Paul and the Apocalyptic Imagination

by Ben C Blackwell

  Now, in what sense is the adjective “apocalyptic” meaningful if we attempt to describe specific characteristics of a shared worldview? In this connection, it makes sense to return to the connection between the term and the verb ἀποκαλύπτω, and take it as a point of departure. The verb, of course, means “to reveal” or “to uncover,” a notion that in itself is far too nebulous to describe what emerges in the Second Temple period as opposed to, for example, a number of writings in the Hebrew Bible. Taking Collins’s definition above into account—and therefore, having literary texts in view—we can propose that it signifies an outlook shaped by mediated knowledge of a hidden reality, whether spatial or temporal in character or both, that is ultimately attributed to God as the source.[7] As such, the expression serves to address the lack of parity between circumstances and piety, between what is seen and unseen, with a view to explaining why things are in fact not as they might seem or even should be.[8]

  Applied to Second Temple Judaism, it would refer to a complex, multidimensional worldview found in sources such as 1 Enoch, Jubilees, Daniel, 4 Ezra, 2 Baruch, and many texts among the Dead Sea Scrolls, in which socio-religious tensions and non-sequiturs were negotiated by appealing to a larger, yet apparently elusive reality, whether conceived in terms of the actual structure of the created order or to an eschatological reckoning at the final judgment. Applied to writings in the New Testament, it can refer meaningfully to how the purposes of the God of Israel can be thought to have been unveiled in the crucifixion of Jesus and its aftermath (“the Christ event”), through which time, space, and social relationships are reconfigured. To some extent, what is, in principle, claimed of the one (unveiling of an elusive reality or a reconfiguration thereof) can be applied to the other. The christological focus of New Testament texts, for example, does not at all dispense with eschatological judgment.

  But what may be thought to distinguish New Testament perspectives, or more specifically, Paul, from Jewish apocalyptic tradition? While not wishing to uncouple emerging early Christian thought entirely from Jewish tradition, some have invested Pauline theology with a notion of apocalyptic that, by implication, looks disparagingly at its non-Christian Jewish equivalent or accords it a certain functional irrelevance.[9] To some extent, this view proceeds straightforwardly from Paul’s own polemical statements directed at Jewish and Jewish Christian interlocutors in 2 Corinthians (11:5; 12:11), Philippians (3:2–11), Galatians (1:6–9; 2:4–5, 12–13: 3:1–5; 5:12), and Romans (2:17–29; 3:8; 9:1–5). However, what Paul was doing theologically to make room for his gospel is one thing, while it is another, though a related matter, to discern whether this remained within or broke away from notions of apocalyptic thought preserved for us from the Second Temple period.

  Some contributions have been and are being made in understanding Paul’s thought by taking into account sapiential and cosmological features of Jewish apocalyptic tradition. When it comes to Pauline theology, most comparisons involving apocalyptic thought have focused on or related to eschatology in some way.[10] Paul’s thought is seen to be both continuous with and distinct from Jewish “apocalyptic eschatology,” that is, as a way of construing history as it is coming to an end through a series of events that culminate in a final judgment and in the inauguration of an endless age of justice in a new created order.[11] Seen in this way, apocalyptic thought is, at its core, a conceptual way to resolve the problem of persistent, and indeed, overwhelming evil despite religious faithfulness. It is not surprising, then, that an understanding of time occupies a central place in such a scheme, especially as the ultimate resolution to evil is anticipated in a divine act in the future.

  Under this umbrella, Paul, though retaining a thought structure that once regards the present world as an “evil age” (Gal. 1:6), is seen to depart from Jewish apocalyptic thought in the claim that in the Christ event—that is, Jesus’ death and resurrection—the eschaton has, in an unprecedented way, already begun. One encounters this not infrequently in caricatures of Jewish apocalyptic schemes of the end time as “speculative” and absorbed by details surrounding the end of history,[12] whereas the best of the “Christian” message—whether it is Jesus proclaiming the nearness or dawn of God’s rule or Paul claiming that God has set something definitive in motion through Jesus’ death and resurrection—essentially leaves this behind. Such comparisons are dominated by a construction of apocalyptic thought in Judaism that is oriented around the future; by contrast, Pauline thought, though retaining the notion of eschatology from the Jewish tradition with which he was familiar, introduced something of a decisive act of God in the past, the recent past, through it offering hope that makes it possible for people to experience God’s salvific activity in the present.

