Living in the Apocalypse: New Testament Perspective
Sources: Willis Barnstone, ed., The Other Bible: Ancient Alternative Scriptures (HarperCollins, 1984); Bart Ehrman, The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings, 3d ed. (Oxford, 2004); I. Howard Marshall et al., Exploring the New Testament: A Guide to the Letters and Revelation (IVP, 2002), chapter 21.
- I. Jewish Christian Contexts
Being human communication, the Bible is thoroughly cultural, and multicultural.
- We readers need to take into account that its people inhabit different contexts, and face different challenges.
- Whereas some NT writings assume Gentile or mixed Christian audiences (Mark, Luke/Acts, Paul, 1 Peter, Revelation?),
- others assume primarily Jewish-Christian audiences (Matthew, Hebrews, James, Jude, John?).
- Yet the multicultural church has deep commonalities of faith and outlook that situate those differences.
- II. Apocalyptic: A Paradigm for Interpreting Reality and Responding
A key (Jewish) cultural/philosophical feature of NT faith is its apocalypticism. The entire New Testament is apocalyptic in outlook.
- A basic apocalyptic assumption is that the world is the grip of transcendent evil, and helpless to overcome it on its own.
- Rules, desires, practices, and even cardinal virtues cannot save us.
Our capacity for goodness is limited, broken, incapacitated, helpless.
Old creation’s good human structures and holy workarounds (e.g., families/tribes, Torah, David’s throne) are accommodations at best, and powers and principalities (channels of transcendent evil) at worst.
- Some possible (Jewish) responses to unbeatable evil, exemplified by characters and groups in the NT:
- Submit: Succumb to misery, pessimism, depression, fear/anxiety (sufferers).
Fight: Resist anyway, and lose (Zealots in the Jewish War and Bar Kochba Rebellion).
Deny and avoid: Seek a comfortable distance and even advantage within the system (scribes, the wealthy).
Collaborate: If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em (Herodians, tax collectors).
Escape: Abandon this evil world for some ideal spiritual realm (Hellenistic Jews).
- Today our loyalties to creation’s good but fallen principalities yield …
- Anarchism or rebellion: the self, in sin. The person becomes a ‘lord,’ a tyrant.
Tribalism: identity, in the group. The person becomes a party member, a faceless collective noun.
Statism: power, in the state. The person becomes a serf, a follower of the beast.
Capitalism: desire, in the market. The person becomes homo economicus, a slave to passion.
Progressivism: an ideal outcome, in dedication. The person becomes an ideologue, judging all according to their fidelity or usefulness to the cause.
Other idolatries: other lesser ‘principalities’ or gods. The person becomes a supplicant.
Polytheism: Syncretistic combinations of these. The person becomes a manager/arbitrageur.
- A further Jewish apocalyptic assumption is that God is coming to act to end the evil, destroy its system, and restore a good, even perfect order.
- This engenders a variety of responses and examples, all apocalyptic in character:
- Retreat: Withdraw outwardly to stay pure until the time of deliverance (Essenes, monastics).
Clean up: Withdraw inwardly to become pure for then (Pharisees, mystics).
Hang on: Wait and invite the expected Reign of God with repentance (John the Baptist, Luke 1’s remnant).
- Christianity’s particular apocalyptic claim: God has come as promised, in Jesus Christ, with a cosmic new arrangement.
- This warrants a previously absurd ethic in the face of unstoppable evil:
Conquer: Respond to the news of the invading Reign of God, by entering it through the Messiah’s grace (Jesus of Nazareth, apostles, faithful disciples).
- Later Christianity tends to focus more narrowly on this claim, neglecting or forgetting the first two.
- III. Our (Apocalyptic) World of the Bible
The NT authors interpret current events from inside this original Christian apocalyptic framework, relying on the stories of Israel and Jesus.
- Churches and believers (Jewish and Gentile) thus become 'characters' in the continuing gospel story.
Many Christians today live 'in' a biblical paradigm, though not all.
- The enveloping narrative seems fundamental, a quality of the gospel, rather than just a useful literary device.
Christianity's insight into reality's deeper story drives the figural interpretation of the Bible that ought to follow (but not lead!) literal interpretation.
- The Bible's vocabulary comes to resonate differently in Christ, spurring medieval 'fourfold allegorical method.'
