The Apocalypse
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The Apocalypse A Brief History Martha Himmelfarb A John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., Publication 9781405113465_1_pretoc.indd iii 10/7/2009 4:16:10 PM This edition first published 2010 © 2010 Martha Himmelfarb Blackwell Publishing was acquired by John Wiley & Sons in February 2007. Blackwell’s publishing program has been merged with Wiley’s global Scientific, Technical, and Medical business to form Wiley-Blackwell. Registered Office John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, United Kingdom Editorial Offices 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148-5020, USA 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK For details of our global editorial offices, for customer services, and for informa- tion about how to apply for permission to reuse the copyright material in this book please see our website at www.wiley.com/wiley-blackwell. The right of Martha Himmelfarb to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechan- ical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, without the prior permission of the publisher. Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book are trade names, service marks, trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publisher is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold on the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Himmelfarb, Martha, 1952– The apocalypse : a brief history / Martha Himmelfarb. P. cm. – (Blackwell brief histories of religion series) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4051-1346-5 (hardcover : alk. paper) – ISBN 978-1-4051-1347-2 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Apocalyptic literature–History and criticism. I. Title. BL501.H55 2010 220¢.046–dc22 2009030164 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Set in 10/12.5pt Meridien by SPi Publisher Services, Pondicherry, India Printed in Singapore 01 2010 9781405113465_1_pretoc.indd iv 10/7/2009 4:16:11 PM For Steve, Asher, Margaret and Ben-Aviv, Ruth, and Abigail blessing doubled and redoubled 9781405113465_1_pretoc.indd v 10/7/2009 4:16:11 PM 9781405113465_1_pretoc.indd vi 10/7/2009 4:16:11 PM Contents Acknowledgments viii Chronology ix 1 Revelation in the Age of the Torah 1 2 The Book of the Watchers and Ascent to Heaven 15 3 The Book of Daniel and the Kingdom of the Holy Ones 31 4 The Heavenly Messiah 49 5 The Heavenly Temple, the Fate of Souls after Death, and Cosmology 75 6 Tours of Paradise and Hell and the Hekhalot Texts 97 7 Eschatology in the Byzantine Empire 117 8 Apocalyptic Movements in the Modern Era 137 Further Reading 161 Index 167 9781405113465_2_toc.indd vii 10/7/2009 5:16:46 PM Acknowledgments Quotations of biblical books and 4 Ezra, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Revised Standard Version Translation, Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1952 (2nd edition, 1971) by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Quotations of all portions of 1 Enoch are taken from George W. E. Nickelsburg and James C. VanderKam, 1 Enoch: A New Translation (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2004). © 2004 by Augsburg Fortress. Reprinted with permission from the publisher. Quotations of 2 Enoch, the Apocalypse of Abraham, the Apo- calypse of Zephaniah (the Anonymous Apocalypse), and the Ascen- sion of Isaiah are taken from H. F. D Sparks, ed., The Apocryphal Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984). The quotation of the Apocalypse of Peter is taken from Wilhelm Schneemelcher, ed., New Testament Apocrypha, Revised Edition of the Collection Initiated by Edgar Hennecke, vol. 2, trans. R. McL. Wilson (Cambridge: James C. Clarke; Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox, 1992). Citations of the hekhalot texts refer to Peter Schäfer with Margarete Schlüter and Hans Georg von Mutius, Synopse zur Hekhalot-Literatur (Tübingen: Mohr [Siebeck], 1981). The texts in this source are in Hebrew; translations are my own. 9781405113465_3_posttoc.indd viii 10/8/2009 2:51:16 PM Chronology Kingdom of Judah 622 BCE “Finding” and public reading of Deuteronomy 586 BCE Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem, destruction of First Temple; Babylonian Exile begins Persian Period 539–538 BCE Cyrus of Persia topples Babylonian empire, issues decree permitting exiled Judeans to return home and rebuild Temple 515 BCE Second Temple dedicated 458 BCE Ezra in Jerusalem 445 BCE