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John among the Apocalypses

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John among the

Apocalypses
Jewish Apocalyptic Tradition and the
“Apocalyptic” Gospel

BENJAMIN E. REYNOLDS

1
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3
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP,
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© Benjamin E. Reynolds 2020
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contained in any third party website referenced in this work.
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 9/9/2020, SPi

For my parents
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Acknowledgments

There is a small, but growing interest in understanding the Fourth Gospel in

light of early Judaism. By this statement, I do not mean “early Judaism as
background” to the Gospel nor do I mean “John and Judaism,” but rather
I mean reading the Fourth Gospel as part of early Judaism. This perspective
turns much twentieth-century Johannine scholarship on its head, but it is the
twentieth-century discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls that has been the impetus
behind our enriched understandings of Judaism during the Second Temple
period. Reading the Gospel of John alongside earlier and contemporary Jewish
literature opens new (or renewed?) avenues for understanding the Fourth
Gospel, particularly in relationship to Jewish apocalyptic tradition.
The present study grew out of the colloquium on the “Gospel of John and
Intimations of Apocalyptic” hosted by Catrin Williams in 2010 at the
University of Wales, Bangor in honor of John Ashton. My paper “John
among the Jewish Apocalypses: Rethinking the Gospel of John’s Genre” was
dying a slow, painful death in the question and answer period until John
Ashton shifted the conversation by responding favorably while also graciously
challenging me. John’s interaction sparked my interest in the topic further and
began a friendship which continued until his death. John and I communicated
back and forth as he worked on what became his final book, The Gospel of John
and Christian Origins (Fortress, 2014), and as I continued working on the
Gospel of John’s relationship with Jewish apocalypses. John agreed to write a
foreword for the present volume, but I took too long to complete this project
and he left us too soon. However, I imagine John’s comments would have
sounded similar to his response to some of my earlier work: “it won’t surprise
you to hear that I agree with much of what you say. But it won’t surprise you
either to hear that I do have some disagreements also, and I think I owe it to
you to spell these out.” I am grateful to John for his forthright honesty, his
encouragement, his contribution to Johannine scholarship, and his friendship.
There are numerous people whom I would like to thank for their advice and
encouragement on the present volume. I am grateful to John Ashton and Jörg
Frey for offering feedback on my preliminary outline for this project. I would
also like to thank those who read a chapter or more of the present volume and
in many instances challenged me to rethink an argument or saved me from
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viii 

some embarrassing oversights. These include colleagues: Ian Boxall, Joseph

Dodson, Natasha Duquette, Simon Gathercole, Jonathan Moo, Stacey Moo,
Ian Scott, and Catrin Williams; and some former and current students:
Morgan Clark, Spencer Healey, Ben Klassen, and Rachel VanderVeen. Of
course, those mistakes that remain are mine alone. I am also grateful to
Rachel VanderVeen for compiling the List of Abbreviations and to Marina
Hanna for recreating the table of “master-paradigm” elements.
I would also like to thank all those who were present at the Bangor
Colloquium in 2010, particularly John Ashton, Ian Boxall, April DeConick,
Jörg Frey, Jutta Leonhardt-Balzer, Judith Lieu, Christopher Rowland, Loren
Stuckenbruck, and Catrin Williams, for the intellectually stimulating meeting
that it was. I am grateful to others who have heard and commented on paper
presentations that have been incorporated into this volume, which I gave in
the intervening years at the Sixth Enoch Seminar (Milan, June 2011); the
Johannine Literature Section, SBL Annual Meeting (Chicago, 2012); Wisdom
and Apocalypticism Section and Johannine Literature Section joint session,
SBL Annual Meeting (San Diego, 2014).
I am grateful to the publishers—Bloomsbury, Brill, Fortress Press, and
Mohr Siebeck—for permitting me to reuse material from previously published
essays. In most cases, I have significantly reworked the material, but in a few
instances, the detailed argument may be found in the original piece:

“John and the Jewish Apocalypses: Rethinking the Gospel of John’s Genre.” In
John’s Gospel and Intimations of Apocalyptic, edited by Catrin H. Williams and
Christopher Rowland, 36–57. London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, an imprint of
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc., 2013. (Incorporated into portions of Chapters 2
and 5.)
“Apocalypticism in the Gospel of John’s Written Revelation of Heavenly
Things.” Early Christianity 4, no. 1 (2013): 64–95, published by Mohr
Siebeck, Tübingen. (Incorporated into portions of Chapters 2, 3, and 6.)
“The Otherworldly Mediators in 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch: A Comparison with
Angelic Mediators in Ascent Apocalypses and in Daniel, Ezekiel, and
Zechariah.” In Fourth Ezra and Second Baruch: Reconstruction after the Fall,
edited by Matthias Henze and Gabriele Boccaccini, 175–93. Leiden: Brill, 2013.
(Incorporated into portions of Chapters 2 and 5.)
“Apocalyptic Revelation in the Gospel of John: Revealed Cosmology, the
Vision of God, and Visionary Showing.” In Jewish Apocalyptic Tradition and
the Shaping of New Testament Thought, edited by Benjamin E. Reynolds and
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 ix

Loren T. Stuckenbruck, 109–28. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2017.

(Incorporated into portions of Chapters 2 and 3.)

I am also grateful for the permissions granted to include images of icons

depicting St. John the Theologian dictating to his scribe Prochorus that are
included on the cover of this volume and in Chapter 7.
I am grateful to Tyndale University for two half-year sabbaticals (winter
2015 and autumn 2018) during which a majority of this book was researched
and written. Without the freedom from administrative and teaching loads
during those two semesters, I would not have been able to complete this
project. Thanks to the staff of Tyndale University’s William Horsey Library
for their research and teaching support, especially to Hugh Rendle, Isabella
Guthrie-McNaughton, and Monica Duce.
Thanks to the Sisterhood of St. John the Divine, particularly to Jeanette
Strong, Sister Dorothy, and Sister Susanne at the Guest House and Sister
Margaret Ruth in the library, for the peaceful study space for research and
writing and their kind hospitality. The Sisterhood will always hold a special
place for me, but it does so especially with this project because, as my thoughts
were coalescing around the Gospel of John, Jewish apocalypses, and the book
of Revelation, I noticed for the first time an icon (a quite large wall painting,
mind you) that I had passed numerous times before. The Sisterhood’s icon
sparked a reception history exploration of the literary and iconographic
tradition of St. John, Prochorus, and the Cave of Revelation, and this explor-
ation led to the central part of Chapter 7 of this volume.
I would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their helpful
feedback, as well as Tom Perridge, Karen Raith, John Smallman, Henry
Clarke, and the rest of the OUP team for their patience and excellent work
on this volume.
Last, but not least, I would like to thank Lizzie and our three boys for their
encouragement and patience, especially in the final stages of the project (“Dad,
did you finish your book today?”). I dedicate this book to my parents Melissa
and Roger Reynolds out of gratitude for their unwavering love and support.
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Contents

List of Illustrations xiii

List of Abbreviations xv
Introduction 1
1. Genre, “Apocalypse,” and the Gospel of John 15
2. The Manner of Revelation in Jewish Apocalypses and John 37
3. The Content of Revelation in Jewish Apocalypses and John 67
4. The Function of Revelation in Jewish Apocalypses and John 93
5. John’s Gospel as “Apocalyptic” Gospel 117
6. Interpreting the “Apocalyptic” Gospel with Jewish Apocalypses 144
7. The “Apocalyptic” Gospel and the Apocalypse of John 167
Conclusion 201

Appendix A: The Jewish Apocalypses 211

Appendix B: The Jewish Apocalypses and the Gospel of John 212

References 213
Index of Authors 233
Index of Ancient Sources 237
General Index 253
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List of Illustrations

7.1. St. John the Evangelist and Prochorus, 11th century (1059),
Codex 587 m., fol. 1v, Monastery of Dionysiou, Mount Athos,
Greece. Reproduced courtesy of the Patriarchal Institute for
Patristic Studies in Thessaloniki. 192
7.2. The Evangelist John and Prochoros, 1334/35, Codex 81,
fol. 238v, St. John the Theologian Monastery on the island
of Patmos. Reproduced courtesy of Katheloumenos and
Patriarachikos Exarchos Patmos, Kurillos. 193
7.3. John the Theologian and Prochoros, one panel from Four
Icons from a Pair of Doors (Panels), Possibly Part of a
Polyptych: John the Theologian and Prochoros, the Baptism
(Epiphany), Harrowing of Hell (Anastasis), and Saint Nicholas,
15th century, possibly Cretan, in the Metropolitan Museum of
Art, New York. © Cultural Archive/Alamy Stock Photo. 195
7.4. St John the Evangelist and Prochoros, by Emmanuel Lambardos,
1602, in the Museum of Icons, the Hellenic Institute for Byzantine
and Post-Byzantine Studies in Venice, http://www.istitutoellenico.org/
english/museo/index.html. © the History Collection/Alamy Stock Photo. 196
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List of Abbreviations

AB Anchor Bible
ABD Anchor Bible Dictionary, 6 vols., ed. David Noel Freedman, New York,
1992
ABRL Anchor Bible Reference Library
AGJU Arbeiten zur Geschichte des Antiken Judentums und des Urchristentums
AJEC Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity
AnBib Analecta Biblica
ANF Ante-Nicene Fathers
ATR Australasian Theological Review
BBET Beiträge zur biblischen Exegese und Theologie
BBR Bulletin for Biblical Research
BETL Bibliotheca ephemeridum theologicarum lovaniensium
Bib Biblica
BIS Biblical Interpretation Series
BJS Brown Judaic Studies
BMSEC Baylor-Mohr Siebeck Studies in Early Christianity
BNTC Black’s New Testament Commentaries
BZNW Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft
CBET Contributions to Biblical Exegesis and Theology
CBQ Catholic Biblical Quarterly
CBQMS Catholic Biblical Quarterly Monograph Series
CBS Core Biblical Studies
CC Concordia Commentary
CCR Cambridge Companions to Religion
CCSS Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture
CEJL Commentaries on Early Jewish Literature
CRINT Compendia Rerum Iudaicarum ad Novum Testamentum
CurBR Currents in Biblical Research
DCLS Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Studies
DCLY Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Yearbook
DOP Dumbarton Oaks Papers
DOS Dumbarton Oaks Studies
ECC Eerdmans Critical Commentary
EJL Early Judaism and its Literature
ExpT Expository Times
HbibSt Herders Biblische Studien/Herder’s Biblical Studies
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xvi   

HBT Horizons in Biblical Theology

HNT Handbuch zum Neuen Testament
HTR Harvard Theological Review
HTS Harvard Theological Studies
ICC International Critical Commentary
IDBSup Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible: Supplementary Volume, ed.
K. Crim. Nashville, 1976
IRT Issues in Religion and Theology
ITC International Theological Commentary
ITQ Irish Theological Quarterly
JAJSup Journal of Ancient Judaism Supplements
JBL Journal of Biblical Literature
JCT Jewish and Christian Texts
JSJ Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic, and Roman
Periods
JSJSup Journal for the Study of Judaism, Supplement Series
JSNT Journal for the Study of the New Testament
JSNTSup Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series
JSPSup Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha Supplement Series
JTS Journal of Theological Studies
KD Kerygma und Dogma
LBS Linguistic Biblical Studies
LEC Library of Early Christianity
LNTS Library of New Testament Studies
MNTS McMaster New Testament Studies
MS manuscript
NHMS Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies
NIGTC New International Greek Testament Commentary
NovT Novum Testamentum
NovTSup Novum Testamentum, Supplements
NTL New Testament Library
NTOA Novum Testamentum et Orbis Antiquus
NTR New Testament Readings
NTS New Testament Studies
NTT New Testament Theology
OED Oxford English Dictionary
OTP The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. 2 vols., ed. James H. Charlesworth,
New York: Doubleday, 1983, 1985
OTRM Oxford Theology and Religion Monographs
PMLA Proceedings of the Modern Language Association
RBL Review of Biblical Literature
RBS Resources for Biblical Studies
RechBib Recherches Bibliques
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   xvii

RNT Regensburger Neues Testament

RSB Religious Studies Bulletin
RSR Recherches de science religieuse
SAAA Studies on the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles
SANt Studia Aarhusiana Neotestamentica
SBLDS Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series
SBLMS Society of Biblical Literature Monograph Series
SBLRBS Society of Biblical Literature Resources for Biblical Study
SBLSBS Society of Biblical Literature Sources for Biblical Study
SBT Studies in Biblical Theology
SCS Septuagint and Cognate Studies
SEÅ Svensk exegetisk årsbok
SJs Studia Judaeoslavica
SNTS Society for New Testament Studies
SNTSMS Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series
STDJ Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah
SVTP Studia in Veteris Testamenti pseudepigraphica
TBN Themes in Biblical Narrative
THKNT Theologischer Handkommentar zum Neuen Testament
TJ Trinity Journal
TSAJ Texte und Studien zum antiken Judentum
TZ Theologische Zeitschrift
WBC Word Biblical Commentary
WUNT Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament
ZNW Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und die Kunde der
älteren Kirche
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Introduction

Without doubt, the Gospel of John has a place among the four Gospels as a
narrative telling of the life of Jesus,¹ but from the beginning of the fourfold
Gospel, the Gospel according to John has been understood to be recognizably
different, as the eagle soaring above Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Although the
Gospel of Luke and the longer ending of Mark recount Jesus’s ascension to
heaven (Luke 24:51; Mark 16:19), John frames Jesus’s life by presenting him as
one who was with the God “in the beginning” and who is “from above.” John
speaks of Jesus’s descent from heaven, his being sent by the Father, and his
return to the Father. John also portrays Jesus as speaking the Father’s words,
doing the Father’s works, and being one with the Father.
There are many more differences between the Synoptic Gospels and John,
but the questions that continue to puzzle interpreters are why John is different
and how we can explain John’s distinctiveness among the Gospels. As is
often noted, Clement of Alexandria referred to John as a “spiritual gospel”
(πνευματικὸν . . . εὐαγγέλιον), in contrast to “the bodily” content (τὰ σωματικὰ)
in “the Gospels” (Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.14.7). While what Clement meant by
that description is not entirely clear, his comment is one of the earliest
acknowledgments of John’s difference from, and yet similarity to, Matthew,
Mark, and Luke.
John’s distinctiveness has earned it various descriptors from its many inter-
preters, such as “the maverick Gospel,”² a “dramatische Erzählung,”³ and “the
prophetic Gospel.”⁴ In addition, John has been compared with Gnosticism,⁵

¹ D. Moody Smith, John among the Gospels, 2nd edn (Columbia, SC, 2001); and even among the
“other” gospels, on which, see Lorne R. Zelyck, John among the Other Gospels: The Reception of the
Fourth Gospel in the Extra-Canonical Gospels, WUNT, II/347 (Tübingen, 2013).
² Robert Kysar, John, the Maverick Gospel, 3rd edn (Louisville, KY, 2007).
³ Michael Theobald, Das Evangelium nach Johannes. Kapitel 1–12, RNT (Regensburg, 2009), 14–17.
⁴ Anthony Tyrrell Hanson, The Prophetic Gospel: A Study of John and the Old Testament, Scholars’
Editions in Biblical Studies (London, 2006).
⁵ Rudolf Bultmann, “Die Bedeutung der neuerschlossenen mandäischen und manichäischen
Quellen für das Verständnis des Johannesevangeliums,” ZNW, 24 (1925), 100–46.

