited to hypothetical extraterrestrial visitors. The same questions have been asked for centuries by ordinary readers, would-be interpreters, and even biblical scholars. Apocalyptic material is perhaps the most difficult genre of literature in the NT to handle from an exegetical perspective. This is true for several reasons (explained further below), but first we must define what we mean by “apocalyptic” since not everyone agrees on a definition. The boundaries between apocalyptic, eschatological, and prophetic literature are also somewhat fuzzy, creating further problems for definition and for exegetical study.

10.1 Attempts to Define Apocalyptic as a Literary Genre

In its broadest sense, apocalyptic is a subset of narrative literature, but its revelatory nature marks it off from other types of narrative. The name itself derives from the Greek noun apokalypsis, meaning “making fully known” in the sense of “revelation, disclosure.”1 About twenty-five years ago, in the interest of defining the term “apocalyptic,” a study group led by John J. Collins under the auspices of the Society of Biblical Literature (part of the SBL Genres Project) worked through all the texts potentially classifiable as apocalypses dated between 250 BC and AD 250. The group then arrived at a definition that seemed to fit the existing literature, although the scope is admittedly broad and encompasses not only Jewish and early Christian works but Gnostic, Greek, Latin, and even Persian books. The resulting definition has become widely accepted as the standard definition of apocalyptic: “‘Apocalypse’ is a genre of revelatory literature with a narrative framework, in which a revelation is mediated by an other-worldly 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.”2 In simplest terms this could be expressed as “a story viewed through the lens of a heavenly perspective, looking toward the future resolution of cosmic conflict in the end times.”

Examined in more detail, the definition involves several key elements. First, apocalyptic is set in a narrative framework (as opposed to poetry, for example). Thus it reads like a story or narrative, and by implication could be expected to possess at least some of the common characteristics of narrative literature such as plot, structure, characterizations, etc. Second, apocalyptic involves an element of supernatural revelation.

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