  There is something to the claim that in the New Testament, convictions about Jesus bring a new dimension to contemporary schemes of apocalyptic thought, in which, for example, the notion of a messianic figure’s future coming could often, though not in all the literature, shape eschatological expectation. Does the claim, however, that the messiah has already come rearrange the way Jewish tradition could structure time in relation to the overcoming of evil? In order to address this question, it remains here to sketch out something of the complexity and theological possibilities opened up by a fresh look at selected Second Temple materials. As we shall see, if we focus on: (a) temporality in literature associated with apocalyptic thought, and on: (b) the function thereof among early recipients, there is reason to give a negative answer to the question just posed.

  Relativizing Temporal Dualism in Apocalyptic Thought

  A focus on time, especially eschatology, has dominated much of scholarship on apocalyptic literature during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The future was understood as the end of history when God’s purposes for the faithful would come to fruition and the evils of the present age would be eradicated. In support of this view of history, works such as Daniel, the Apocalypse of John, 4 Ezra, and 2 Baruch were given a privileged role. Salvific activity on the part of Israel’s God was largely a matter for the future; and, while there could be a smaller group of faithful in the present, the world order essentially remains in a state of hopelessness. In such an outlook, the function of the past in the literature was either overlooked, was seen to have helped writers in formulating a theological problem (as in 4 Ezra 3:4–36; 5:23–30; 6:38–59; 7:62–74, 116–131; 9:26–37), or received limited attention (see below). Such a portrait, which distinguished “apocalyptic” from “prophetic” eschatology,[13] served New Testament scholarship as a way to describe Jewish tradition, from which the Synoptic Gospels’ presentation of Jesus and Paul’s thought departed.[14] Thus, a largely static temporal dualism attributed to Jewish literature is thought to have been modified by Paul, for whom the death and resurrection of Jesus in the past has become the main event that separates the “old age” (Rom. 12:2; 1 Cor. 1:20; 2:6; cf. 1 Cor. 10:11; Gal. 1:4) from “the coming age” (cf. the early reception of Paul in Eph. 1:21).

  Scholarship has observed the shortcomings of a one-dimensional future orientation of Jewish apocalyptic thought. It is noted, for example, that the earliest recoverable apocalypses were not simply interested in eschatology; in some documents, interest is also, perhaps even primarily, directed toward an interest in the disclosure of knowledge, and with it, of the world order (1 Enoch 2–4, 21–36, and 72–82).[15] Understood along the lines of a disclosure of hidden reality not readily apparent, such a worldview could make certain sense for Paul when interpreting the advent of Jesus, including his death (cf., e.g., Rom. 3:21–26; 1 Cor. 1:18–2:16; Gal. 1:16; 2:19–21). Cosmology was not, however, unhinged from the notion of time: seen from a divine perspective, the cosmos—the way things are in the created order—was unveiled in relation to how it was originally created, how it shapes socio-religious life in the present, and what it is to become in the future (cf. 1 En. 72:1; 80:1–8).

  To be sure, sapiential and cosmological aspects in apocalyptic writings ha
ve enriched the way some have reflected theologically on the significance of the Christ-event. Due to the casual contrasts drawn between present and future reality, however, the function of temporality has not always been appreciated. I would like, therefore, to underscore the way apocalyptic literature considers the past, not so much to think of the past as remote, but of what the past as interpreted by a visionary or sage could mean for the present.