John among the Apocalypses: Jewish Apocalyptic Tradition and the “Apocalyptic” Gospel. Benjamin E. Reynolds,
Oxford University Press (2020). © Benjamin E. Reynolds.
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198784241.001.0001
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mysticism,⁶ drama,⁷ rhetoric,⁸ wisdom,⁹ Greco-Roman novels,¹⁰ the trial

motif,¹¹ narrative philosophy,¹² and the list goes on. Many comparisons have
also been made to various types of literature and literary techniques,¹³ includ-
ing a recent comparison of John with Northrop Frye’s archetypes.¹⁴ In add-
ition, Jo-Ann Brant, George Parsenios, and Kasper Bro Larsen have highlighted
various literary techniques evident in John, from dramatic dialogue to farewell
and recognition scenes.¹⁵ The list of comparisons continues because, as Harold
Attridge memorably argues, John appears to bend genre.¹⁶ With regard to
genre theory, the bending, or “skewing,” as Ruth Sheridan refers to it,¹⁷ of
genre might be considered generic change (i.e., change related to genre) or the
modification or extension of genre. Modification of genre commonly occurs
when authors create a new text within the boundaries of existing genre
expectations but extend the genre by playing with those same expectations.¹⁸
While there may be various genre “type-scenes” in the Gospel of John, it is
notable that these embedded genres (partial genres set within a larger genre) do
not function across the entirety of the Gospel. For example, embedded genres

⁶ Jey J. Kanagaraj, “Mysticism” in the Gospel of John: An Inquiry into its Background, JSNTSup, 158
(Sheffield, 1998); April D. DeConick, Voices of the Mystics: Early Christian Discourse in the Gospels of
John and Thomas and Other Ancient Christian Literature, JSNTSup, 157 (Sheffield, 2001).
⁷ Jo-Ann A. Brant, Dialogue and Drama: Elements of Greek Tragedy in the Fourth Gospel (Peabody,
MA, 2004); also Ben Witherington, III, John’s Wisdom: A Commentary on the Fourth Gospel
(Louisville, KY, 1995), 4–5.
⁸ Margaret Davies, Rhetoric and Reference in the Fourth Gospel, JSNTSup, 69 (Sheffield, 1992).
⁹ Martin Scott, Sophia and the Johannine Jesus, JSNTSup, 71 (Sheffield, 1992); William R. G. Loader,
Jesus in John’s Gospel: Structure and Issues in Johannine Christology (Grand Rapids, MI, 2017).
¹⁰ Meredith J. C. Warren, My Flesh Is Meat Indeed: A Nonsacramental Reading of John 6:51–8
(Minneapolis, MN, 2015); Jo-Ann A. Brant, “John among the Ancient Novels,” in The Gospel of John as
Genre Mosaic, ed. by Kasper Bro Larsen, SANt, 3 (Göttingen, 2015), 157–68.
¹¹ Andrew T. Lincoln, Truth on Trial: The Lawsuit Motif in the Fourth Gospel (Peabody, MA, 2000).
¹² Troels Engberg-Pedersen, John and Philosophy: A New Reading of the Fourth Gospel (Oxford,
2017).
¹³ Mark W. G. Stibbe, John as Storyteller: Narrative Criticism and the Fourth Gospel, SNTSMS, 73
(Cambridge, 1992).
¹⁴ Brian Larsen, Archetypes and the Fourth Gospel: Literature and Theology in Conversation, T&T
Clark Biblical Studies (London, 2018).
¹⁵ Jo-Ann A. Brant, John, Paideia (Grand Rapids, MI, 2011); George L. Parsenios, Departure and
Consolation: The Johannine Farewell Discourses in Light of Greco-Roman Literature, NovTSup, 117
(Leiden, 2005); Kasper Bro Larsen, Recognizing the Stranger: Recognition Scenes in the Gospel of John,
BIS, 93 (Leiden, 2008); George L. Parsenios, Rhetoric and Drama in the Johannine Lawsuit Motif,
WUNT, I/258 (Tübingen, 2010).
¹⁶ Harold W. Attridge, “Genre Bending in the Fourth Gospel,” JBL, 121/1 (2002), 3–21; Harold
W. Attridge, “The Gospel of John: Genre Matters?,” in The Gospel of John as Genre Mosaic, ed. by
Kasper Bro Larsen, SANt, 3 (Göttingen, 2015), 27–45; Harold W. Attridge, “Genre,” in How John Works:
Storytelling in the Fourth Gospel, ed. by Douglas Estes and Ruth Sheridan (Atlanta, GA, 2016), 7–22.
¹⁷ Ruth Sheridan, “John’s Gospel and Modern Genre Theory: The Farewell Discourse (John 13—17)
as a Test Case,” ITQ, 75/3 (2010), 287–99.
¹⁸ Alastair Fowler, Kinds of Literature: An Introduction to the Theory of Genres and Modes
(Cambridge, MA, 1982), 23–4; Heta Pyrhönen, “Genre,” in The Cambridge Companion to Narrative,
ed. by David Herman (Cambridge, 2007), 118–19.
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 3

in John may include a “farewell scene” in John 13–17 or a “betrothal scene” in

John 4, but neither, I would argue, says much about John 3 or 10 or 20.
Throughout this study, my concern will be whether or not we may determine
a generic mode that explains the Gospel of John’s “genre bending.” As will be
discussed more fully in Chapter 1, modes provide a “thematic and tonal
qualification” to a genre,¹⁹ such as a “comic novel” or a “romantic comedy.”²⁰
Speaking of John as a “genre mosaic” helpfully highlights the existence of
various embedded genres present in the Gospel,²¹ but I contend that paying
attention to the generic mode of the Gospel of John offers us a better way to
explain the framing of John’s Gospel as a revelatory narrative and its distinct-
iveness from the Synoptic Gospels.²²
Calling John a “prophetic Gospel”²³ or describing it as being shaped by the
Hebrew Bible²⁴ approaches the modal understanding of the Gospel in its
entirety and recognizes the underlying debt and overwhelming influence of
the Scriptures of Israel on John’s narrative of Jesus.²⁵ Attridge’s argument for
John as “dramatic” also tends toward a modal description, but the four
“dramatic” features he offers as evidence are not consistent across the
Gospel, particularly the “delayed exit” and “recognition scene” which are
found in only a few passages.²⁶ Adele Reinhartz’s description of John as a
“cosmological tale” comes much closer, in my opinion, to describing the
Gospel’s overarching heavenly and revelatory perspective on Jesus’s life.²⁷
The framing of the Gospel from the perspective of Jesus’s descent from
heaven, his being sent from the presence of the Father, his speaking the
words of the Father, his doing the Father’s works, his making the Father

¹⁹ John Frow, Genre, The New Critical Idiom, 2nd edn (London, 2015), 73.
²⁰ Fowler, Kinds of Literature, 106–8; Frow, Genre, 69–74. See the section “Genre Theory” in
Chapter 1.
²¹ See Kasper Bro Larsen, ed., The Gospel of John as Genre Mosaic, SANt, 3 (Göttingen, 2015).
²² See Attridge, “Genre Matters?,” 32–4; Sheridan, “John’s Gospel,” 298–9.
²³ Hanson, The Prophetic Gospel.
²⁴ Saeed Hamid-Khani, Revelation and Concealment of Christ: Theological Inquiry into the Elusive
Language of the Fourth Gospel, WUNT, II/120 (Tübingen, 2000).
²⁵ See Alicia D. Myers and Bruce G. Schuchard, eds., Abiding Words: The Use of Scripture in the
Gospel of John, SBLRBS, 81 (Atlanta, GA, 2015); Craig S. Keener, The Gospel of John: A Commentary, 2
vols (Grand Rapids, MI, 2003), 47–51.
²⁶ Attridge, “Genre Matters?,” 34–40.
²⁷ Adele Reinhartz, The Word in the World: The Cosmological Tale in the Fourth Gospel, SBLMS, 45
(Atlanta, GA, 1992), 16–28; relatedly, Loader, Jesus in John’s Gospel, 423–55. Cf. Frey’s post-Easter
perspective on Jesus in Jörg Frey, The Glory of the Crucified One: Christology and Theology in the Gospel
of John, trans. by Wayne Coppins and Christoph Heilig, BMSEC (Waco, TX, 2018). While Frey’s view
addresses the post-Easter recognition of the disciples (John 2:22; 12:16), such a perspective is not
entirely distinct among the four Gospels (Luke 24:25–7; 24:44–6; see the fulfillment passages in Matt.
1–2).
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known, and his returning to the Father²⁸ is the most distinctive difference
between the Fourth Gospel and Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
What is the best way to describe John’s otherness in comparison to the
Synoptic Gospels, its tendency toward skewing and bending genre, and from
where might this heavenly perspective derive? We seem to find ourselves back
at Rudolf Bultmann’s riddles about what the Gospel of John reveals, the point
from which John Ashton, Troels Engberg-Pedersen, and William Loader have
also begun their studies of the Fourth Gospel.²⁹ Bultmann contended that the
two significant questions concerning John are “What is John’s place in the
development of early Christianity?” and “What is its central vision [zentrale
Anschauung], its basic concept [Grundkonzeption]?”³⁰ His answer to the first
question—Mandean Gnosticism—has all but been abandoned in scholarship,
particularly in light our greater awareness of early Judaism following the
discovery of and scholarship on the Dead Sea Scrolls and the resulting renewal
of interest in other early Jewish literature. With regard to his second question,
Bultmann was correct to argue that John’s Grundkonzeption is revelation
(Offenbarung) as disclosed by Jesus the revealer through his words and
deeds.³¹

Revelation in the Gospel of John

Within Johannine scholarship, revelation is commonly recognized as the

centralizing feature of the Gospel of John. Bultmann’s own commentary is
structured around the concept of revelation, with his two major divisions of
the Gospel entitled “Chapters 2–12: The Revelation of the ΔΌΞΑ to the
World” and “Chapters 13–20: The Revelation of the ΔΌΞΑ before the
Community.”³² He, of course, famously said that Jesus is the Revealer but
that there is no content to the revelation apart from revealing that he is the
Revealer.³³ Many studies and commentaries on the Fourth Gospel, whether
they explicitly follow Bultmann’s lead or not, are also structured around the

²⁸ These features are what William Loader considers the central structure of the Gospel. See Loader,
Jesus in John’s Gospel.
²⁹ John Ashton, Understanding the Fourth Gospel, 2nd edn (Oxford, 2007), 2–11; Engberg-Pedersen,
John and Philosophy, 1–3; Loader, Jesus in John’s Gospel, 2–12.
³⁰ Bultmann, “Die Bedeutung,” 100, 102. ³¹ See Ashton, Understanding, 491–529.
³² Rudolf Bultmann, The Gospel of John: A Commentary, trans. by G. R. Beasley-Murray, R. W. N. Hoare,
and J. K. Riches (Philadelphia, PA, 1971), vii–xii.
³³ Bultmann, “Die Bedeutung,” 102; Rudolf Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament, trans. by
Kendrick Grobel, 2 vols (New York, 1951), , 66. Engberg-Pedersen, John and Philosophy, 2, notes that
William Wrede made this exact point twenty years before Bultmann.
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concept of revelation. For example, Michael Theobald divides the Gospel into
“Revelation of the Son to the World” and “Revelation of the Son to his Own.”
Paul Rainbow’s chapters include: “The Revelation of God (the Father),” “God’s
Self-Revelation in Christ’s Person,” “God’s Self-Revelation in Christ’s Work,”
and “The Revelation of the Father in the Son by the Paraclete.”³⁴ Within
modern critical scholarship, however, Bultmann was not the first to highlight
revelation as a centralizing theme of the Fourth Gospel. Bernhard Weiss
comments on Johannine revelation in his Lehrbuch der biblischen Theologie
des Neuen Testaments, which was originally published in 1868. Weiss’s state-
ments sound eerily familiar: “As the living organ of the revelation of the
Father, Jesus must know Himself as such, and this presupposes that He
perfectly knows the Father, who is revealed in His works.” And again: “the
contents of His word are, to be sure, with John mainly Himself again, i.e. the
meaning of the revelation given in His person and His works.”³⁵ Hugo Huber,
a contemporary of Bultmann, also argued that Jesus is the Revealer and that
Jesus’s words and signs are the medium of that revelation.³⁶ Half a century
later, Gail O’Day notes the centrality of revelation in John but focuses on the
revelatory nature of the text: “It is . . . not the content of what Jesus says but the
fact that an encounter with the divine occurs that is at the core of revelation in
John.”³⁷ In a recent commentary, Francis Martin and William Wright, IV have
made a similar claim: “Jesus’ whole life—his person, words, and deeds—is a
revelation of the Father, of himself as the Son, and of the infinite love between
them.”³⁸ Philip van den Heede continues the tradition arguing that revelation
is a central category for John and that the form of Jesus’s revelation is at the
same time its content.³⁹ These scholars are part of a long-standing recognition
within Johannine scholarship that revelation is central to the Gospel.

