Jesus and Apocalypticism

Apocalypse and Eschatology:

"[T]he term apocalyptic is to be distinguished from the term eschatological. Eschatology, which means "the last things," is a broad term and refers to whatever is influenced by a doctrine of the end of the ages. Apocalypse means revelation or unveiling and normally refers to the kind of writing that gives a revelation of hidden knowledge, particularly of God's control over when and how history ends." Everett Ferguson, Backgrounds of Early Christianity, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987) 377.
 
The apocalyptic literature of the New Testament, notably Matthew 24-25, 1 and 2 Thessalonians (in particular see I Thess 4:13-17, the passage from which some conservative Christians derive the notion of the rapture) and the Revelation of John, tends to reveal divine knowledge about eschatological matters.

Jesus as Apocalyptic Prophet

Marcus Borg in his essay "The Second Coming Then and Now" lays out a choice between two visions of Jesus' ministry. One situates Jesus within the apocalyptic eschatological prevalent within Judaism in Jesus' time" "the expectation of imminent dramatic divine intervention in a public and objectively unmistakable way, resulting in a radically new state of affairs, including the vindication of God's people, whether on a renewed earth or in another world." ( 192). This sort of eschatology forms the basic plot for such popular works as the Left Behind series and is reflected in much of New Testament literature. For a brief pictorial history of apocalyptic thought see the Frontline web page, Apocalypse! A Pictorial Chronology. Clearly early Christians situated Jesus' teaching within this eschatology.

Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians contains references to future expectations:

For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel's call and with the sound of God's trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever. 1 Thess 4:16-17

We can piece together a time line for the unfolding of future events from Christian and Jewish apocalyptic material.

The end will be preceded by violence and suffering. God's heavenly forces will fight a battle with the forces of evil and will gain victory. God's reign will break upon humanity. The dead will be raised and together with those still living will face judgment. Those who are not granted eternal life will face a second death. In the Christian tradition, the beginning of these eschatological events will be signaled by the second coming of Christ. (Illustrations from a 14th century manuscript, site provided by Felix Just.)

New Testament writings suggest that its authors expected these events to happen within their life time. When Christianity becomes institutionalized, teaches of apocalyptic judgment become subordinated to the sacramental doctrines in which judgment and redemption is offered through the ministries of the church.

One of the first modern scholars to argue that Jesus' preached a thoroughly traditional future eschatology was Albert Schweitzer in his book, The Quest for the Historical Jesus. Dale C. Allison in his book, Jesus of Nazareth: Millenarian Prophet, puts forward arguments to support the view that Jesus did in fact expect a imminent end. For various arguments and scholarly opinions that support this view read the Frontline web page Apocalypticism Explained: Jesus and John the Baptist.

A Summary of some of Allison's evidence:

"Several New Testament texts compare Jesus with some of his contemporaries [who were apocalyptic prophets]:

Allison makes an inventory of major themes and motifs that appear frequently in the Jesus tradition that belong to "the standard pattern of Jewish messianism, which is also found in millennial movements worldwide -- a time of tribulation followed by a time of unprecedented blessedness." (p. 48)

Allison rejects the dichotomy between egalitarian ethics and eschatological beliefs (p. 108-109). Moreover, he argues that it is improbable that the church would immediately identify Jesus with an eschatological figure -- the Messiah -- immediately after Easter if he had been identified only as a "sage" or as a "wise teacher" before his death (p. 110-111).

Jesus as Sage

The other position outlined by Borg argues that Jesus did not have an apocalyptic eschatology. Instead Jesus preached a realized eschatology. The kingdom is here and now. Jesus presented a view of the kingdom that stood in stark contrast with what people expected. Borg acknowledges that he holds the second position to be true.

Borg holds up the parable of the sheep and goats to illustrate his point. Matthew contextualizes the parable in the theme of the last judgment, but made to stand on its own, the parable is about caring for the hungry, naked, sick, and prisoners. It asks the ethical question, "Am I living compassionately?"

John Dominic Crossan, who stands on the same side of the discussion as Borg, draws a distinction between an apocalyptic and sapiential kingdom:
"The apocalyptic is a future Kingdom dependent on the overpowering action of God moving to restore justice and peace to an earth ravished by injustice and oppression. Believers can, at the very most, prepare or persuade, implore or assist its arrival, but its accomplishment is consigned to divine power alone. And despite a serene vagueness about specifics and details, its consummation would be objectively visible and tangible to all, believers and unbelievers alike, but with appropriately different fates. The sapiential Kingdom looks to the present rather than the future and imagines how one could live here and now within an already or always available divine dominion. On enters that Kingdom by wisdom or goodness, by virtue, justice, or freedom an ethical kingdom.. " (The Historical Jesus, p. 292). Crossan argues that Jesus is a sort of cynic who abandons John the Baptist's imminent apocalyptic expectations for an egalitarian social program.

