"The genre name “apocalypse” derives from Gk. apokálypsis (“revelation” or “disclosure”), which occurs in the opening line of the NT book of Revelation. This book, the parade example of an apocalypse in early Christian literature, gives its name to the entire genre. The genre itself may be defined as “a genre of revelatory literature with a narrative framework, in which a revelation is mediated by an otherworldly being to a human recipient, disclosing a transcendent reality which is both temporal, insofar as it envisages eschatological salvation, and spatial, insofar as it involves another, supernatural world” (Collins, Apocalypse, 9). Apocalypses are characterized by the presence of vision, symbolism, a human seer and an otherworldly mediator, an otherworldly journey, an emphasis on events in the cosmic rather than human realm, an increased interest in angels and demons, the notion of the transcendence of God, and pseudonymity. Given this definition, there is only one example of a true apocalypse in the OT, Dan. 7–12, while the Christian NT’s only apocalypse is the book of Revelation (which is exceptional for not being pseudonymous)." (Eerdmans dictionary of the Bible)
Posted on: Tue, 11 Jun 2013 16:57:37 +0000