³⁴ Theobald, Evangelium, 27–8; Paul A. Rainbow, Johannine Theology: The Gospel, the Epistles and
the Apocalypse (Downers Grove, IL, 2014).
³⁵ Bernhard Weiss, Lehrbuch der biblischen Theologie des Neuen Testaments (Berlin, 1868). Citations
from the English translation of Weiss’s third edition: Bernhard Weiss, Biblical Theology of the New
Testament, trans. by James E. Duguid, 2 vols (Edinburgh, 1883), , 332, 352. My interaction with Weiss is
indebted to James M. Boice, Witness and Revelation in the Gospel of John (Grand Rapids, MI, 1970), 45.
³⁶ Hugo H. Huber, Der Begriff der Offenbarung im Johannes-Evangelium: ein Beitrag zum
Verständnis der Eigenart des vierten Evangeliums (Göttingen, 1934), 27, 84. However, there is a
troubling emphasis on the Gospel’s newness and opposition to Jewish theology (57).
³⁷ Gail R. O’Day, Revelation in the Fourth Gospel: Narrative Mode and Theological Claim
(Philadelphia, PA, 1986), 39.
³⁸ Francis Martin and William M. Wright, IV, The Gospel of John, CCSS (Grand Rapids, MI, 2015), 24.
³⁹ Philippe van den Heede, Der Exeget Gottes. Eine Studie zur johanneischen Offenbarungstheologie,
HBibSt, 88 (Freiburg, 2017), 13, 25–6. See also Michael Labahn, Offenbarung in Zeichen und Wort:
Untersuchungen zur Vorgeschichte von Joh 6,1-25a und seiner Rezeption in der Brotrede, WUNT, II/117
(Tübingen, 2000), 283, for Jesus’s revelation in deed and word.
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Intriguingly, arguments for the existence and centrality of revelation in the

Fourth Gospel are typically not forthcoming in Johannine scholarship. The
most likely reason for this is that the revelatory nature of the Gospel appears
quite obvious. Jesus’s making the Father known seems to fit a general under-
standing of “revelation” (John 1:18), not to mention that Jesus reveals his glory
(ἐφανέρωσεν τὴν δόξαν αὐτοῦ, 2:11). In her epilogue to the volume John’s
Gospel and Intimations of Apocalyptic, Adela Yarbro Collins questions
whether Bultmann was correct in his assessment of revelation as the central
outlook of the Gospel of John. She states, “A close reading [of the Gospel of
John] reveals that the themes of revelation and Jesus as revealer are less
dominant than Rudolf Bultmann, for example, supposed.”⁴⁰ Yarbro Collins
views Jesus not so much as revealer but as delegate for God and as a salvific
figure. To put this in more explicitly Johannine terms, John’s Jesus is more
Savior of the world (4:42) than revealer sent from heaven.⁴¹ She says, “The
redeemer does not descend and ascend primarily to convey revelation but to
save the world.”⁴² This perspective comes out more clearly in Yarbro Collins’s
reading of the Son of Man’s descent and ascent in light of the crucifixion (3:13
with 3:14⁴³). Likewise, the ascent mentioned in 6:62, she claims, is not an
ascent but “equivalent to the ‘lifting up’, that is, the crucifixion.”⁴⁴ Laura
Holmes, in her review of the volume, suggests that Yarbro Collins’s critique
concerning the revelatory nature of John undercuts the project of understand-
ing the theme of revelation in the Fourth Gospel as “intimations of apocalyp-
tic.”⁴⁵ I disagree with Holmes’s assessment that Yarbro Collins undercuts the
project because there are different understandings of “apocalyptic” at play

⁴⁰ Adela Yarbro Collins, “Epilogue,” in John’s Gospel and Intimations of Apocalyptic, ed. by Catrin
H. Williams and Christopher Rowland (London, 2013), 307.
⁴¹ Yarbro Collins, “Epilogue,” 302–3, 305. ⁴² Yarbro Collins, “Epilogue,” 304.
⁴³ A correspondence between ὑψόω and the crucifixion may be argued, but G. C. Nicholson, Death
as Departure: The Johannine Descent-Ascent Schema, SBLDS, 63 (Chico, CA, 1983), 141, lists no fewer
than five major interpretations of the meaning of ὑψόω in the Gospel of John. The crucifixion is
generally understood as part of the meaning of ὑψόω, but the question is whether the term primarily
refers to the crucifixion as Jesus’s exaltation or the crucifixion as the beginning of his exaltation, which
is then completed in Jesus’s resurrection and return to the Father. In my opinion, the interpretation of
John 3:14; 8:28; and 12:34 in terms of 2:22; 7:39; and 12:16 indicates that the “lifting up”/exaltation of
Jesus includes the crucifixion but is not completed until he returns to the Father. See Raymond
E. Brown, The Gospel according to John (I–XII): Introduction, Translation, and Notes, AB, 29
(Garden City, NY, 1966), 146. For a longer discussion, see Benjamin E. Reynolds, The Apocalyptic
Son of Man in the Gospel of John, WUNT, II/249 (Tübingen, 2008), 122–7. Frey, Glory of the Crucified
One, 247–51, however, argues for the exaltation primarily through crucifixion.
⁴⁴ Yarbro Collins, “Epilogue,” 303, apparently misses the word “before” in 6:62. She also connects
1:51 to the crucifixion (301).
⁴⁵ Laura C. S. Holmes, “Review of John’s Gospel and Intimations of Apocalyptic, Edited by Catrin
H. Williams and Christopher Rowland,” RBL, 2015, https://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?
TitleId=9697, accessed April 3, 2020.
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between the contributors to the volume and Yarbro Collins.⁴⁶ Nevertheless,

Yarbro Collins and Holmes helpfully challenge Johannine scholarship’s often
unsupported assumption that revelation is the Fourth Gospel’s “zentrale
Anschaaung, seine Grundkonzeption.”⁴⁷ Johannine scholars have probably
for too long assumed the correctness of Bultmann’s view without arguing for
it, even if few have found his contention of a gnostic Redeemer myth origin for
that revelation viable.⁴⁸ Yarbro Collins’s and Holmes’s critiques highlight the
need to define “revelation” and to argue for its importance in the Fourth Gospel.

Defining “Revelation”

“Revelation” is generally understood to refer to the making known of some-

thing that was previously unknown. According to the Oxford English
Dictionary, “revelation” can also refer to making something known that was
merely unrecognized. It may also refer to the act or experience of something
unknown being made known (i.e., “a revelation”),⁴⁹ a “source of enlighten-
ment,” or also something that inspires awe (“The Gospel of John is a revela-
tion”). The sort of revelation that is considered to be present in the Fourth
Gospel is the generally understood meaning, namely that something unknown
is made known. However, the origin of that revelation is also an important
part of the definition. The OED definition that best defines the revelation
Bultmann referred to and which I will use in the following study is: “1.a.) The
disclosure or communication of knowledge, instructions, etc., by divine or
supernatural means.”⁵⁰ Yarbro Collins is, I think, justified in pointing out that
Johannine scholars tend to assume the dominance of this sort of revelation in
the Gospel of John; however, I think she is incorrect to suggest that “revela-
tion” is not central to the Gospel of John. Having defined “revelation” in this
way, I will argue for the presence and centrality of revelation in the Gospel in
the following section.

⁴⁶ It should be noted that Yarbro Collins was not in attendance at the Bangor Colloquium and wrote
the epilogue in response to the completed essays.
⁴⁷ Bultmann, “Die Bedeutung,” 102.
⁴⁸ Ashton, Understanding, 3, refers to Bultmann’s Mandean hypothesis as “one of the oddest of the
many remarkable bits of jetsam that litter the shores of Johannine scholarship.”
⁴⁹ Both Boice, Witness and Revelation, and O’Day, Revelation in the Fourth Gospel, address the
theological aspects of natural and supernatural revelation in their opening sections.
⁵⁰ Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford, 2000), http://dictionary.oed.com/entrance.dtl, s.v. “revela-
tion” (emphasis mine). Markus N. A. Bockmuehl, Revelation and Mystery in Ancient Judaism and
Pauline Christianity, WUNT, II/36 (Tübingen, 1990), 2, defines revelation similarly: “ ‘Revelation’
designates a) any divine disclosure communicated by visionary or prophetic means, or b) the mani-
festation of heavenly realities in a historical context.”
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Evidence of Revelation in John

One of the difficulties with tracing the concept of revelation throughout John
is that there are multiple terms connected to the concept, and these terms are
often interconnected within the Gospel’s narrative (e.g., word, truth, believe,
seeing, glory). Even so, various interpreters have presented lists of vocabulary
terms relevant to the theme of revelation in John. For example, Hugo Huber
lists the New Testament revelation terms as ἀποκαλύπτω, γνωρίζω, δείκνυμι,
δηλόω, and φανερόω, but of these John only uses γνωρίζω, δείκνυμι, and
φανερόω. Huber also includes ἀκούω, βλέπω, θεάομαι, πέμπω, and the “sign-
concept,” before mentioning the substantives “truth,” “light,” “life,” and other
symbolic concepts like “way,” “gate,” “shepherd,” “vine,” “bread,” “water of
life,” “flesh,” and “resurrection.” While he does seem to list every Johannine
concept under “revelation,” Huber highlights the revelatory character of these
seven verbs in relation to Jesus’s speech and actions. Particularly, he notes that
φανερόω describes the self-revelation inherent in Jesus’s work.⁵¹
James Boice states that “the witness of Jesus is revelation” and also notes the
revelatory use of φανερόω, γνωρίζω, and δείκνυμι in the Fourth Gospel. Like
Huber, Boice mentions the verbs of sending, coming, seeing, perceiving,
hearing, and believing.⁵² John Ashton includes a much longer list of terms
than Huber or Boice. He states, “Every major motif in the Gospel is directly
linked to the concept of revelation.”⁵³ Saeed Hamid-Khani, like Ashton,
includes an extensive list. Along with the verbs already listed, Hamid-Khani
lists “a cluster of expressions which underlie the idea [of ‘revelation’]”:
ἐξηγέομαι, τὸν οὐρανὸν ἀνεωγότα, παρρησία, ὀδηγέω, ἀναγγέλλω, ἀπαγγέλλω,
ἀκοή, μαρτυρία, and μαρτυρέω. Hamid-Khani contends that the “concept is
imbedded deeply in the Christology of the Fourth Gospel.”⁵⁴ And in one final
example, Philippe van den Heede lists various “Offenbarungsverben” in John’s
Gospel of which Jesus is the subject: λέγω-λαλέω, μαρτυρέω, φανερόω,
δείκνυμι, and γνωρίζω.⁵⁵ Strangely, Huber, Boice, and Ashton state that the
verb ἀποκαλύπτω is absent from the Fourth Gospel, but the verb is present in
the citation from Isa. 53:1 in John 12:38 (more on this later in this section).
I do not have space to trace the revelatory character of all the vocabulary listed

⁵¹ Huber, Begriff der Offenbarung, 72–84. ⁵² Boice, Witness and Revelation, 31–4.
⁵³ Ashton, Understanding, 491–2 (emphasis original); similarly, J. Terence Forestell, The Word of the
Cross: Salvation as Revelation in the Fourth Gospel, AnBib, 57 (Rome, 1974), 43–56.
⁵⁴ Hamid-Khani, Revelation and Concealment, 344–5.
⁵⁵ Van den Heede, Der Exeget Gottes, 13.
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by these scholars;⁵⁶ however, I will briefly draw attention to some instances of

revelation—that is, the “disclosure or communication of knowledge by super-
natural means”—in the Gospel of John. Many of these instances contain
vocabulary included in these lists.
The portrayal of Jesus as a heavenly figure in the Gospel is directly related to
revelation, and it is one of its distinctive motifs. That Jesus is a “man from
heaven”⁵⁷ is evident from the opening line of the Gospel. The Word was with
God in the beginning (πρὸς τὸν θεόν, John 1:1, 2; 17:24); he was in the bosom
of the Father (1:18). Jesus’s origin is heaven. He is “from above” (3:31; 8:23),
descended from heaven (3:13; 6:35), and has come into the world (1:9; 3:19;
9:30; 11:27). Jesus is the Son of Man who has descended from heaven (3:13),
and he is the Bread of Life who has descended from heaven (6:33). He is the
Son who has been sent into the world (3:17; 10:36; 17:21), and he is the one
coming from heaven (3:31). Jesus’s heavenly origin and eventual return to his
Father in heaven frame the narrative of Jesus’s life and underline the heavenly
nature of what he does and says (6:62; 14:2–3, 12, 28; 16:5).⁵⁸
Jesus has come from heaven and what he says and does includes the
revelation of heavenly things. His words and actions come directly from the
Father. He speaks the Father’s words (8:28–9; 12:49–50) and testifies to what
he has seen and heard from above (3:11, 32; 8:38, 40; 15:15).⁵⁹ Jesus’s heavenly
origin gives him the knowledge and authority to speak heavenly things that he
has heard from the Father (3:11–12, 31–6).⁶⁰ The fact that he is “from above”
(3:31) and can speak of heavenly things (τὰ ἐπουράνια, 3:12) indicates that
divine disclosure is integral to Jesus’s activity. Even his works are revelatory in
nature. The Father has shown the Son what he does, and Jesus does those
things that the Father has shown him (5:19–22). Since these are the Father’s
works that Jesus does, they indicate “God’s self-revelation in Jesus.”⁶¹ The
works, like Jesus’s words, are heavenly in origin and are revealed to those on

