The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to Jewish Apocalyptic Literature (The Biblical Resource Series)

Rating:
Summary: A Great book for those interested in Second Temple Judaism
Review: I thought Collins did an excellent job at covering how Jewish eschatology came to be. He asserts that apocalypticism did not form in a vacuum, but was instead part of tradition of biblical prophetic and wisdom literature. Collins does good work also in including the apocryphal books of 1 Enoch and 2 Esdras.

Rating:
Summary: A Great book for those interested in Second Temple Judaism
Review: I thought Collins did an excellent job at covering how Jewish eschatology came to be. He asserts that apocalypticism did not form in a vacuum, but was instead part of tradition of biblical prophetic and wisdom literature. Collins does good work also in including the apocryphal books of 1 Enoch and 2 Esdras.

Rating:
Summary: Expanding Parameters
Review: John Collins is probably the foremost scholar on apocalyptic literature today. Quite rightly Collins begins his book with a definition of this genre. Apocalypticism is "revelatory liturature in a which a revelation is mediated by an otherworldly being to a human recipient." Is that all? No, there's more that Collins has in mind. This revelation discloses a transcendent reality which envisages eschatological salvation (temporal) and another supernatural world (spatial).

With this definition in mind, Collins excludes much which had been called apocalyptic literature. He excludes Akkadian literature and the more modern political apocalypticism (see
Zimbaro's _Enc of Apoc Lit_) and discounts Persian apocalypticism. Then Collins begins a survey of apocalypticism as he knows it, beginning with the Book of Enoch. The reader is then taken through the Book of Daniel and other 2nd Temple, Diaspora, and Qumran literature until one arrives at early Christianity.

Along the way, what had seemed to be the parameters of a well-defined genre of literature have expanded. When Collins begins to discuss Christian literature, it becomes apparent that that book which had lent its name to Collins' genre of literature was not a pure form of that genre. On page 269 Collins must concede that the Revelation of John is not just an apocalypse but revelation _and_ prophecy.

Collins concludes that apocalypticism was not just the work of one group or movement, but different groups during different situations aand time, and maybe there was no group or movement behind a particular piece of literature at all (p 281).

Rating:
Summary: Expanding Parameters
Review: John Collins is probably the foremost scholar on apocalyptic literature today. Quite rightly Collins begins his book with a definition of this genre. Apocalypticism is "revelatory liturature in a which a revelation is mediated by an otherworldly being to a human recipient." Is that all? No, there's more that Collins has in mind. This revelation discloses a transcendent reality which envisages eschatological salvation (temporal) and another supernatural world (spatial).

With this definition in mind, Collins excludes much which had been called apocalyptic literature. He excludes Akkadian literature and the more modern political apocalypticism (see
Zimbaro's _Enc of Apoc Lit_) and discounts Persian apocalypticism. Then Collins begins a survey of apocalypticism as he knows it, beginning with the Book of Enoch. The reader is then taken through the Book of Daniel and other 2nd Temple, Diaspora, and Qumran literature until one arrives at early Christianity.

Along the way, what had seemed to be the parameters of a well-defined genre of literature have expanded. When Collins begins to discuss Christian literature, it becomes apparent that that book which had lent its name to Collins' genre of literature was not a pure form of that genre. On page 269 Collins must concede that the Revelation of John is not just an apocalypse but revelation _and_ prophecy.

Collins concludes that apocalypticism was not just the work of one group or movement, but different groups during different situations aand time, and maybe there was no group or movement behind a particular piece of literature at all (p 281).