Authorizing An End

Breaking with common views on Jewish proto-apocalyptic literature, in a postmodern manner, this work approaches one particular proto-apocalyptic text, Isaiah 24-27, the so-called "Isaiah Apocalypse", intertextually. This reading finds that the Isaiah Apocalypse redeploys and controls other texts, helping secure the authority of those texts as well as its own vision of the end. The first chapter surveys approaches to late Israelite prophecy and presents a new "intertextual" way of viewing this material. The chapters that follow investigate the "eternal covenant" and its role in intertextual space; Isaiah 25's construal of Israel's relationship to other nations; the central role of the "righteous" in Isaiah 26; and Isaiah 27, which points towards the victory of YHWH’s order over chaos. Readers interested in the development of Jewish apocalyptic literature, the social arrangements of second-Temple Judaism, and postmodern treatments of biblical texts will find this volume useful.