⁵⁶ On φανερόω, see Huber, Begriff der Offenbarung, 73–4; and Christopher Rowland and
Christopher R. A. Morray-Jones, The Mystery of God: Early Jewish Mysticism and the New
Testament, CRINT, 12 (Leiden, 2009), 14; on ἀναγγέλλω, see Catrin H. Williams, “Unveiling
Revelation: The Spirit-Paraclete and Apocalyptic Disclosure in the Gospel of John,” in John’s Gospel
and Intimations of Apocalyptic, ed. by Catrin H. Williams and Christopher Rowland (London, 2013),
104–27; on δείκνυμι, see Benjamin E. Reynolds, “Apocalyptic Revelation in the Gospel of John:
Revealed Cosmology, the Vision of God, and Visionary Showing,” in The Jewish Apocalyptic
Tradition and the Shaping of New Testament Thought, ed. by Benjamin E. Reynolds and Loren
T. Stuckenbruck (Minneapolis, MN, 2017), 109–28.
⁵⁷ Wayne A. Meeks, “Man from Heaven in Johannine Sectarianism,” JBL, 91/1 (1972), 44–72.
⁵⁸ See Reinhartz, The Word in the World, 29–30.
⁵⁹ Boice, Witness and Revelation, 39–74, argues that Jesus’s testimony is primarily revelation.
⁶⁰ Cf. W. H. Cadman, The Open Heaven: The Revelation of God in the Johannine Sayings of Jesus, ed.
by G. B. Caird (Oxford, 1969), 3–14.
⁶¹ Ashton, Understanding, 497.
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earth. Jesus’s works are the Father’s works that he has shown to Jesus
(δεικνύμι, 5:19–20; also 4:34; 5:36; 6:29).
The signs Jesus does are part of the works and testify to his heavenly origin
and his relationship with the Father; yet Marianne Meye Thompson disputes
the revelatory nature of the signs, saying that they do not contain previously
unknown things. She contends that God has provided for his people in the past,
and wine, bread, and sight are all earthly things.⁶² She is correct that God’s
provision and the earthly aspects of the signs are not unknown, but the specific
deeds Jesus does point to something previously unknown and something new.
Even if wine is not revelatory, Jesus’s disciples saw something new in the
turning of water into wine, namely Jesus’s revealed glory (ἐφανέρωσεν τὴν
δόξαν αὐτοῦ, 2:11). In 9:3, Jesus says that the blindness of the man born blind
is not because of sin but “in order that that works of God might be revealed
[φανερωθῇ] in him.” Jesus’s signs, while including earthly things such as wine,
mud, water, and bread, point to previously unknown knowledge about his
heavenly origin that is made known by a heavenly figure.⁶³ They also “point the
way to a true faith and are therefore revelatory in the full sense”⁶⁴ (20:30).
Jesus, the stranger from heaven,⁶⁵ makes the Father known (ἐξηγήσατο,
1:18). Whether the sense of the verb ἐξηγήσατο is “reveal,” “guide,” “show,” or
“make known,”⁶⁶ Jesus, as the only one who has seen the Father and been with
him, makes the Father known in a way that was not previously known.⁶⁷ Thus,
“revelation is paramount in the expression.”⁶⁸ Not only does Jesus make the
Father known, but he has revealed and made known the Father’s name
(ἐφανέρωσά σου τὸ ὄνομα, 17:6; ἐγνώρισα . . . τὸ ὄνομα σου, 17:26). Jesus’s
revelation of the Father is made plain in John 14. When Philip asks Jesus to
show them the Father, Jesus replies that seeing him is seeing the Father
(14:8–9). Jesus makes the Father known and is the revelation of the Father.
To know Jesus is to know the Father (14:7); to see Jesus is to see the Father.⁶⁹
Jesus is the vision of God on earth.⁷⁰

⁶² Marianne Meye Thompson, “Signs and Faith in the Fourth Gospel,” BBR, 1 (1991), 89–108.
⁶³ See van den Heede, Der Exeget Gottes, 112, 116. ⁶⁴ Ashton, Understanding, 496.
⁶⁵ Marinus de Jonge, Jesus: Stranger from Heaven and Son of God: Jesus Christ and the Christians in
Johannine Perspective, trans. by John E. Steely, SBLSBS (Missoula, MT, 1977).
⁶⁶ John F. McHugh, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on John 1–4, ICC (London, 2009), 72–3.
⁶⁷ Marianne Meye Thompson, “Jesus: ‘The One Who Sees God’,” in Israel’s God and Rebecca’s
Children: Christology and Community in Early Judaism and Christianity, ed. by David B. Capes, April
D. DeConick, and Helen K. Bond (Waco, TX, 2007), 225–6.
⁶⁸ Keener, Gospel of John, I, 424; also Herman Ridderbos, The Gospel of John: A Theological
Commentary, trans. by John Vriend (Grand Rapids, MI, 1997), 59 n. 143.
⁶⁹ Craig R. Koester, “Jesus as the Way to the Father in Johannine Theology (John 14,6),” in Theology
and Christology in the Fourth Gospel: Essays by Members of the SNTS Johannine Writings Seminar, ed.
by Gilbert Van Belle, J. G. van der Watt, and P. Maritz, BETL, 184 (Leuven, 2005), 117–33; Frey, Glory
of the Crucified One, 285–312.
⁷⁰ Jesus as the vision of God will be discussed further in Chapter 3.
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Further evidence of revelation in the Gospel of John is evident in John 1:51.

Jesus declares that Nathanael and the disciples will see heaven opened and the
angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man. The opening of
heaven suggests that what will be seen includes heavenly revelation. Jesus the
Son of Man, as the one connecting heaven and earth, and thus God and
humanity, is the revealer of the Father.⁷¹
The concepts of light, truth, and glory also reflect the revelatory nature of
Jesus in the Fourth Gospel.⁷² Jesus is the light that has come into the darkened
world, shines in the darkness, and enlightens all people (1:4–5, 9; 3:20–1; 8:12;
9:5; 12:46). As was hinted at above, the revelation of Jesus’s glory is part of
Jesus’s revelation of the Father, because Jesus shares the glory of the Father
(2:11; 13:31–2; 17:1, 5). The glory seen in Jesus is the Father’s glory (12:41),
and it is disclosed through Jesus’s words and works (1:14). Truth is another
revelatory motif in John. Its close connection to testimony and its referent is
suggestive of truth that is disclosed (1:14, 17; 5:33; 8:40–6).
In the conclusion to John 1–12, the final action of the Revealer in the public
sphere is to hide from the crowd (ἐκρύβη ἀπ’ αὐτῶν, 12:36; cf. 12:34–5). Then
the evangelist states that they did not believe even though he did many signs
before them (12:37). This lack of belief is said to fulfill Isaiah’s words in Isa.
53:1 (John 12:37–8). The citation asks two questions, and Catrin Williams
argues that the second question indicates that Jesus is “the visible embodiment
of ‘the arm of the Lord’” (καὶ ὁ βραχίων κυρίου τίνι ἀπεκαλύφθη;, “to whom
has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” 12:38).⁷³ This citation, the only
instance of the verb ἀποκαλύπτω in the Gospel of John, summarizes all that
has proceeded in John 1–12 and highlights that, particularly in his signs, Jesus
is the revealer of the Father. Revelation is evident in John, and Jesus is a
heavenly figure who reveals that revelation.
While Yarbro Collins is correct to claim that the Fourth Gospel downplays
heavenly vision, I disagree with her contention that revelation plays a less
than dominant role in the Gospel, as well as with her view that Johannine
revelation is at odds with salvation.⁷⁴ As I have highlighted in this section,
Jesus’s revelation is central to the Gospel’s narrative, including its role in
salvation.⁷⁵ The Johannine Jesus is “the revealer” because he discloses heavenly
things (3:12–13), including God’s words, deeds, and the Father himself

⁷¹ Hamid-Khani, Revelation and Concealment, 346; van den Heede, Der Exeget Gottes, 211–13.
⁷² Ashton, Understanding, 492.
⁷³ Catrin H. Williams, “Johannine Christology and Prophetic Traditions: The Case of Isaiah,” in
Reading the Gospel of John’s Christology as Jewish Messianism: Royal, Prophetic, and Divine Messiahs,
ed. by Benjamin E. Reynolds and Gabriele Boccaccini, AJEC, 106 (Leiden, 2018), 107.
⁷⁴ Yarbro Collins, “Epilogue,” 301, 307. ⁷⁵ Forestell, Word of the Cross, 1–57.
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(1:18; 14:9–11). He is the light of the world bringing the light of revelation to
the dark incomprehension of the world (1:5; 8:12). The one who was with God
in the beginning and through whom all things came to be (1:1–4) has entered
the world (1:9; 9:39), manifested the glory of God (1:14; 2:11), and revealed the
“arm of the Lord” through his speech and actions (12:38, 49–50). It is difficult
to read the Fourth Gospel “without a pervasive sense that somehow or other
heavenly things are spoken of on virtually every page.”⁷⁶

The Background of John’s Revelation

If divine disclosure is central to the Gospel of John, this raises questions about
where this revelatory focus derives from, especially if such a supernatural
revelatory perspective is not evident in the Synoptic Gospels. Thus, we return
to Bultmann’s first riddle about the place of the Gospel within early Christianity.
Bultmann argued that the central theme of revelation derived from Mandean
and Manichean Gnosticism. After noting twenty-eight parallels between the
Gospel of John and gnostic literature, Bultmann claims that the Gospel of
John assumes the gnostic Redeemer myth and is only understandable in relation
to it.⁷⁷
There are few now who are persuaded that the Gospel’s revelation theme
derives from Mandean Gnosticism, and there are a number of reasons for
doubting Bultmann’s claims. First, the dating of the Mandean literature is later
than the Gospel, and scholars are unsure how useful the literature is even for
first- or second-century gnostic thought, especially since the gnostic literature
appears to be dependent on early Christian thought.⁷⁸ Second, the Gospel and
the Mandean literature reflect differences at key points.⁷⁹ Third, Wayne Meeks
points out that Bultmann’s features of the gnostic Redeemer myth do not exist
in any one text. He states that the “typical gnostic myth with which Bultmann
compared the Johannine pattern is an abstraction, obscuring the variety of
actual gnostic myths in extant texts.”⁸⁰ While gnostic influence may not be

⁷⁶ John Ashton, The Gospel of John and Christian Origins (Minneapolis, MN, 2014), 116.
⁷⁷ Bultmann, “Die Bedeutung,” 139: “das Johannesevangelium den skizzierten Erlösungsmythos
voraussetzt und nur auf seinem Hintergrund verständlich ist”; Bultmann, Theology of the New
Testament, , 12–13.
⁷⁸ Keener, Gospel of John, 166.
⁷⁹ Stephen S. Smalley, John: Evangelist and Interpreter (London, 1978), 52–5; Judith M. Lieu,
“Gnosticism and the Gospel of John,” ExpT, 90/8 (1979), 233–7.
⁸⁰ Meeks, “Man from Heaven,” 45 (emphasis original).
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 13

entirely dismissed,⁸¹ it is seriously questionable whether Bultmann’s gnostic

Redeemer myth existed, and if so, whether it existed in the form that he
presented.⁸²
On the other hand, the discovery and study of the Dead Sea Scrolls have led
to a growing awareness of the Gospel of John’s close relationship with early
Judaism. Wilhelm Michaelis, as cited by C. K. Barrett in 1967, states: “It may
now be said that the Palestinian character of the Gospel of John has become so
clear that attempts to promote another provenance really should cease.”⁸³
Since that time, various studies on the Fourth Gospel and the Dead Sea
Scrolls have drawn attention to John’s close relationship with early
Judaism,⁸⁴ and numerous others have highlighted John’s relationship with
early Jewish literature and the themes, thought, and scriptural interpretation
of that literature.⁸⁵ These studies all draw attention to the need to reconsider
John as a text at home within early Judaism. In light of this pendulum shift,
reconsideration of the Fourth Gospel’s theme of revelation is necessary par-
ticularly in relation to early Jewish perspectives on revelation. In his commen-
tary on John, Barrett states:

It might seem at first glance that John bears no relation at all to the
apocalyptic literature; this, however, is not so. It must in the first place be
recognized that apocalyptic is not exclusively concerned with the future.
Apocalypse means the unveiling of secrets; very frequently the secrets dis-
close future events, but sometimes they make known present facts, especially
facts regarding the life of heaven, divine and angelic beings, and the like.⁸⁶