Burton Mack (A Myth of Innocence: Mark and Christian Origins, 1988) and J. Dominic Crossan, as well as many other historical Jesus scholars, contextualize Jesus within the tradition of Cynic philosophy. The word Cynic comes from the Greek word for dog, kyon. The cynics were dogs snapping at the heels of their society. They charged that their society was corrupt and called people to re-evaluate their attitudes and the value they placed upon property. Cynics were wandering philosophers who carried only an old cloak, a begging bag and a staff and taught through challenges and aphorisms

Marcus Borg explains the apocalyptic material in the Gospels in the following way:

The author of Mark, writing around 70, thought that the eschaton was imminent... [and] may represent an intensification of eschatological expectation triggered by the Jewish war of rebellion against Rome in the years 66-70, and the threat (and actuality) of the temple's destruction that those years brought. ... Without Mark 1:15, would we think of the kingdom of God as the central theme of Jesus' message? We would see it as a central theme, yes; but as the central then? And without Mark 1:15 and 9:1, would we think of imminence as central to Jesus' teaching about the kingdom? And, more broadly, without the coming Son of man sayings and without Mark's reading of the kingdom, would we think of the hear of Jesus' message as the need for repentance because the eschaton was imminent? (Jesus in Contemporary Scholarship, p. 87)

Some of the major supporters of the "Jesus as a wise teacher" position are scholars who study Q. John Kloppenborg argues that Q began as a wisdom document, and during a secondary stage of redaction, apocalyptic sayings including the Son of man sayings were added. Kloppenborg and his students believe there was a Q community that had not apocalyptic beliefs and no tradition about the resurrection. These ideas are outlined in Stephen J. Patterson, "The End of Apocalypse," Theology Today 52 (1995) pp. 29-58. This article is available in the library or through ATLAS.

The Middle Ground

N. T. Wright upholds both positions. The fulfillment of the new world has begun with Jesus' ministry and resurrection but it looks forward to a transformed world, but that the early church and Jesus did not necessarily expect an imminent fulfillment.

Wright's understanding of the fulfillment of Jesus' vision of the future clashes with the ideas of the authors of the Left Behind series and many conservative Christians who anticipate the collapse of the physical world and the creation of some sort of disembodied spiritual world.

What is at Stake?

For ethicists, the question of whether Jesus expected an imminent apocalyptic judgment has raised the possibility that Jesus offers a interim ethic for a community without a future rather than an ethic by which we ought to live. John Howard Yoder lays out this position in his book the Politics of Jesus in order to refute it:

"The ethic of Jesus is an ethic for an "Interim" which Jesus thought would be very brief. It is possible for the apocalyptic Sermonizer on the Mount to be unconcerned for the survival of the structures of a solid society because he thinks the world is passing away soon. His ethical teachings therefore appropriately pay no attention to society's need for survival and for the patient construction of permanent institutions. The rejection of violence, of self-defense, and of accumulating wealth for the sake of security, and the footlooseness of the prophet of the kingdom are not permanent and generalizable attitudes toward social values, but make sense only if it be assumed that those values are coming to an imminent end. Thus at any point where social ethics must deal with problems of duration, Jesus quite clearly can be of no help. If the impermanence of the social order is an axiom underlying order for the ethic of Jesus, then obviously the survival of this order for centuries has already invalidated the axiom. Thereby the survival of society, as a value in itself, takes on a weight which Jesus did not give it." (p.16).

Liberal Theology took Jesus' future eschatology as mythology from which to abstract an ethic in which the Church is commissioned to make our society reflect the values of the heavenly kingdom. Many of our social welfare institutions are are a product of a more optimistic age that believed it was possible to create a heaven on earth.

Dale Allison argues that without future eschatology one loses the important element of Jesus as apocalyptic judge or final judgment, and without these one is left with the problem of injustice and evil. He contends that Jesus' teachings about judgment fall into three categories (p. 135):

Of course, resurrection also gets dropped from the picture if one loses the apocalyptic tradition. We shall leave the implications of the resurrection for the tenth session of the course.