THE TYNDALE BIBLICAL THEOLOGY LECTURE, 1979*

THE DELAY OF THE PAROUSIA

By Richard J. Bauckham

Early Christianity was both continuous and discontinuous

with first-century Judaism. Its theology shared many
features of contemporary Jewish thought, though these
were given a distinctively Christian character by their
relationship to Christianity's unique faith in Jesus
Christ. As in the case of many other issues, an
adequate account of the understanding of the delay of the
parousia in early Christianity must reflect both the
continuity and the discontinuity with Judaism.

In some respects the problem/1/ of the delay of the

parousia was the same problem of eschatological delay
which had long confronted Jewish apocalyptic eschatology;
in other respects it was a new and distinctively
Christian problem, in that the End was now expected to
take the form of the parousia of Jesus Christ in whose
death and resurrection God had already acted
eschatologically. our subject therefore needs to be
approached from two angles: from its background in
Jewish apocalyptic and in terms of its distinctively
Christian characteristics. Within the limits of this
lecture, I can attempt only one of these approaches, and
I have chosen the former, both because almost all
previous study has entirely neglected this approach,/2/
treating the delay of the parousia as a uniquely

* Delivered at Tyndale House, Cambridge, on July 6th,

1979.
1. By using the word 'problem' I do not mean to endorse
the hypothesis (now generally abandoned) of a crisis
of delay in early Christianity. I mean simply that
the delay raised questions which had to be answered.
2. The only significant exception is the important work
of A. Strobel, Untersuchungen zum eschatologischen
Verzogerungsproblem auf Grund der spatjudisch-
urchristlichen Geschichte von Habakuk 2.2 ff.
(Supplements to Novum Testamentum 2. Leiden: E. J.
Brill, 1961).

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4 TYNDALE BULLETIN 31 (1980}

Christian issue,/3/ and also because it is only when we

relate the Christian understanding of the delay to its
Jewish apocalyptic background that we shall be able to
appreciate its distinctively Christian features in their
true significance. So if this lecture on biblical
theology seems to linger rather long over Jewish extra-
canonical literature, I hope you will find that this
procedure is justified by its contribution to an
understanding of the New Testament.

I ESCHATOLOGICAL DELAY IN JEWISH APOCALYPTIC

The problem of eschatological delay was familiar to

Jewish apocalyptic from its earliest beginnings, It
could even be said to be one of the most important
ingredients in the mixture of influences and
circumstances which produced the apocalyptic movement.
In the face of the delay in the fulfilment of the
eschatological promises of the prophets, the
apocalyptic visionaries were those who believed most
fervently that the promises remained valid and relevant.
Despite appearances, God had not forgotten his people.
His eschatological salvation, so long awaited, was
coming, and now at last it was very close at hand. In
almost all the apocalypses there is no mistaking both a
consriousness, to some degree, of the problem of delay,
in that the prophecies had so long remained unfulfilled,
and also the conviction of their imminent fulfilment.
It goes only a little beyond the evidence to say that in
every generation between the mid-second century BC and
the mid-second century AD Jewish ~pocalyptists
encouraged their readers to hope for the eschatological
redemption in the very near future. At the same time
there is very little evidence to suggest that during that
long period the continued disappointment of that

3. E.g. 0. Cullman, Christ and Time (E'l', London: SCM,

1951} 86-90; Salvation in History (ET, London: SCM,
1967} 236-47; H. Conzelmann, An Outline of the
Theology of the New Testament (ET, London: SCM, 1969}
307-17. It is remarkable that the school of
'Consistent Eschatology', for which the
interpretation of Jesus and the early church by
reference to Jewish apocalyptic was a methodological
principle and which·postulated a major crisis of
delay in early Christianity, seems not to have asked
how Jewish apocalyptic coped with the problem of
delay: cf. l-1. Werner, The Formation of Christian
Dogma (ET, London: A. & c. Black, 1957).

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BAUCKHAM: The Delay of the Parousia 5

expectation discredited the apocalyptic hope or even

diminished the sense of imminence in later generations.
The apocalypses of the past were preserved and treasured;
and passages whose imminent expectation had clearly not
been fulfilled were nevertheless copied and by no means
always updated. Each apocalyptist knew that his
predecessors had held the time of the End to be at hand,
but this knowledge seems to have encouraged rather than
discouraged his qwn sense of eschatological imminence.
Clearly the problem of delay was an inescapable problem
at the heart of apocalyptic eschatology, but the tension
it undoubtedly produced was not a destructive tension.
It was a tension which the apocalyptic faith somehow
embraced within itself. The problem was felt but it did
not lead to doubt.

The question we need to ask, then, is: how did Jewish

apocalyptic manage to cope with the problem of delay?
The key to this question - and the theme of much of this
lecture - is that alongside the theological factors
which promoted the imminent expectation there were also
theological factors accounting for the fact of delay,
These two contrary sets of factors were held in tension
in apocalyptic. They were not harmonized to produce a
kind of compromise: expectation of the End in the fairly
near future but not just yet. The factors promoting
imminence and the factors accounting for delay (or even,
as we shall see, promoting an expectation of delay) are
held in paradoxical tension, with the result that the
imminent expectation can be maintained in all its
urgency in spite of the continuing delay.