⁸¹ See the recent assessment by Alastair H. B. Logan, “The Johannine Literature and the Gnostics,”
in The Oxford Handbook of Johannine Studies, ed. by Judith M. Lieu and Martinus C. de Boer (Oxford,
2018), 171–85.
⁸² See Brown, Gospel, liv–lvi; Keener, Gospel of John, 161–9.
⁸³ C. K. Barrett, The Gospel of John and Judaism: The Franz Delitzsch Lectures, University of
Münster, 1967, trans. by D. Moody Smith (London, 1975), 8; cited from Wilhelm Michaelis,
Einleitung in das Neue Testament: die Entstehung, Sammlung und Überlieferung der Schriften des
Neuen Testaments, 3rd edn (Bern, 1961), 125.
⁸⁴ Raymond E. Brown, “Qumran Scrolls and the Johannine Gospel and Epistles: Other Similarities,”
CBQ, 17/4 (1955), 559–74; James H. Charlesworth and Raymond E. Brown, eds., John and the Dead Sea
Scrolls (New York, 1990); Mary L. Coloe and Tom Thatcher, eds., John, Qumran, and the Dead Sea
Scrolls: Sixty Years of Discovery and Debate, EJL, 32 (Atlanta, GA, 2011).
⁸⁵ See Jutta Leonhardt-Balzer, “The Johannine Literature and Contemporary Jewish Literature,” in
The Oxford Handbook of Johannine Studies, ed. by Judith M. Lieu and Martinus C. de Boer (Oxford,
2018), 155–70; Benjamin E. Reynolds and Gabriele Boccaccini, eds., Reading the Gospel of John’s
Christology as Jewish Messianism: Royal, Prophetic, and Divine Messiahs, AJEC, 106 (Leiden, 2018);
especially the recent dissertation on this subject, Wally V. Cirafesi, “John within Judaism: Religion,
Ethnicity, and the Shaping of Jesus-Oriented Jewishness in the Fourth Gospel” (Ph.D. diss., University
of Oslo, 2018).
⁸⁶ C. K. Barrett, The Gospel according to St. John: An Introduction with Commentary and Notes on
the Greek Text, 2nd edn (Philadelphia, PA, 1978), 31.
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In his comment that John is similar to Jewish apocalyptic literature, Barrett

strikingly describes “apocalyptic” in a manner not unlike the theme of reve-
lation that is central to John. John Ashton has helpfully blazed the trail further
by arguing for John’s revelation in terms of Jewish apocalyptic tradition.⁸⁷
Ashton is correct to see Jewish apocalyptic tradition underlying the Gospel of
John’s disclosure of heavenly realities through Jesus, the one who descends
from heaven, but, as will be argued in this study, beginning in Chapter 1, there
are some challenges to Ashton’s arguments in light of recent scholarship on
Jewish apocalyptic tradition and Jewish apocalypses.
In the rest of this study, I will be arguing that the Fourth Gospel’s distinct-
iveness among the Gospels, namely the centrality of revelation and the
Gospel’s revelatory perspective on the life of Jesus, may best be explained by
examining it “among the apocalypses.” Since much of this argument is
dependent on genre and definitions of “apocalypse” and “apocalyptic,” I will
address these topics in Chapter 1, along with a detailed interaction with John
Ashton. Chapters 2–4 contain an extensive comparison of the Gospel of John
with the Society of Biblical Literature Genre group’s definition of “apocalypse”
that was published in Semeia 14. This comparison will include examples from
Jewish apocalypses, specifically 1 Enoch, 2 Enoch, 2 Baruch, 3 Baruch, 4 Ezra,
Apocalypse of Abraham, Apocalypse of Zephaniah, Daniel, Jubilees, Test-
ament of Abraham, and Testament of Levi.⁸⁸ Chapters 2–4 compare the form,
content, and function of the genre of apocalypse with the Gospel of John,
respectively. In Chapter 5, I argue that John’s close affinity with the genre of
“apocalypse” does not mean that the Gospel is an apocalypse or “an apocalypse
in reverse,” as John Ashton has argued, but that John is a gospel in kind and
an apocalypse in mode—in other words, the Gospel of John is an “apoca-
lyptic” gospel. In Chapter 6, I explore how viewing John as an “apocalyptic”
gospel can provide insight into John’s relationship with the Torah, and I also
offer some suggestions for future comparisons. In Chapter 7, I consider what
John as “apocalyptic” Gospel might mean for understanding the Gospel’s
relationship with the book of Revelation and how early Christian tradition,
particularly Byzantine iconographic tradition, offers a possible explanation
for the apocalyptic mode of John’s Gospel. The conclusion summarizes the
main arguments from the preceding chapters.

⁸⁷ Ashton, Understanding, 6–7, 305–529; Ashton, Christian Origins, 97–118. See also Rowland and
Morray-Jones, Mystery of God, 123–31.
⁸⁸ John J. Collins, “The Jewish Apocalypses,” Semeia, 14 (1979), 21–49.
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1
Genre, “Apocalypse,” and the Gospel
of John

The theme of revelation has a central place in the Gospel of John, just as
Rudolf Bultmann, John Ashton, and other Johannine scholars have rightly
recognized. The Gospel’s narrative is a revelatory telling of the life of Jesus, the
one who descended from heaven and who speaks “heavenly things.” The best
explanation for the Fourth Gospel’s revelatory framework is not to be found in
gnostic Redeemer myths but, as will be argued in this study, in the Gospel’s
affinity with Jewish apocalypses. It quickly becomes apparent that this argu-
ment is dependent upon ascertaining what genre is and how we determine
what kind of literature we read. Engaging in this sort of literary and narrative
comparison requires an understanding of genre, of the meaning of “apoca-
lypse,” of whether a text “belongs” or “participates” in a genre, and how that
may be determined. Therefore, in this chapter, I will first discuss modern genre
theory and the importance of cognitive prototypes for understanding genre.
Second, I will address the standard definition of “apocalypse” and the various
debates concerning that definition. I will conclude the chapter with a prelim-
inary discussion about the Gospel of John and “apocalyptic,” including John
Ashton’s arguments for an affinity between Jewish apocalyptic tradition and
the Fourth Gospel.

Genre Theory

Talking about genre is inherently “slippery.”¹ We seem to know instinctively

what sort of genre we read or write,² but we have difficulty explaining how we
know it and what specifically leads to our knowledge of genres. From the time

¹ John M. Swales, Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings, Cambridge Applied
Linguistics Series (Cambridge, 1990), 33.
² Maria Antónia Coutinho and Florencia Miranda, “To Describe Genres: Problems and Strategies,”
in Genre in a Changing World, ed. by Charles Bazerman, Adair Bonini, and Débora Figueiredo (West
Lafayette, IN, 2009), 36.

John among the Apocalypses: Jewish Apocalyptic Tradition and the “Apocalyptic” Gospel. Benjamin E. Reynolds,
Oxford University Press (2020). © Benjamin E. Reynolds.
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198784241.001.0001
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of Plato and Aristotle, genre was thought to be static in the sense that there
were pure forms to which literature conformed (the epic, lyric, and drama³).
The Romantics recognized that genre was not static because they experienced
the beginning of a new genre, the novel.⁴ Heta Pyrhönen notes, “the
Romantics emphasized that genres are historically determined, dynamic
entities whose developmental trajectory may be described with organic meta-
phors: a genre grows, flowers, ages, and may finally die.”⁵ The Russian
Formalists, however, pushed the evolutionary nature of genre even further
by acknowledging that texts shape and influence genres, rather than only
genre shaping texts. As a result, genres are now recognized as being dependent
upon, and often in tension with, previous genres.⁶
The consequence of these shifts in understanding genre is that genre
theorists are not as concerned with classification as when it was thought that
genres needed to fit into Platonic or Aristotelian models. Recent genre theory
is actually averse to viewing genre as mere classification,⁷ in part because of
Jacques Derrida’s contention that texts do not “belong” to genres but “partici-
pate” in them.⁸ Standard, formal lists of genre characteristics or taxonomies
were often drawn from scientific classifications of flora and fauna, and these
sorts of taxonomic classifications of genre are no longer considered beneficial
in determining genre because genres are now understood to be “open-ended,”
mixed, and to modify one another, unlike plants and animals.⁹ Alastair Fowler,
following Ludwig Wittgenstein, suggests that family resemblance theory offers
a better way to categorize genre relationships.¹⁰ In this approach, categoriza-
tions are made on the basis of family resemblances, such as similar features or
tendencies. Family resemblance, however, has its deficiencies, as John Swales
notes. As an example, he points out that a knife and a spoon resemble each
other because they are eating utensils, a spoon and a teapot may resemble each

³ This triad has been pointed out to be a conflation of Plato’s and Aristotle’s views. See David Duff,
“Introduction,” in Modern Genre Theory, ed. by David Duff (New York, 2000), 3.
⁴ See the introduction in David Duff, ed., Modern Genre Theory (New York, 2000), for a historical
discussion of genre theory; and John Frow, Genre, The New Critical Idiom, 2nd edn (London, 2015),
55–78.
⁵ Heta Pyrhönen, “Genre,” in The Cambridge Companion to Narrative, ed. by David Herman
(Cambridge, 2007), 111.
⁶ Tzvetan Todorov, “The Origin of Genres,” in Modern Genre Theory, ed. by David Duff
(New York, 2000), 196.
⁷ Alastair Fowler, Kinds of Literature: An Introduction to the Theory of Genres and Modes
(Cambridge, MA, 1982), 37.
⁸ Jacques Derrida, “The Law of Genre,” in Modern Genre Theory, ed. by David Duff (New York,
2000), 219–31.
⁹ Frow, Genre, 56–9.
¹⁰ Fowler, Kinds of Literature, 42. See George Lakoff, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What
Categories Reveal about the Mind (Chicago, 1987), 16, for a brief summary of Wittgenstein.
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other because they both hold liquid, and again, a teapot and a suitcase both
have handles. Obviously, the family can grow quite large if there is no control
on what kind of family resemblances we are talking about. Swales rightly
draws attention to the lack of family resemblance between knives and suitcases
and that, if we work hard enough, it may be possible for anything to resemble
anything else.¹¹
Prototype theory has provided genre theorists with a way “to find a course
between trying to produce unassailable definitions of a particular genre and
relaxing into the irresponsibility of family resemblances.”¹² Eleanor Rosch’s
cognitive studies highlighted the way in which the mind categorizes things in
relation to prototypes.¹³ As human beings, we have in our minds prototypical
examples of various categories: a fork as an eating utensil, a chair as furniture,
etc.¹⁴ What is intriguing about these prototypes is that boundaries exist
between categories (eating utensils are not furniture), but within categories
there is a hierarchical relationship to the prototype. Not all elements in a
category are equal. In other words, some examples are closer to the prototype,
while others are marginal.¹⁵ For example, regarding eating utensils, a fork may
be the prototype, but knives and spoons also participate in the category but are
not prototypical.¹⁶ In the North American context, the robin is commonly
recognized as a prototypical bird. Chickens and woodpeckers are also recog-
nized as birds but not as prototypical. Penguins, ostriches, and kiwis, on the
other hand, are also birds but marginally so. Swales states, “It might therefore
be the case that what holds shared membership together is not a shared list of
defining features, but inter-relationships of a somewhat looser kind.”¹⁷
Prototypes, therefore, are useful for reining in the extremes of categorization
by family resemblance approaches and for recognizing how humans cogni-
tively categorize things.¹⁸
As we move from biological to literary genre categorization, the boundaries
between categories become a bit fuzzier. Bird, mammal, and reptile have clear

¹¹ Swales, Genre Analysis, 51. ¹² Swales, Genre Analysis, 52.

