Apocalyptic Hope
The Book of Daniel was recently preached through in the church I attend. I appreciated that the pastor went through the whole book and was willing to engage in all the chapters - even the ones with apocalyptic material. Because “Apocalyptic”, as a genre in its Second Temple period form (roughly 530 BCE to 70 CE), is not readily produced today, we often don’t know what to do with it. I want to ask the question, "can we engage in hope in an apocalyptic fashion today?” In order to be able to answer the question, it would be helpful to talk about what apocalyptic is. Besides the well-known apocalyptic texts within the Bible (especially Daniel and Revelation), there are apocalyptic texts outside of the canon of scripture. These include Esdras (aka 4 Ezra), Apocalypse of Abraham, Apocalypse of Moses as well as at least a couple dozen others. The word itself just means unveiling or revelation. If we go with a genre description from the Anchor Bible Dictionary, it explains tha