Nehemiah in Jerusalem Hellenistic Period 332 BCE Alexander the Great conquers Judea Book of the Watchers (early third century) 200 BCE Seleucids take Judea from Ptolemies 167–163 BCE Persecution of Antiochus and Maccabean Revolt Daniel 9781405113465_3_posttoc.indd ix 10/8/2009 2:51:16 PM Judea Independent 152–63 BCE Roman Period 63 BCE Pompey takes Jerusalem Parables of Enoch (second half of the first century BCE?) 37–34 BCE Herod the Great Early 30s CE John the Baptist, Jesus 2 Enoch (before the destruction of the Second Temple?) Revelation (just before or shortly after the destruction of the Temple) 70 CE Destruction of the Second Temple 4 Ezra, 2 Baruch, 3 Baruch, Apocalypse of Abraham (late first/early second century CE) Ascension of Isaiah, Apocalypse of Peter (early second century) 132–35 CE Bar Kokhba revolt Rome as Christian Empire 313 CE Edict of Toleration makes Christianity legal Apocalypse of Paul (late fourth or early fifth century CE) 614 CE Persian conquest of Jerusalem Sefer Zerubbabel, Sefer Eliyyahu (before the Muslim conquest) 628 CE Christian rule restored in Jerusalem 638 CE Muslim conquest Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius (late seventh century) Hekhalot texts (seventh century on?) x Chronology 9781405113465_3_posttoc.indd x 10/8/2009 2:51:16 PM Chapter 1 Revelation in the Age of the Torah The book of Revelation in the New Testament, which introduces itself as the “apokalypsis of Jesus Christ” (Rev. 1:1), was the first work to refer to itself as an apocalypse; indeed, “revelation” derives from the Latin revelatio, which is the standard translation for apokalypsis. For most people the term “apocalypse” summons up images of the cataclysmic end of the world, images that derive in large part from Revelation. But in Greek the term apokalypsis has nothing to do with the end of the world. Its basic meaning is “uncovering,” thus, more figuratively, “revelation.” The associa- tion with eschatology derives not from the meaning of the term but from the content of the book of Revelation and other related works. In scholarly usage the term “apocalypse” has come to be applied to Jewish and Christian works that share features of form and content with the book of Revelation whether or not the end of the world is their primary interest. Although many of these texts never use the term “apocalypse,” they present themselves as rev- elations to a great hero of the past mediated by an angel. The revelations typically take the form of symbolic visions of history, journeys through the heavens, or some combination of the two. The book of Revelation constitutes an exception to this descrip- tion because its author writes in his own name, and there are apocalypses that differ from the description in other ways as well, as we shall see. But despite the deviations it is clear that the authors of these works write in consciousness of earlier examples 9781405113465_4_001.indd 1 10/6/2009 10:28:00 AM of the genre. The interests characteristic of the corpus include not only the Last Judgment and cataclysmic end of the world but also reward and punishment after death, the heavenly temple, the divine throne room, and astronomical phenomena and other secrets of nature. The earliest of the apocalypses were written by Jews in the Second Temple period. The form was soon taken up by Christians, and Jews and Christians continued to write apoca- lypses through the Middle Ages. In the modern era the produc- tion of apocalypses has come to an end, but popular interest in them, and particularly in their predictions about the end of the world, continues. The understanding of apocalyptic literature as defined by escha- tological interests may derive from the book of Revelation, but it finds confirmation in the book of Daniel, the only apocalypse included in the Hebrew Bible. Until the mid-1970s Daniel, which scholars date to the time of the Maccabean Revolt in the 160s BCE, was believed to be the first apocalypse ever composed. Because they saw Daniel as the foundational work of the apoca- lyptic genre, scholars felt justified in treating eschatology as crucial to that genre. But in 1976 Józef Milik published several fragmentary manuscripts from the Dead Sea Scrolls that forced a reassessment of this view of the development of the apocalypses. The manuscripts contained portions of the Aramaic originals of most of the works included in 1 Enoch, a collection of five apoc- alypses attributed to a patriarch mentioned briefly in the book of Genesis (Gen.