¹³ Eleanor Rosch, “Cognitive Representations of Semantic Categories,” Journal of Experimental
Psychology, 104/3 (1975), 192–233. For a summary, see Lakoff, Women, Fire, 39–56.
¹⁴ These prototypes are obviously tied to culture, language, and geography, among other determinants.
¹⁵ Rosch, “Cognitive Representations of Semantic Categories,” 225; Michael Sinding, “From Fact to
Fiction: The Question of Genre in Autobiography and Early First-Person Novels,” SubStance, 39/2
(2010), 107–30.
¹⁶ However, if chopsticks are the prototypical eating utensil, then we have a completely different set
of hierarchical relationships.
¹⁷ Swales, Genre Analysis, 49–50.
¹⁸ Lakoff, Women, Fire, 68–9, argues that prototypes are organized “by means of structures called
idealized cognitive models” (emphasis original).
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boundaries, while tragedy, biography, historical narrative, novel, and short

story are not always as clearly demarcated.¹⁹ However, with regard to the genre
of novel, we tend to consider a text’s participation in the genre in relation to a
prototype novel. The novels of Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, and James Joyce,
among others, are often suggested as prototypical examples, while Herman
Melville’s Moby Dick tends to be considered a marginal example. Readers do
not need a list of features to determine the genre because they are intrinsically
alerted to the genre as they read, just as the author pays attention to proto-
typical elements in the writing.²⁰ Taxonomic classification is thus not the best
way to describe what a literary genre is.
When considering genre prototypes, the dimensions of form, function, and
content all play a role. John Swales, however, argues that a text’s “communi-
cative purpose” is its primary prototypical feature.²¹ His focus on academic
writing clearly shapes his prioritizing of function. His examples of adminis-
trative correspondence and student research papers do support function as an
important genre determinant, although, by admitting that the rhetorical
purpose of poetry cannot determine the genre, Swales demonstrates the
weakness of his argument.²² Likewise, sonnets, haikus, and limericks are not
determined by purpose but primarily by form (i.e., structure).²³ Swales is likely
correct that purpose is the prototypical feature of interview rejection letters
and some other administrative correspondence, but their form and content are
also relevant generic features.
Thus, a combination of form, content, and function is needed for deter-
mining genre prototypes. According to John Frow, “genres are always complex
constellations which must be defined in terms of all three of these dimensions:
the formal, the rhetorical [i.e., function], and the thematic [i.e., content].”
Thinking about genres as “complex constellations” is a helpful reminder of the
way in which various literary features work together in the determining of
genre. This reality is the main reason why taxonomic lists are not sufficient
guides to genre categorization. Frow, however, draws attention to two “codas”
that must be considered regarding this complex constellation of form, func-
tion, and content. First, they overlap and are not mutually exclusive. Second,
each of the three dimensions cannot be equally weighted. In other words, for

¹⁹ Michael Sinding, “Framing Monsters: Multiple and Mixed Genres, Cognitive Category Theory,
and ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’,” Poetics Today, 31/3 (2010), 476–7.
²⁰ Which is why John Frow, “ ‘Reproducibles, Rubrics, and Everything You Need’: Genre Theory
Today,” PMLA, 122/5 (2007), 1626–34, argues for the importance of educating students about genre.
²¹ Swales, Genre Analysis, 45, 52, and also 46.
²² Swales, Genre Analysis, 47. ²³ Sinding, “Framing Monsters,” 477.
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some genres, form may be more determinative of genre, while for others, it
may be content or function.²⁴ A comparison of the genres of short story, novel,
interview rejection letter, and sonnet demonstrates these two caveats. Thus,
literary genre categorization must consider the complex relationships of these
three dimensions of form, content, and function.
Modern genre theory has made it clear that texts participate in genres and
cannot be said to belong to a genre. Genres influence each other, and texts
modulate and mutate the genres in which they participate.²⁵ Pyrhönen notes
how “a genre continually remakes and reworks its norms, thus extending
them.”²⁶ Some of this extension can take place through the embedding of
other genres, such as the inclusion of a letter in a biography or a vision in a
short story.²⁷ Extension can also take place through the use of modes, or the
adjectival qualification of a genre. Mode has been described “as a thematic and
tonal qualification or ‘colouring’ of the genre.”²⁸ Fowler lists Jane Austen’s
Emma as an example of a novel written in comic mode, that is, Emma is a
“comic novel.”²⁹ Frow lists other examples: “gothic thriller, pastoral elegy,
satirical sitcom.”³⁰ Modes and embedded genres function as ways in which
texts can still participate in a genre and yet simultaneously extend the genre.
Modern genre theory is not so much concerned with defining genre as it is
with recognizing that genre serves as “a frame, as a starting place or an initial
orientation” in our approach to reading and understanding literature.³¹
A text’s participation in a genre can best be assessed by making use of
prototype theory. Prototype theory highlights the prototype(s) or core
member(s) of a genre. A text’s level of participation in the genre is determined
by its similarity or likeness to the prototype example(s). The dimensions of
form, content, and function are all present in prototype genres, even if the
weight of certain dimensions may matter more for some genres.

The Genre of “Apocalypse”

The foregoing genre discussion outlines the present state of modern genre
theory and will inform the following discussion about the terms “apocalypse”

²⁴ Frow, Genre, 83–4. ²⁵ Fowler, Kinds of Literature, 23–4.

²⁶ Pyrhönen, “Genre,” 118. ²⁷ Frow, Genre, 48–53. ²⁸ Frow, Genre, 71–3.
²⁹ Fowler, Kinds of Literature, 106. ³⁰ Frow, Genre, 71 (emphasis original).
³¹ John M. Swales, “Worlds of Genre—Metaphors of Genre,” in Genre in a Changing World, ed. by
Charles Bazerman, Adair Bonini, and Débora de Carvalho Figueiredo (West Lafayette, IN, 2009), 3–16;
Pyrhönen, “Genre,” 109–10.
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and “apocalyptic” and also my contention that the Gospel of John may be
described as gospel in genre but apocalyptic in mode. We will begin by
defining “apocalypse” and then “apocalyptic,” since the adjectival use should
be connected to the genre from which it derives, or in generic terms, since
mode derives from genre.³²
An important watershed in the defining of the genre of “apocalypse” is the
now forty-year-old Society of Biblical Literature Genre Project definition of
“apocalypse” published in Semeia 14 in 1979.³³ The decade preceding the
publication of the Semeia 14 definition witnessed a flurry of scholarly
endeavor regarding the terms “apocalypse” and “apocalyptic.” Klaus Koch
drew attention to the need to clarify terminology and explain what was meant
in scholarly discussions of “apocalyptic” and “apocalypse.” Koch listed six
characteristics of “apocalyptic” as a literary type—discourse cycles, spiritual
turmoils, paraenetic discourses, pseudonymity, symbolic images, and a long
literary development. He also listed eight characteristics of “apocalyptic” as a
historical movement.³⁴ Koch’s characteristics overlapped with Philipp
Vielhauer’s earlier work, in which Vielhauer listed four literary characteristics
of “apocalyptic”—pseudonymity, vision accounts, surveys of history, and
“forms and combinations of forms,” as well as the apocalyptic “world of
ideas.”³⁵ Koch’s and Vielhauer’s lists blur together literary genre, worldview,
and social contexts.³⁶ In order to bring some clarity to the terminological
confusion, Paul Hanson proposed the following three terms to specify what
meaning of “apocalyptic” was intended: “apocalypses” (apocalyptic genre),
“apocalypticism” (apocalyptic worldview), and “apocalyptic eschatology”
(the eschatology of the worldview evident in most apocalypses).³⁷

³² Fowler, Kinds of Literature, 106–8. Alexander Samely, Profiling Jewish Literature in Antiquity: An
Inventory, from Second Temple Texts to the Talmuds (Oxford, 2012), introduces a new approach to
comparing ancient Jewish literature on the basis of an “inventory of structurally important literary
features.” This approach is extensive in its reference to 560 different features, but the majority of the
inventory is in relation to “contemporary scholarly notions of linguistic meaning and textuality” and
not genre theory. It is yet to be seen whether this approach will prove useful in the future.
³³ John J. Collins, “Introduction: Toward the Morphology of a Genre,” Semeia, 14 (1979), 1–20.
³⁴ Klaus Koch, The Rediscovery of Apocalyptic, trans. by Margaret Kohl, SBT, Second Series, 22
(London, 1972), 24–7.
³⁵ Philipp Vielhauer, “Introduction,” in New Testament Apocrypha, ed. by Wilhelm Schneemelcher,
trans. by R. M. Wilson (London, 1965), , 582–600.
³⁶ Paolo Sacchi, Jewish Apocalyptic and its History, trans. by William J. Short, JSPSup, 20 (Sheffield,
1996), 92–3, notes that Koch’s lists did not even include material from the Book of the Watchers (1 En.
1–36).
³⁷ Paul D. Hanson, “Apocalypse, Genre and Apocalypticism,” IDBSup, 1976, 27–34; David E. Aune,
“Understanding Jewish and Christian Apocalyptic,” in Apocalypticism, Prophecy, and Magic in Early
Christianity (Grand Rapids, MI, 2008), 1–12.
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Since definitions of “apocalypticism” and “apocalyptic eschatology” hinge

upon their relationship to the literary genre of “apocalypse,” the Semeia 14
definition focused the genre discussion. The definition states that an
“apocalypse” is:

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 envis-
ages eschatological salvation, and spatial insofar as it involves another,
supernatural world.³⁸

The definition avoids a list of characteristics like Koch’s and Vielhauer’s, and it
highlights the complex, integrated nature of form and content within the
genre. The definition is also centered on transcendence, which John Collins
describes as the genre’s “inner coherence.”³⁹ A “master-paradigm” of thirteen
elements found in typical examples of apocalypses served as the common core
of elements underlying the apocalypse definition. The “master-paradigm” was
organized according to the framework (or form) and content of revelation.
The framework of revelation was subdivided further into the manner of
revelation and the concluding elements. The manner of revelation consists
of three elements: the medium of revelation (1), the otherworldly mediator (2),
and the human recipient (3). The concluding elements include instructions to
the recipient (12) and narrative conclusion (13). The content of the revelation
includes both temporal and spatial elements. The temporal content includes
protology (4), history (5), present salvation (6), eschatological crisis (7),
eschatological judgment (8), and eschatological salvation (9). The spatial axis
of the content includes otherworldly elements (10). The final common elem-
ent of apocalypses is paraenesis (11), which awkwardly sits outside the frame-
work and content structure of the “master-paradigm.”⁴⁰ The Semeia 14
definition is a composite of the common elements of the “master-paradigm”
from both the framework and content of revelation.
Carol Newsom critiqued the Semeia 14 definition in terms of modern genre
theory. She contends that the Semeia 14 definition and “master-paradigm”
reflect traditional classification models, stating, “The metaphors and images
that appear in the description [of the Semeia 14 definition] refer to the

³⁸ Collins, “Morphology,” 9; John J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to Jewish

Apocalyptic Literature, 3rd edn (Grand Rapids, MI, 2016), 5.
³⁹ Collins, “Morphology,” 10.
⁴⁰ See Collins, “Morphology,” 5–8. The numbering of elements follows the “master-paradigm.”
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‘members’ of the genre, to texts ‘belonging’ to the genre, and to the genre’s
‘boundaries’.”⁴¹ Newsom raises concerns that the “master-paradigm” is using
traditional generic classification and is merely another taxonomic list of
features. Following Derrida, she prefers to “think of texts as participating in
[genres], invoking them, gesturing to them, playing in and out of them, and in
so doing, continually changing them.”⁴² However, she admits that the Semeia
14 definition and its “master-paradigm” “anticipated something like the gestalt
notion as essential to genre recognition.”⁴³ In other words, she admits that the
definition anticipated the prototype model of modern genre theory in which
the whole is understood as the sum of its parts rather than ticking the boxes of
a checklist of features. Echoing George Lakoff, Newsom argues that a reader’s
recognition of genre depends not upon lists of features or “elements,” but “what
triggers [genre recognition] is the way in which [the elements] are related to
one another in a Gestalt structure that serves as an idealized cognitive model.
Thus the elements only make sense in relation to a whole.”⁴⁴ In essence,
Newsom is referring to what Frow describes as genre’s “complex constellation”
of the three dimensions of form, content, and function.
While the apocalypse genre group did not explicitly follow a prototype
model (they were putting together the definition just after Eleanor Rosch’s
groundbreaking work on cognitive models), they began by examining gener-
ally agreed-upon examples of apocalypses (i.e., prototypes): Daniel, 1 Enoch
(the Book of the Watchers, Parables of Enoch, the Book of the Luminaries, the
Apocalypse of Weeks, and the Animal Apocalypse), 4 Ezra, 2 Baruch, and the
book of Revelation.⁴⁵ Other apocalypses, those less prototypical, were also
examined and a table of the “master-paradigm’s” elements was created for
each category of apocalypse. For our purposes, John Collins’s table of Jewish
apocalypses will be the most important.⁴⁶
Newsom’s concerns are legitimate, since one can view the table and the
elements of the “master-paradigm” as a taxonomic checklist. The table is about
as close to a pigeonhole as you can get, which is a problem when, as Fowler
points out, genres are more like pigeons than pigeonholes.⁴⁷ But the Semeia 14
definition itself reflects the “common core of constant elements” in the

⁴¹ Carol A. Newsom, “Spying out the Land: A Report from Genology,” in Seeking Out the Wisdom of
the Ancients: Essays Offered to Honor Michael V. Fox on the Occasion of his Sixty-Fifth Birthday, ed. by
Ronald L. Troxel, Kelvin G. Friebel, and Dennis R. Magary (Winona Lake, IN, 2005), 439.
⁴² Newsom, “Spying out the Land,” 439. ⁴³ Newsom, “Spying out the Land,” 444.
⁴⁴ Newsom, “Spying out the Land,” 444. ⁴⁵ Collins, “Morphology,” 3.
⁴⁶ John J. Collins, “The Jewish Apocalypses,” Semeia, 14 (1979), 28. See Appendix A for a replica of
the table in Collins’s article, although with more descriptive titles of the 1 Enoch apocalypses.
⁴⁷ Fowler, Kinds of Literature, 36.
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“master-paradigm” that are evident in apocalypses.⁴⁸ Like prototype theory,

there is a hierarchy of features within the “master-paradigm” that is sensitive
to the relationship of form and content within the prototypical apocalypses.⁴⁹
Newsom is right to warn against viewing and using the “master-paradigm” as
a taxonomy, but if the “master-paradigm” and the definition are understood as
a hierarchical and complex constellation of integrated elements of form and
content, they may serve as a prototype model of the genre of “apocalypse.”
In terms of the three dimensions of form, content, and function, it should be
immediately obvious that the Semeia 14 definition and the “master-paradigm”
do not define “apocalypse” in terms of function. Only form and content are
used. Although the lack of reference to function was intentional,⁵⁰ the first
critiques of the definition drew attention to its absence. At the Uppsala
conference on apocalypticism, held the same year that the Semeia 14 definition
was published, Lars Hartman⁵¹ and others critiqued the lack of reference to the
purpose of apocalypses. In the following years, criticisms regarding the role of
function in apocalypses also came from David Hellholm⁵² and David Aune.⁵³
Specifically responding to Hellholm’s and Aune’s criticisms, Adela Yarbro
Collins defined the role of function in an addendum to the Semeia 14
definition: an apocalypse is:

intended to interpret present, earthly circumstances in light of the supernat-

ural world and of the future, and to influence both the understanding and the
behavior of the audience by means of divine authority.⁵⁴

This description of function does not specify a context of crisis, which was the
view of Hellholm and others, but it refers more broadly to “present, earthly
circumstances.” These circumstances may include crisis or challenge, but they
do not require it. The addendum to the definition allows for variety of
purpose.