  In many ways, the importance of past events has been recognized. Obviously, the past would be re-presented in the “historical apocalypses,” such as the Apocalypse of Weeks and Animal Vision of 1 Enoch (respectively, 93:1–10 91:11–17 and 85:1–90:42; cf. also 4 Ezra 14), which find therein patterns of divine activity that not only shaped the unfolding story of Israel, but also have implications for interpreting the present and future. A look at the past, both remote and recent, identifies “open wounds” that have an impact on the present; indeed, certain problems that have loomed in the past and re-emerge in the present remain unresolved.[16]

  Another, even more influential way of understanding the temporal dimension of apocalyptic thought has been to recognize the correspondence found in some of the writings between primordial time (Urzeit) and final time at the end of history (Endzeit). This framework is placed in service of eschatology, which in turn, reflects a temporal dualism.[17] Here, various ideological snapshots of the primordial past furnish images, symbols, and motifs that helped apocalyptic writers and their audiences to imagine what the future age will be like. For example, a paradisiacal existence, once lost, will be restored (Rev. 2:7); a messianic “white bull” concludes a story that began with an Adamic “white bull” (Animal Apocalypse, 1 En. 85:3, 90:37; cf. Rom. 5:12–21); eschatological judgment draws on imagery from the Great Flood and, with it, Noah’s rescue from the cataclysm prefigures the salvation of God’s people (1 Enoch 10; 84; 91; 106–7).

  Now, these scholarly construals of time in apocalyptic texts may reflect on the past and future. But other than seeing that they offer hope and furnish the imagination with details on what to expect, they do not sufficiently come to terms with what some texts imply about the present. Within the framework of temporality, especially the sacred past, another emphasis has been neglected, not only by New Testament scholars, but even also by specialists in ancient Jewish apocalyptic literature.[18] In addition to helping to describe worsening conditions in the world and how God will someday bring about a new age, language that retold events from primordial time also provided audiences a basis for being confident about such an outcome in the present. Put in other words, God’s definitive activity is not only a matter for the future and the distant past. Rather, it connects the past to the future through the present: God’s invasive presence to defeat evil in the past (e.g., at the time of the Great Flood[19]), which can be manifested in the present through measures for curbing evil given to God’s people, guarantees its annihilation in the future (1 En. 10:16–22; 15:3–16:4; 91:5–10; 106:13–107:1; Jub. 5:1–10:11; cf. Book of Giants at 4Q530 2 ii 6–7 8–12, lines 4–20).

  As is well-known, for example, the Nephilim and mighty men in Gen. 6:4 were interpreted in several influential Jewish apocalyptic works as giant-sized offspring of disobedient angels and daughters of humanity, whose destructive activities led to a crisis in which God intervened to destroy their bodies, punish the angels, and ensure the survival of humans, who are integral to the created order.[20] Texts that pick up this tradition, among others, were not simply attempting to retell the sacred past in order to reflect on the future; they re-cast and interpreted revered traditions so that they could be revealed anew for their impact on the present. From the third century bce until the beginning of the Common Era, they communicated to Jewish contemporaries that evil—in whatever form and however dominant of life as it is experienced—is essentially a defeated power whose time is marked. God’s triumphs in the past, known in biblical tradition, are now revealed and interpreted in a particular way, and could be understood as the outworking of God’s royal power (1 En. 84:2–6; Book of Giants at 4Q203 9 and 10; cf. 1 En. 9:4). Since God’s authority has already asserted itself in the cosmos on a global scale (e.g., through the Great Flood) and on behalf of God’s people Israel (cf. the Song of the Red Sea in Exod. 15, which celebrates the Israelites’s rescue from inimical destruction), in principle, it cannot glibly be thought to have disappeared or to have withdrawn into the heavenly sphere, as one might be tempted to imagine.[21] The “present era” can be seen in a new light. The pious, with or without a messianic figure, can thus proceed with a measure of confidence as they deal with the effects, for example, of demonic power; though suffering attributed to the demonic world, whether in the individual or the socio-political order, cannot be completely eliminated before the ultimate end of things, it remains possible to curtail or manage its effects, or at least, to put it into perspective.

