The Book Of Revelation And The Johannine Apocalyptic Tradition

This original and unusual book investigates a continuing Johannine apocalyptic tradition, represented in three strange Greek texts that are also linked to a Coptic manuscript. None of the Greek texts has been published in recent years, and they have never been published together or associated in studies of Christian apocrypha. John Court, well known for his studies on Revelation, supplies the text of the Greek manuscripts, with English translations, introductions and detailed explanatory notes that set the texts and their ideas in the context of Christian views on the future and the afterlife.

This original and unusual book investigates a continuing Johannine apocalyptic tradition, represented in three strange Greek texts that are also linked to a Coptic manuscript. None of the Greek texts has been published in recent years, and they have never been published together or associated in studies of Christian apocrypha. John Court, well known for his studies on Revelation, supplies the text of the Greek manuscripts, with English translations, introductions and detailed explanatory notes that set the texts and their ideas in the context of Christian views on the future and the afterlife.

The final book of the Bible, Revelation prophesies the ultimate judgement of mankind in a series of allegorical visions, grisly images and numerological predictions. According to these, empires will fall, the "Beast" will be destroyed and Christ will rule a new Jerusalem. With an introduction by Will Self.

John's Gospel has traditionally been regarded as the least apocalyptic document in the New Testament. This exciting new collection redresses the balance by exploring the ways in which the apocalyptic literature of Second Temple Judaism has contributed to the theology and outlook of John's Gospel. Given that John, like the Jewish apocalyptic texts, is primarily concerned with the theme of revelation, the contributors examine how apocalyptic ideas can help to explain the Johannine portrayal of Jesus as the messenger sent from heaven to reveal the divine mysteries, as well as the Gospel's presentation of the activity of the Spirit, its understanding of evil, and the intended effects of this 'apocalypse in reverse' on its readers and hearers. The highly distinguished contributors include, John Ashton, Christopher Rowland, April DeConick, Judith Lieu and Jorg Frey.

Embracing two thousand years of intense and fiery admonition, "Approaching the Apocalypse" offers students of religion, history and politics the definitive handbook to Doomsday. Ideas about divinely-inspired disaster have an enduring place in the history of Christian thought. For centuries men and women have made preparations for the imminent end of the world, and for the thousand year reign of Christ and his saints. Inspired principally by the startling texts of the "Book of Revelation", Christianity has a rich and varied tradition of looking forward to the purifying fires of Armageddon. But what do recurring motifs like the Rapture, pestilence, biblical prophecy and the building of the New Jerusalem really add up to? And how have interpretations of these patterns differed from century to century?Charting a steady course between the feverish predictions of early Christian heretics like the Montanists, and the febrile outpourings of modern-day millennialists, such as the Branch Davidians and Christian Zionists in America, John M Court explores the continuities and differences between their violent visions of cataclysm. His history comprises an incisive analysis of such movements and figures as the Levellers and Diggers, James Jezreel and his Trumpeters, Seventh-Day Adventists and Jehovah's Witnesses, cargo-cults and drug cultures. "Approaching the Apocalypse" shows why prophecies of plague, earthquake and flame continue to resonate so powerfully in the Christian imagination, and beyond.

The highly popular Sheffield New Testament Guides are being reissued in a new format, grouped together and prefaced by one of the best known of contemporary Johannine scholars. This new format is designed to ensure that these authoritative introductions remain up to date and accessible to seminary and university students of the New Testament while offering a broader theological and literary context for their study. Alan Culpepper introduces the Johannine Writings as a whole, illuminating their distinctive historical and theological features and their importance within the New Testament canon.

The Gospel of John has long been recognized as being distinct from the Synoptic Gospels. John among the Apocalypses explains John's distinctive narrative of Jesus's life by comparing it to Jewish apocalypses and highlighting the central place of revelation in the Gospel. While some scholars have noted a connection between the Gospel of John and Jewish apocalypses, Reynolds makes the first extensive comparison of the Gospel with the standard definition of the apocalypse genre. Engaging with modern genre theory, this comparison indicates surprising similarities of form, content, and function between John's Gospel and Jewish apocalypses. Even though the Gospel of John reflects similarities with the genre of apocalypse, John is not an apocalypse, but in genre theory terms, John may be described as a gospel in kind and an apocalypse in mode. John's narrative of Jesus's life has been qualified and shaped by the genre of apocalypse, such that it may be called an 'apocalyptic' gospel. In the final two chapters, Reynolds explores the implications of this conclusion for Johannine Studies and New Testament scholarship more broadly. John among the Apocalypses considers how viewing the Fourth Gospel as apocalyptic Gospel aids in the interpretation of John's appeal to Israel's Scriptures and Mosaic authority, and examines the Gospel's relationship with the book of Revelation and the history of reception concerning their writing. An examination of Byzantine iconographic traditions highlights how reception history may offer a possible explanation for reading John as apocalyptic Gospel.

The contemporary study of Jewish apocalypticism today recognizes the wealth and diversity of ancient traditions concerned with the “unveiling” of heavenly matters‒‒understood to involve revealed wisdom, the revealed resolution of time, and revealed cosmology‒‒in marked contrast to an earlier focus on eschatology as such. The shift in focus has had a more direct impact on the study of ancient “pseudepigraphic” literature, however, than in New Testament studies, where the narrower focus on eschatological expectation remains dominant. In this Companion, an international team of scholars draws out the implications of the newest scholarship for the variety of New Testament writings. Each entry presses the boundaries of current discussion regarding the nature of apocalypticism in application to a particular New Testament author. The cumulative effect is to reveal, as never before, early Christianity, its Christology, cosmology, and eschatology, as expressions of tendencies in Second Temple Judaism.