⁴⁸ Collins, “Morphology,” 9; Todd R. Hanneken, The Subversion of the Apocalypses in the Book of
Jubilees, EJL, 34 (Atlanta, GA, 2012), 17.
⁴⁹ Collins, “Morphology,” 5; John J. Collins, Apocalypse, Prophecy, and Pseudepigraphy: On Jewish
Apocalyptic Literature (Grand Rapids, MI, 2015), 4.
⁵⁰ Collins, “Morphology,” 1–2, 4.
⁵¹ Lars Hartman, “Survey of the Problem of Apocalyptic Genre,” in Apocalypticism in the
Mediterranean World: Proceedings of the International Colloquium on Apocalypticism, Uppsala,
August 12–17, 1979, ed. by David Hellholm (Tübingen, 1983), 329–43.
⁵² David Hellholm, “The Problem of Apocalyptic Genre and the Apocalypse of John,” Semeia, 36
(1986), 13–64.
⁵³ David E. Aune, “The Apocalypse of John and the Problem of Genre,” Semeia, 36 (1986), 65–96.
⁵⁴ Adela Yarbro Collins, “Introduction: Early Christian Apocalypses,” Semeia, 36 (1986), 7.
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Some scholars go even further and want to privilege function in defining or

at least in discussing apocalypses. This approach rightly recognizes the value in
historical or diachronic approaches for understanding the relationships
between apocalypses, and it derives in significant part from the generic view
of Mikhail Bakhtin and others, namely that literature derives from speech
genres.⁵⁵ As noted in the previous section, John Swales similarly privileges
“communicative purpose” as the primary criterion of genre.⁵⁶ With regard to
the genre of apocalypse, Michael Vines has followed Bakhtin and prefers to
privilege the “ideological framework” (“apocalypticism”?) rather than formal
literary characteristics as determining “apocalyptic” and “apocalypse.”⁵⁷ The
irony of this is that this “ideological framework” tends to be defined by certain
features within apocalyptic literature. Greg Carey similarly argues that dis-
cussing “apocalyptic discourse” allows us to avoid what he sees as the limita-
tions of the distinction between “apocalypse,” “apocalypticism,” and
“apocalyptic eschatology.” Carey would prefer to talk about the “rhetorical
configuration” found in “recurring themes in discourse and patterns of
reasoning” and in a broader range of “apocalyptic literature,” not just the
literary genre of apocalypse. In other words, like Vines, Carey prefers to
prioritize communicative purpose as a preferable defining feature of “apoca-
lyptic”;⁵⁸ however, Carey defines apocalyptic discourse according to its
“topics,” which he lists as eleven features that are found in apocalyptic
literature.⁵⁹ The overlap of these eleven features with Vielhauer’s and Koch’s
lists is telling.⁶⁰
As Fowler states, “analysis of genre on the basis of language function
will not do.”⁶¹ Not only that, social contexts are difficult to delineate from
apocalypses,⁶² especially when the apocalypses indicate a diversity of possible
functions and social contexts, including the possibility of multiple functions in

⁵⁵ M. M. Bakhtin, “The Problem of Speech Genres,” in Modern Genre Theory, ed. by David Duff
(New York, 2000), 82–97.
⁵⁶ Swales, Genre Analysis, 58.
⁵⁷ Michael E. Vines, “The Apocalyptic Chronotype,” Semeia, 63 (2007), 109–17, esp. 110–12.
⁵⁸ Greg Carey, Ultimate Things: An Introduction to Jewish and Christian Apocalyptic Literature
(St. Louis, MO, 2005), 4–5.
⁵⁹ Carey, Ultimate Things, 6–10; also Greg Carey, Apocalyptic Literature in the New Testament, CBS
(Nashville, TN, 2016), 24–8.
⁶⁰ See a similar critique of Carey by Bennie H. Reynolds, III, Between Symbolism and Realism: The
Use of Symbolic and Non-Symbolic Language in Ancient Jewish Apocalypses 333–63 , JAJSup, 8
(Göttingen, 2011), 57 n. 125, 60.
⁶¹ Fowler, Kinds of Literature, 238.
⁶² Carey, Ultimate Things, 4, even admits this: “the various apocalypses address widely diverse social
contexts, and they do so for a broad array of social ends.”
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a single apocalypse.⁶³ For these reasons, we should be careful not to claim a

single, specific function or social context for the genre as a whole⁶⁴ and then to
define “apocalyptic” in terms of “apocalyptic discourse,” which is apparently
dependent on “apocalyptic language” and derived from a looser group of
“apocalyptic literature.”⁶⁵ While Yarbro Collins’s addition to the definition
of apocalypse may lack a certain specificity, she correctly recognizes the variety
of functions and social contexts evident in apocalypses and the problematic
nature of defining the genre primarily according to function. John Collins
states, “Genres may be of different kinds. But it seems to me that those features
that are explicitly present in the texts, rather than communicative purposes
that have to be inferred, provide the safest point for genre recognition.”⁶⁶
Another significant debate concerning the definition of apocalypse is the
role of eschatology in the content of apocalypses. The Semeia 14 definition
states that apocalypses are revelatory literature that disclose a transcendent
reality that is spatial and temporal. The temporal transcendence includes
“eschatological salvation.” In an earlier article, Collins describes eschatological
salvation as what happens to the wicked and the righteous when they die.⁶⁷
Most assume that end-of-the-world judgment is all that is included by the
term “eschatological”; however, this timing is not required. Judgment of the
wicked and vindication of the righteous are recognizable aspects of “eschat-
ology,” but the timing of these events is left open. The common understanding
of eschatology and the more well-known apocalypses of Daniel and
Revelation, which do describe end-of-the-world scenarios, have often led to
an assumption that apocalypses are primarily about the end of the world.
Eschatology is part of the temporal transcendence in apocalypses, but too
often it is emphasized more than spatial transcendence.
Christopher Rowland is often noted as a detractor from the Semeia 14
definition of “apocalypse,” particularly regarding the role of eschatology.

⁶³ Anathea E. Portier-Young, Apocalypse against Empire: Theologies of Resistance in Early Judaism

(Grand Rapids, MI, 2011); Loren T. Stuckenbruck, “Coping with Alienating Experience: Four Strategies
from the Third and Second Centuries ,” in Rejection: God’s Refugees, ed. by Stanley E. Porter, MNTS
(Eugene, OR, 2015), 57–83; John J. Collins, “What Is Apocalyptic Literature?,” in The Oxford
Handbook of Apocalyptic Literature, ed. by John J. Collins (Oxford and New York, 2014), 1–16;
Collins, Apocalypse, Prophecy, and Pseudepigraphy, 14.
⁶⁴ Anathea E. Portier-Young, “Jewish Apocalyptic Literature as Resistance Literature,” in The
Oxford Handbook of Apocalyptic Literature, ed. by John J. Collins (Oxford, 2014), 145–62
(esp. 154–6); Carol A. Newsom, “The Rhetoric of Jewish Apocalyptic Literature,” in The Oxford
Handbook of Apocalyptic Literature, ed. by John J. Collins (Oxford, 2014), 214: “apocalyptic literature
served a variety of functions as it was employed in a wide range of rhetorical situations.”
⁶⁵ Carey, Apocalyptic Literature, 20–2.
⁶⁶ Collins, Apocalypse, Prophecy, and Pseudepigraphy, 14.
⁶⁷ See also John J. Collins, “Apocalyptic Eschatology as the Transcendence of Death,” CBQ, 36/1
(1974), 21–43.
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Contrary to what is often claimed or implied of his work,⁶⁸ Rowland does not
contend that apocalypses have no eschatology. In fact, he says that eschatology
is “an important component of the heavenly mysteries” in apocalypses⁶⁹ but
the presence of eschatology in apocalypses “is not their most distinctive
feature.”⁷⁰ For Rowland, “Apocalyptic seems essentially to be about the revela-
tion of the divine mysteries through visions or some other form of immediate
disclosure of heavenly truths.”⁷¹ As Michael Stone pointed out quite thoroughly,
apocalypses reveal a great number of things (e.g., uranology, cosmogony,
primordial events, etc.) and not merely eschatology.⁷² Eschatology is an import-
ant part of what is revealed, but it is not central to all apocalypses.⁷³
However, what is meant by “eschatology” can often be defined broadly by
those arguing for and against its centrality in apocalypses. Todd Hanneken
states, “It is true that ‘eschatology’ is a loaded term, and the kind of eschat-
ology varies among the apocalypses.”⁷⁴ He continues, “Nevertheless, a God’s-
eye view of the meaning or resolution of history is a distinctive element of the
apocalypses.”⁷⁵ Hanneken’s wording here is helpfully nuanced; “resolution of
history” is not the same as “end-time judgment” or the destruction of the
wicked and the present world. The “resolution of history” may include those
things, and often does, but it is not necessarily central, nor is it all that is
revealed in apocalypses. According to the Semeia 14 “master-paradigm,”
temporal transcendence also includes cosmogony (4.1), primordial events
(4.2), recollections of the past (5.1), ex eventu prophecy (5.2), present salvation
(6), persecution (7.1), other eschatological upheavals (7.2), judgment/destruc-
tion of the wicked (8.1), of the world (8.2), of other worldly beings (8.3),
cosmic transformation (9.1), resurrection (9.2.1), and other forms of afterlife
(9.2.2).⁷⁶ I would argue that although some of these elements are temporal,
they are not all “eschatological.” Further, the only sub-element that Collins
lists as being found in all Jewish apocalypses is “judgment/destruction of the

⁶⁸ Contra Lorenzo DiTommaso, “Apocalypses and Apocalypticism in Antiquity (Part I),” CurBR, 5/
2 (2007), 243; Collins, Apocalyptic Imagination, 13.
⁶⁹ Christopher Rowland, The Open Heaven: A Study of Apocalyptic in Judaism and Early
Christianity (London, 1982), 71.
⁷⁰ Rowland, Open Heaven, 26. ⁷¹ Rowland, Open Heaven, 70.
⁷² Michael E. Stone, “Lists of Revealed Things in the Apocalyptic Literature,” in Magnalia Dei: The
Mighty Acts of God: Essays on the Bible and Archaeology in Memory of G. Ernest Wright, ed. by Frank
Moore Cross, Werner E. Lemke, and Patrick D. Miller (Garden City, NY, 1976), 414–52.
⁷³ Contra Frederick J. Murphy, Apocalypticism in the Bible and its World: A Comprehensive
Introduction (Grand Rapids, MI, 2012), 7; and Collins, Apocalyptic Imagination, 79, who sees “the
eschatological focus” as “constitutive of an apocalypse.”
⁷⁴ Hanneken, Subversion of the Apocalypses, 19.
⁷⁵ Cf. DiTommaso, “Apocalypses (Part I),” 241. ⁷⁶ Collins, “Morphology,” 10.
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wicked”; ⁷⁷ yet the definition of apocalypse focuses on temporal transcendence

“insofar as it envisages eschatological salvation.” The way that Collins dis-
cusses this is enlightening: “The content [of apocalypses] always involves both
an eschatological salvation[,] which is temporally future[,] and present other-
worldly realities.” He continues, “personal afterlife is the most consistent
aspect of the eschatology of the apocalypses, and it ensures the definitive
and transcendent character of that eschatology.”⁷⁸
Intriguingly, the Semeia 14 definition itself says nothing specific about the
judgment of the wicked (8.1), the feature specifically present in all Jewish
apocalypses, nor does it mention protology, primordial events, recollection of the
past, ex eventu prophecy, present salvation, persecution, or other eschatological
upheavals (elements 4–7), but it speaks about “eschatological salvation” (9). It
seems that when most scholars read “temporal transcendence” and “eschato-
logical salvation,” they do not hear “personal afterlife” but rather a combination
of ex eventu prophecy (5.2), eschatological upheavals and crises (7), eschato-
logical judgment and destruction of the present order (8), and eschatological
salvation (9). A quick perusal of the table of Jewish apocalypses⁷⁹ indicates that
Collins considers less than half of Jewish apocalypses to contain ex eventu
prophecy and only two-thirds to relate eschatological upheavals.⁸⁰ A closer
look at each apocalypse challenges Collins’s view of the centrality of temporal
transcendence. The Book of the Watchers makes a brief mention of the judgment
of the wicked, but mainly when it mentions the places of the dead in 1 Enoch 22.
It also contains judgment of the Watchers in 1 Enoch 16, but neither instance is
an end-time judgment. The Book of the Luminaries makes only passing reference
to judgment of the wicked after focusing centrally on the astronomical calendar
and the positions of the sun, moon, and stars for the majority of the apocalypse.
The days of the sinners will bring about negative effects upon the earth, such as a
shortened rainy season, the changing of the moon’s order, and a distorted
understanding of the luminaries, which will end in punishment for the sinners
and rejoicing for the righteous (1 En. 80:2–8; 81:19). But according to the Book of
the Luminaries, sin is defined as the improper counting of the year (1 En. 82:5–7),
or in other words, it is an improper understanding of cosmological reality
(i.e., spatial transcendence).⁸¹
The fine details of each apocalypse are reminders that pigeonholes are
problematic and that texts are more nuanced than an “X” on a table suggests.