  This way of looking at the past and at the imminent future was not ultimately a matter of charting or speculating about the end time or how time works, nor was it an escapist attempt to seek refuge from harsh reality. It was more a way of reclaiming a robust religious identity, that is, it was a way to recover what it visibly means to be God’s people in the present. In addition, the possibility of combating evil with some measure of success in the present could be represented by an understanding of the faithful as those who, through participation in the covenant, share in the divine triumph over evil while negotiating the uncertainties of life that relentlessly confront them.[22]

  In its influential retelling of the story from creation until the Israelites’s freedom from bondage in Egypt, the Book of Jubilees, composed around the middle of the second century bce, describes the condition of humankind after their rescue from the Great Flood. At this time (so Jub. 5:12), God is said to have given human beings a new and righteous nature, in order that with their whole being, they will never again sin, but will live righteously. This categorical new beginning does not, of course, resolve all problems.[23] Thus, the long remaining narrative of the book confirms, time and again, that missteps among Jews (halakhic and otherwise) continue to take place and that forces of evil continue to be effective among God’s people. However, both this new nature and the defeated condition of demonic powers (cf. Jub. 10:1–11) also persist in the story. They anticipate the destruction of all evil, and with it, the fulfillment of God’s plan for those who remain faithful. They can do so because means of dealing with the demonic were revealed to Noah and can also be invoked to do so in the present.

  In other words, the “already” of evil’s defeat in principle and the “not yet” of its manifest destruction was an existing framework that presentations of Paul’s thought in the New Testament could take for granted. Paul’s insistence that, in Christ, believers have become a “new creation” (2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 6:16) does not introduce unprecedented terms of reference, but rather, adopts a different starting point out of which they become a reality. Moreover, analogous to Jubilees, Paul’s declaration of the believers’ status does not erase problems among them, but rather, lends them perspective. Furthermore, though in the case of Paul, the overlap between the present and future age is occasioned by a recent breakthrough in history, we would not be mistaken to think, by analogy, that there were pious Jews who understood themselves as living in an eschatological tension, inspired by confidence of concrete moments of divine activity in the past. It would therefore be misguided to infer, without qualification, that such religiosity is merely the domain of Pauline theology in a way that departs from contemporary apocalyptic thought.

  I have alluded briefly above to one storyline that guaranteed the establishment of God’s eschatological rule in the cosmos. The socio-rhetorical function of retelling sacred stories for recipients can be appreciated by readings of apocalyptically oriented texts by looking for clues in the text as to how they were to be received.[24] Without retelling the traditional storyline of the Flood, some texts presuppose its effective relevance for present maneuvers tha
t the righteous can undertake to counteract evil.

  Motifs clearly traceable to the Great Flood are discernible, for example, in references to the “bastard” spirits in the Dead Sea materials (so the Songs of the Maskil in 4Q510 1, 4–8 par. 4Q511 10, 1–6); these mamzerim, spirits that Enochic and other writers thought emanated from the giants whose physical bodies had been destroyed in the Flood (cf. 1 En. 10:9), are powers of the present age. Having listed the “spirits of the bastards” among other demonic beings, Songs of the Maskil invokes the following temporal framework:

  . . . a time of the dominion [of] wickedness and in the eras of the humiliation of the sons of lig[ht] in the guilt of the times of those plagued by iniquities, not for an eternal destruction, [but] for the era of the humiliation of transgression (4Q510 1.6b-7 par. 4Q511 10.4–5, my translation).

  By declaring God’s radiant splendor and by celebrating God’s power, the text holds that activities attributable to the catalogue of malevolent forces can be curbed. The powers are associated with the present order of things (called “the dominion [of] wickedness”). Two things in tension with one another are at once maintained: the text can speak of the righteous, “the sons of light,” while, at the same time, acknowledging that they are subject to “humiliation” that characterizes the time. The righteous are not left without effective hope. The Maskil’s song about God, addressed to them, presents itself an expedient measure that neutralizes threats associated with demonic power until the present age of wickedness comes to an end. One may infer that the song’s confidence is based on the firm conviction that the malevolent beings have already been defeated.