Apocalypse: History and Key Facts

Apocalyptic literature (from Ancient Greek ἀποκάλυψις (apokálupsis) 'revelation, disclosure') is a literary genre originating in Judaism in the centuries following the Babylonian exile (597–587 BCE) but persisting in Christianity and Islam. In apocalypse, a supernatural being reveals cosmic mysteries or the past to a human intermediary. The means of mediation include dreams, visions and heavenly journeys, and they typically feature symbolic imagery drawn from the Jewish Bible, cosmological and (pessimistic) historical surveys, the division of time into periods, esoteric numerology, and claims of ecstasy and inspiration. It is "an unveiling or unfolding of things not previously known and which could not be known apart from the unveiling". Almost all are written under pseudonyms, claiming as author a venerated hero from previous centuries, as with the Book of Daniel, composed during the 2nd century BCE but bearing the name of the legendary Daniel from the 6th century BCE.

Eschatology (from Greek eschatos, last) concerns expectations of the end of the present age. Thus, apocalyptic eschatology is the application of the apocalyptic world-view to the end of the world, when God will bring judgment to the world and save his followers. An apocalypse will often contain much eschatological material like the epiphany of Paul the Apostle, but need not: the baptism of Jesus in Matthew's gospel, for example, can be considered apocalyptic in that the heavens open for the presence of a divine mediator (the dove representing the spirit of God) and a voice communicates supernatural information, but there is no eschatological element. In popular use apocalypse often means such a catastrophic end-times event, but in scholarly use the term is restricted to the visionary or revelatory event.

Scholars have identified examples of the genre ranging from the mid-2nd century BCE to the 2nd century CE, and examples are to be found in Persian and Greco-Roman literature as well as Jewish and Christian texts. The sole clear case in the Jewish Bible (Old Testament) is chapters 7–12 of the Book of Daniel, but there are many examples from non-canonical Jewish works; the Book of Revelation is the only apocalypse in the New Testament, but passages reflecting the genre are to be found in the gospels and in nearly all the genuine Pauline epistles. As a genre, apocalyptic literature details the authors' visions of the end times/end of the age as revealed by an angel or other heavenly messenger. The apocalyptic literature of Judaism and Christianity embraces a considerable period, from the centuries following the Babylonian exile down to the close of the Middle Ages.

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