⁷⁷ Collins, “Jewish Apocalypses,” 28. ⁷⁸ Collins, “Morphology,” 9. ⁷⁹ See Appendix A.

⁸⁰ Collins, Apocalyptic Imagination, 8.
⁸¹ George W. E. Nickelsburg and James C. VanderKam, 1 Enoch 2: A Commentary on the Book of 1
Enoch, Chapters 37–82, Hermeneia (Minneapolis, MN, 2012), 552.
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With regard to Jewish apocalypses, the fine details indicate that claims for the
centrality of eschatology in apocalypses are not entirely convincing, while
Rowland’s contentions concerning eschatology in apocalypses are quite rea-
sonable. He states:

Although eschatology is an important component of the heavenly mysteries

which are revealed in the apocalypses, it is difficult to justify the selection of
this particular element as the basis of the definition of apocalyptic. The
consequences of this can lead to an indifference to the fact that apocalyptic
is concerned with the revelation of a variety of different matters. Any
attempt, therefore, to use the term apocalyptic as a synonym of eschatology
must be rejected.⁸²

The reason why end-of-the-world eschatology comes to the fore seems to be a

focus on the eschatologies of Daniel and the book of Revelation, which include
final judgment and the destruction of evil. This eschatology serves for many as
the meaning of “temporal transcendence” and “eschatological salvation” in the
Semeia 14 definition.⁸³ However, to describe an apocalypse as transcending
time (i.e., as temporally transcendent) in the sense that it reveals the begin-
nings of the created world, the origin of evil, and the personal salvation of the
righteous and the future judgment of the wicked is more to the point.⁸⁴ In
more apocalypses than is commonly recognized this temporal transcendence
is held together with spatial transcendence. As was just noted above, the Book
of the Luminaries focuses on spatial transcendence, and it is the righteous, in
fact, who have the proper knowledge of cosmological reality. Likewise, the
Book of the Watchers, 2 Enoch, and 3 Baruch, while including revelation
regarding the fate of the righteous and wicked, are more concerned with the
revelation of cosmological mysteries.
More recently on this point, Rowland states: “When one investigates the
eschatology of the apocalypses what are often regarded as typical features of
apocalypticism (imminent expectation of the end of the world, symbolism,
historical determinism and a transcendent hope) are on inspection by no
means common.”⁸⁵ Rowland rightly highlights how eschatology, in all that

⁸² Rowland, Open Heaven, 71; also Christopher Rowland and Christopher R. A. Morray-Jones, The
Mystery of God: Early Jewish Mysticism and the New Testament, CRINT, 12 (Leiden, 2009), 16–17.
⁸³ See most recently, Lorenzo DiTommaso, “Apocalypse,” in T&T Clark Encyclopedia of Second
Temple Judaism, ed. by Daniel M. Gurtner and Loren T. Stuckenbruck (London, 2020), , 36–9.
⁸⁴ Collins, “What Is Apocalyptic Literature?,” 7.
⁸⁵ Rowland and Morray-Jones, Mystery of God, 17; see also Crispin Fletcher-Louis, “Jewish
Apocalyptic and Apocalypticism,” in Handbook for the Study of the Historical Jesus, 4 vols (Leiden,
2011), , 1588–92.
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, “ , ”      29

the word conjures to the mind, is only part of what is revealed in apocalypses,⁸⁶
and we do well to remember the two parts of the transcendence revealed in
apocalypses: temporal and spatial.
The second claim made against Rowland sometimes is that he is concerned
with form over content.⁸⁷ The above discussion should make it clear that this
is a misreading. Rowland’s emphasis is on the revelation of heavenly mysteries.
He readily notes the breadth of material in what is revealed; he just does not
narrow these mysteries to eschatology. The content of apocalypses is found in
numerous other genres of literature. For instance, the judgment of the wicked
is clearly found in prophetic literature and the psalms: “Therefore the wicked
will not stand in the judgment . . . the way of the wicked will perish” (Ps 1:5–6).
Also, the heavenly world is revealed in Isaiah 6, Ezekiel 1, 1 Kings 22, not to
mention the comings and goings of angels throughout the Hebrew Bible (e.g.,
Gen. 28; 35; Exod. 3). What makes an apocalypse an apocalypse is the complex
constellation of the narrative form or manner of revelation, content, and
function. As far as genre theory is concerned, the Semeia 14 definition in
conjunction with its underlying “master-paradigm” serves as the prototype
and the starting point for determining whether a text participates in the genre
of apocalypse.
Unfortunately, taxonomic lists of features similar to Koch’s still exist. For
example, both Frederick Murphy and Greg Carey draw attention to the Semeia
14 definition but still define “apocalyptic” in terms of lists.⁸⁸ These lists of
characteristics are presented with no perceived hierarchy of characteristics, as
can be seen in Carey’s admission that the topics “simply sketch the rough
contours of apocalyptic discourse”⁸⁹ and the way Murphy calls a text “apoca-
lyptic” if it contains some elements from his list.⁹⁰ In what appears to be a
functional rejection of Hanson’s terminological clarification and the Semeia 14
definition, Carey “avoids relying on technical distinctions among apocalypses,
apocalyptic literature and apocalyptic discourse, apocalyptic eschatology, and
apocalypticism” and instead appeals to “apocalyptic discourse,” which he
defines in terms of “features in apocalyptic literature.”⁹¹ In both Murphy’s
and Carey’s work, their lists of features allow for a looser application of the

⁸⁶ Benjamin E. Reynolds and Loren T. Stuckenbruck, “Introduction,” in The Jewish Apocalyptic

Tradition and the Shaping of New Testament Thought, ed. by Benjamin E. Reynolds and Loren
T. Stuckenbruck (Minneapolis, MN, 2017), 1–12.
⁸⁷ DiTommaso, “Apocalypses (Part I),” 243.
⁸⁸ Murphy, Apocalypticism, 4–14; Carey, Ultimate Things, 2–10; Carey, Apocalyptic Literature, 20–8.
⁸⁹ Carey, Ultimate Things, 6.
⁹⁰ Murphy, Apocalypticism; see Benjamin E. Reynolds, review of Apocalypticism in the Bible and its
World by Frederick J. Murphy, TJ, 36/1 (2015), 137–9.
⁹¹ Carey, Apocalyptic Literature, 24; see also 20.
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 10/9/2020, SPi

30    

term “apocalyptic” to texts that reflect apocalyptic eschatology, “apocalyptic

discourse,” dualism, or some such characteristic. It is of significant interest for
the present study that both Murphy and Carey claim that the Gospel of John is
not “apocalyptic” because it lacks the features on their lists.⁹² In my opinion,
defining “apocalypse” and “apocalyptic” primarily in terms of lists of features
only returns us to the ambiguity of the taxonomic lists and the terminological
confusion that existed before the Semeia 14 definition.
The adjective “apocalyptic” should more appropriately denote the genre of
“apocalypse,” especially the complex constellation of form, content, and func-
tion that comprises the genre. Collins states: “‘Apocalypticism’ and ‘apoca-
lyptic’ are recognized only by analogy with the apocalypses.”⁹³ The Semeia 14
definition of apocalypse, even with its critics from Uppsala to the present, is
recognized as the starting point for discussions about what an apocalypse is
and what we may then define as “apocalyptic.”⁹⁴ When paying attention to the
definition’s role as a heuristic device and to the relationship of form, content,
and function, the Semeia 14 definition of “apocalypse” is a valuable prototype
definition for categorizing and comparing texts that are robins, chickens, and
penguins, or bats and platypuses.⁹⁵

The Gospel of John among the Apocalypses

The Gospel of John, even given its traditional links with the book of
Revelation, has rarely been considered “apocalyptic” or similar to Jewish
apocalypses. There are two primary reasons for this. First, if “apocalyptic” is
understood as equivalent in meaning to eschatology, the Gospel of John’s
more realized eschatology and lack of an end-of-the-world, cataclysmic judg-
ment makes it unlikely that the Fourth Gospel would be termed apocalyptic.
Second, along with John’s lack of apocalyptic eschatology, John does not
contain most of the features headlining the standard taxonomic lists that
describe “apocalyptic” or “apocalypticism.”⁹⁶ However, if apocalypses are

⁹² Murphy, Apocalypticism, 275; Carey, Apocalyptic Literature, 104–9.

⁹³ Collins, “What Is Apocalyptic Literature?” 7.
⁹⁴ Leslie Baynes, The Heavenly Book Motif in Judeo-Christian Apocalypses, 200 –200 , JSJSup,
152 (Leiden, 2012), 9, 68–70; Hanneken, Subversion of the Apocalypses, 16–22. See also, Kirsten Marie
Hartvigsen, Aseneth’s Transformation, DCLS, 24 (Berlin, 2018).
⁹⁵ Baynes, Heavenly Book Motif, 70; also Elizabeth E. Shively, “Recognizing Penguins: Audience
Expectation, Cognitive Genre Theory, and the Ending of Mark’s Gospel,” CBQ, 80 (2018), 273–92.
⁹⁶ Koch, The Rediscovery of Apocalyptic, 24–7; Murphy, Apocalypticism, 275; Carey, Apocalyptic
Literature, 104–9.
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 10/9/2020, SPi

, “ , ”      31

understood as revelatory literature in which an otherworldly being mediates

heavenly mysteries that include temporal and spatial transcendence and if
“apocalyptic” is defined in relationship to this revelatory literature of apoca-
lypse, then the Gospel of John is more “apocalyptic” than it first appears. The
Johannine Jesus who descends from heaven and reveals the Father reflects
aspects of the apocalyptic framework of Jewish apocalypses, especially in light
of the centrality of revelation and the acknowledgment of a transcendent
reality in the Fourth Gospel. Comparing the Gospel of John with Jewish
apocalypses may thus offer an effective way to explain John’s central focus
on revelation and its distinctiveness in relation to the Synoptic Gospels.
John’s similarity to Jewish apocalypses has not gone entirely unnoticed.
There have, from time to time, been scholars who have drawn attention to
similarities with Jewish apocalypses or “apocalyptic.” Yet not all of these
mentions have understood “apocalyptic” in terms of apocalypses or furthered
the discussion. Urban von Wahlde argues for similarities between the Gospel
of John and “apocalypticism,” but by “apocalypticism” he means dualism. His
examples for this apocalyptic dualism are not drawn from Jewish apocalypses,
but oddly, from sectarian Dead Sea Scrolls and the Testament of the Twelve
Patriarchs.⁹⁷ J. Louis Martyn contends that the “two-level drama,” which he
argues is present in John, “was at home in the thought-world of Jewish
apocalypticism,” although by “Jewish apocalypticism,” Martyn means the
sort of “apocalyptic” described by the list of features in Vielhauer.⁹⁸
Harold Attridge tantalizingly comments in passing that “there are some
useful parallels to be found in . . . Jewish apocalyptic texts” but does not
mention any specific examples.⁹⁹ James Dunn notes that there are numerous
parallels with Jewish apocalypses and Merkavah mysticism that share con-
cerns with Johannine Christology.¹⁰⁰ C. K. Barrett, as I noted at the end of the
Introduction, contends that the Gospel of John bears some relationship to

⁹⁷ Urban C. Von Wahlde, Gnosticism, Docetism, and the Judaisms of the First Century: The Search
for the Wider Context of Johannine Literature and Why It Matters, LNTS, 517 (London, 2015), 130–4;
Urban C. Von Wahlde, The Gospel and Letters of John, ECC, 3 vols (Grand Rapids, MI, 2010), ,
250–92. For a similar critique, see Jutta Leonhardt-Balzer, “The Johannine Literature and
Contemporary Jewish Literature,” in The Oxford Handbook of Johannine Studies, ed. by Judith
M. Lieu and Martinus C. de Boer (Oxford, 2018), 159.
⁹⁸ J. Louis Martyn, History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel, NTL, 3rd edn (Louisville, KY,
2003), 130.
⁹⁹ Harold W. Attridge, “Genre Bending in the Fourth Gospel,” JBL, 121/1 (2002), 7.
¹⁰⁰ James D. G. Dunn, “Let John Be John: A Gospel for its Time,” in The Gospel and the Gospels, ed.
by Peter Stuhlmacher (Grand Rapids, MI, 1991), 322–5; see also Jey J. Kanagaraj, “Mysticism” in the
Gospel of John: An Inquiry into its Background, JSNTSup, 158 (Sheffield, 1998).
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Transmitted June 8, 1961.
 PLATE 31

Trionyx ferox, juveniles. Top—UMMZ 76755

(× 1) dorsal and ventral views; Lake Griffin, Lake
County, Florida. Bottom—TU 13960 (× 3/4),
dorsal and ventral views; Hillsborough River, ca.
20 mi. NE Tampa, Hillsborough County, Florida.

PLATE 32

Top—Trionyx ferox, female, UMMZ 90010

(× 2/9); east edge Okefinokee Swamp, Charlton
 County, Georgia. Bottom—Left, Trionyx ferox,
adult male, UMMZ 102276 (× 1/5), 14 mi. SE
Punta Gorda, Lee County, Florida; right, Trionyx
sinensis, female, KU 39417 (× 3/10), 5 mi. ESE
Seoul, Korea. All dorsal views; note
resemblance of two species in having
longitudinal ridging and marginal ridge of
carapace.

PLATE 33
 Trionyx spinifer spinifer, juveniles, dorsal
views. Top—UMMZ 74518 (× 12/5); Portage
Lake, Washtenaw County, Michigan. Bottom—
TU 16132 (× 11/5); Sevierville, Sevier County,
Tennessee.

PLATE 34
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