Imagining the End: Visions of

vaticinia ex eventu

), and at least some of  them were produced in

order to support their creators’ views of  current political events. By grounding

contemporary events and the evaluation of  these events in prophecies from

ancient gods or kings, the writers were able to claim supernatural support for

their own views.

12

 The literary form of  these texts has reminded some scholars

of  the symbolic recitals of  history in apocalypses of  the sort found in Daniel,

and the possibility of  some literary influence on the biblical material is not

out of  the question. However, as Collins and others have noted, the function

of  the Mesopotamian texts seems rather different from that of  the Jewish and

Christian apocalypses, which also exhibit a greater variety of  literary forms.

13

Similarly, scholars have recently pointed to a particular genre of  Egyptian

texts as possible parallels to the biblical apocalypses. These texts, often called

‘prophecies’, all have roughly the same form, although they may not all have

been used in the same way. In a typical text the Egyptian king is treated to

a historical recital of  events, which may include prophecies and exhortations

to the king to reform his kingdom. ‘King Cheops and the Magicians’, for

example, features a sage named Dedi, who predicts the birth of  three kings

who will found a new dynasty, thus bringing to an end Cheops’s own royal

line. In the ‘Prophecies of  Neferti’ a priest describes in horrifying detail the

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65

The Biblical Roots of Apocalyptic

chaos that will descend on Egypt in the future. However, he also predicts the

coming of  a righteous king, who will restore order and bring justice and

peace to the land. This particular text was probably produced in the reign of

a usurper king, who used it to support his own governmental reforms. Finally,

there are several Egyptian texts from the Hellenistic Period (‘The Prophecy

of  the Lamb’, ‘The Oracle of  the Potter’ and ‘The Demotic Chronicle’)

which all talk about a time of  chaos in the land (presumably the Hellenistic

period itself ) and predict the overthrow of  foreign rulers and the restoration

of  native Egyptian power. These texts too remind scholars of  the historical

apocalypses in Daniel, which also end with the overthrow of  foreign rulers,

and it is quite possible that texts such as these were known in learned circles

in the Hellenistic world out of  which the biblical apocalypses came. However,

the parallels with the biblical material are rather general, and the functions

of  the texts seem to have been different, so most scholars today discount the

possibility of  major Egyptian influence.

14

With most scholars today tending to rule out the possibility of  direct

borrowing to account for the appearance of  apocalypticism in the Bible, the

question of  the roots of  the phenomenon has become more complex. In

assessing the current state of  scholarship on the issue, it will be helpful to

look again at the three aspects of  biblical apocalypticism that we treated

earlier. As far as apocalyptic religion is concerned, the comparative evidence

suggests that the phenomenon can arise independently in a number of  dif-

ferent cultures, so there is no need to invoke borrowing to account for the

appearance of  apocalypticism in the biblical world. Paul Hanson and others,

therefore, are certainly right in looking for the roots of  apocalypticism in the

first instance within the biblical traditions themselves.

15

 In the case of  the

New Testament examples, it is clear that Jewish apocalypticism, both inside

the Bible and outside of  it, exerted a major influence on Christian apoca-

lypticism. In the case of  the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible, a number of

features of  apocalyptic religion were already part of  Israel’s worldview. To

begin with, the idea of  a God who intervened in human affairs was already

deeply imbedded in Israelite belief, as was the concept of  the election of  the

nation or a smaller group within it as the people of  God. Furthermore,

the notion of  predicting future activities by God was already a part of  the

prophetic traditions, which often spoke of  divine acts of  judgment and

salvation. Israel’s prophets certainly spoke to contemporary situations in their

own time, but their words always implied or explicitly mentioned a future of

weal or woe, to be determined by their hearers’ responses to the prophets’

words. Such thinking about the future is an integral part of  even the earliest

of  Israel’s prophetic writings, which already look forward to a massive divine

judgment to take place on the ‘Day of  the Lord’ (Amos 



: 



–



; 



:

 

–



).

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66

Origins

Furthermore, even in these early texts the notion of  the cosmic character of

God’s actions is already present. Similarly, prophetic literature, at least in the

Isaiah tradition, recognized the necessity of  interpreting divine oracles over

and over again, not because the first interpretations were wrong, but because

the divine oracles themselves were thought to be capable of  more than a

single fulfilment (Isaiah 



–



). It is only a short step from thinking in this way

about prophecy to the world of  the apocalyptic writers, who believed that

divine messages said more than their surface meaning indicated and therefore

required a revealed interpretation to be understood (Daniel 



).

Turning to the question of  apocalyptic literature, influence from the sur-

rounding culture is not out of  the question, but in this case too certain literary

features that appear in the apocalypses are already found in Israelite tradition,

particularly in the prophetic traditions. As Hanson has demonstrated, certain

circles in Israel knew and used mythological images from the surrounding

Near Eastern culture, and the reappearance of  these images in apocalyptic

literature can therefore be treated as an internal Israelite development.

16

 In the

writings of  the prophet Ezekiel, the literary motif  of  visionary travel already

appears, as does the heavenly guide who explains what the prophet is unable

to understand (Ezekiel 



–



).

Finally, in the case of  apocalyptic eschatology, at least some of  the common

motifs are already available in the biblical traditions, although in this instance

outside influence may have played a greater role. The restoration of  the

Davidic kingship is already present in prophetic texts, including Ezekiel,

which may also speak, at least metaphorically, of  the resurrection of  the dead

(Ezekiel 



–



). Ideas about judgment and salvation are clearly present,

although the sense of  finality suggested in the apocalypses has not yet dev-

eloped. On the other hand, certain eschatological motifs seem to be in tension

with the general perspectives of  the biblical texts. In particular the notion of

a genuine dualism in heaven would be quite foreign to orthodox biblical

thought, even though the biblical writers knew about angelic figures of  various

sorts and even about a tempter figure (the satan [



Kings 



; Job 



–



]). In

brief, then, biblical apocalypticism is a complex phenomenon that develops in

the Hellenistic world, where it probably absorbs influences from the sur-

rounding culture. Many of  its roots, however, seem to lie within the biblical

tradition itself, and that should be the first place to look when trying to

understand later Jewish and Christian apocalypticism.

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I I

Judaism, Christianity and Islam

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69

4

Eschatological Dynamics and Utopian

Ideals in Early Judaism

John J. Collins

The idea of  a millennium, in the sense of  an eschatological or utopian ideal,

is derived from the Book of  Revelation, chapter 



. At the climax of  history,

after the Word of  God has appeared from heaven with a sharp sword issuing

from his mouth, we are told that the Devil and Satan will be confined in a

bottomless pit for a thousand years. At the same time, those who had been

put to death for their testimony to Jesus come to life, and reign with Christ

for a thousand years. At the end of  this period, Satan will be released, and

Gog and Magog will march on ‘the beloved city’ ( Jerusalem), only to be

consumed by fire from heaven. Then follows the general resurrection, final

judgment and new creation. The millennium proper, however, is the inter-

mediate period, while Satan is confined and the martyred dead are resurrected

for some special quality time with Jesus before the final denouement. This

period lasts a millennium; it is not said to come at the end of  a millennium.

The Book of  Revelation gives no reason to associate the Second Coming of

Christ with the passing of  a thousand years. The division of  history into

millennia had an important place in Persian apocalypticism, in compositions

like the