Apocalypse Prophecy And Pseudepigraphy

A highly regarded expert on Jewish apocalyptic texts, John J. Collins has written extensively on the subject. Nineteen of his essays written over the last fifteen years, including several previously unpublished contributions, are brought together for the first time in Apocalypse, Prophecy, and Pseudepigraphy. After an introductory essay that revisits the problem of defining Apocalypse as a literary genre, Collins deals with a number of different topics, including the relationship between apocalypse and prophecy and the troubling ethical issues raised by apocalyptic texts. Collins also examines several specific examples to show the themes and variation present in the genre. Organized in five sections, these thematic essays complement and enrich Collinss well-known bookThe Apocalyptic Imagination.

One of the most widely praised studies of Jewish apocalyptic literature ever written, The Apocalyptic Imagination by John J. Collins has served for over thirty years as a helpful, relevant, comprehensive survey of the apocalyptic literary genre. After an initial overview of things apocalyptic, Collins proceeds to deal with individual apocalyptic texts -- the early Enoch literature, the book of Daniel, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and others -- concluding with an examination of apocalypticism in early Christianity. Collins has updated this third edition throughout to account for the recent profusion of studies germane to ancient Jewish apocalypticism, and he has also substantially revised and updated the bibliography.

Apocalyptic visions and prophecies from Zarathustra to yesterday form the panorama in Eugen Weber's profound and elegant book. Beginning with the ancients of the West and the Orient, Weber finds that an absolute belief in the end of time, when good would do final battle with evil, was omnipresent.

This volume of symposium papers examines the attribution of books to great figures in antiquity: Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Levi, Moses, Ezekiel, Daniel and others. The authors offer fine literary studies of these pseudepigraphical writings, assess the uses of pseudonymity and anonymity in the Dead Sea Scrolls and rabbinic literature, and explore the theological, social and historical implications of the different attributions and approaches. The consequences of assigning the origins of evil to humans (Adam and Eve) or to demons (the generations of Enoch and Noah) and the significance of each author's choice of pseudepigrahical pseudonym for identifying his social context are among the important issues addressed.

Did Israelite Jewish apocalyptic literature originate among alienated or disenfranchised groups? In this overview of apocalypticism in the Hebrew Bible, Stephen Cook contends that such thinking and writing stems from priestly groups that held power.

A collection of papers on writings attributed to Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Levi, Moses, Ezekiel and Daniel. They offer fine literary studies, assess the uses of pseudonymity and anonymity in the Scrolls and rabbinic literature, and explore their theological, social and historical implications.

Ireland has been implicated in the modern study of apocalyptic and Old Testament Pseudepigrapha from the very beginning, so the conference brought together scholars who specialize in those themes in the two regions. Ten papers explore such topics as journeys to the world beyond in ancient Judaism, p

This is a study of the ancient Jewish and Christian apocalypses involving ascent into heaven, which have received little scholarly attention in comparison to apocalypses concerned primarily with the end of the world. Recent developments like the publication of the Aramaic Enoch fragments from Qumran and interest in questions of genre in the study of the apocalypses make this a particularly appropriate time to undertake this study. Martha Himmelfarb places the apocalypses in relation to both their biblical antecedents and their context in the Greco-Roman world. Her analysis emphasizes the emergence of the understanding of heaven as temple in the Book of the Watchers, the earliest of these apocalypses, and the way in which this understanding affects the depiction of the culmination of ascent, the hero's achievement of a place among the angels, in the ascent apocalypses generally. It also considers the place of secrets of nature and primeval history in these works. Finally, it offers an interpretation of the pseudepigraphy of the apocalypses and their function.