Strobel has shown that many of the apocalyptic

references to the delay allude to the text Habakkuk
2:3, which seems to have been the locus classicus for
reflecting on the problem of delay./4/ 'The vision is
yet for the appointed time. It hastens to the end and
will not lie. If it tarries, wait for it, for it will
surely come and will not be· late.' This text and the
history of its interpretation contain the basic
apocalyptic 'explanation' of the delay, insofar as it
may be called an explanation. It appeals to the
omnipotent sovereignty of God, who has determined the
time of the End. Even though it is longer in coming

4, Strobel, op. cit, chs. 1 and 2.

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6 TYNDALE BULLETIN 31 (1980)

than the prophecies seem to have suggested, this

apparent delay belongs to the purpose of God. It will
not be 'late' according to the timescale which God has
determined.

Now it cannot be said that this explanation explains very

much. The delay remains incomprehensible to men, but is
attributed to the inscrutable wisdom of God. But it is
important to notice that the effectiveness of this
explanation derived not so much from its power as an
intellectual explanation, but rather from its quality as
an affirmation of faith in God which calls for an
appropriate response. Acknowledging the sovereignty of
God and the truth of his promises, the apocalyptic
believer is called therefore to wait patiently,
persevering in obedience to God 1 s connnandments in the
meantime. As the Qumran connnentary on Habakkuk 2:3 puts
it: 1 Interpreted, this concerns the men of truth who
keep the Law, whose hands shall not slacken in the
service of the truth when the final age is prolonged.
For all the ages of God reach their appointed end as he
determines for them in the mysteries of his wisdom.'/5/
Thus the apocalyptic 'solution' to the problem of delay
was practical as much as theological. The believer's
impatient prayer that God should no longer delay was
balanced by the attitude of patient waiting while, in his
sovereignty, God did delay. And these two attitudes
remained in tension: the apocalyptists maintained both.
On the one hand the impatient prayer was met by the
assurance that God would bring salvation at the appointed
time and therefore with an exhortation to patience; on
the other hand the believer's patient waiting was
encouraged and supported by the assurance that there
would be only a short time to wait and therefore by an
exhortation to hope. In this way the tension of
immin~nce and delay was maintained and contained within
the apocalyptist's faith.

Essentially this is why the problem of delay did not

discredit or destroy the apocalyptic hope. From the
beginning apocalyptic faith incorporated the problem of
delay. It was a real problem creating a real tension:

5. lQpHab 7:10-12, trans. in G. Vermes, The Dead Sea

Scrolls in English (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968) 239.

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BAUCI<HAM: The Delay of the Parousia 7

there is genuine anguish in the apocalyptists' prayers

'Do not delay!' (Dn. 9:191 2 Baruch 21:25) and 'How
long?' (Dn. 12:6; 2 Baruch 21:19).. But the tension was
held within a structure of religious response which was
adequate to contain it.

I have admitted that the basic apocalyptic response to

the problem of delay - the appeal to the sovereignty of
God - provided little in the way of explanation. Later
we shall see how some apocalyptists, especially in the
later period, filled out this explanation with some
attempts at more positive -understanding of the meaning of
the delay. For much of the period when apocalyptic
flourished, however, it would seem that the problem of
delay was contained mainly by the appeal to the
sovereignty of God to balance the urgency of the
imminent expectation. It is necessary to ask whether
this was theologically legitimate. In other words, it
may be that the fact of delay ought to have discredited
the apocalyptic hopes, if only it had been squarely
faced in the cool light of reason. What I have called
the structure of religious response by which
apocalyptic contained the problem may have been no better
than a psychological means of maintaining false
expectations. History could supply many examples of
unfulfilled prophecies which managed to maintain their
credibility long after they deserved to do so, often
because believers who have staked their lives on such
expectations are not easily disillusioned. Is there any
reason to put the apocalyptists in a different category?

I believe there is a good reason at least to take the

apocalyptic faith very seriously indeed. The problem of
delay in apocalyptic is no ordinary problem of
unfulfilled prophecy. The problem of delay is the
apocalyptic version of the problem of evil. The
apocalyptists were vitally concerned with the problems of
theodicy, with the demonstration of God's righteousness
in the face of the unrighteousness of his world. They
explored various possibilities as to the origins of evil
and the apportioning of responsibility for evil,/6/ but

6. Cf. the survey in A. L. Thompson, Responsibility for

Evil in the Theodicy of IV Ezra (SBL Dissertations
Series 29. Missoula, Montana: Scholars Press, 1977)
eh. 1.

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8 TYNDALE BULLETIN 31 (1980)

of primary and indispensable significance for the

apocalyptic approach to the problem of evil was the
expectation of the End, when all wrongs would be righted,
all evil eliminated, and God's righteousness therefore
vindicated. The great merit of the apocalyptic approach
to theodicy was that it refused to justify the present
condition of the world by means of an abstract exoneration
of God from responsibility for the evils of the present.
Only the overcoming of present evil by eschatological
righteousness could vindicate God as righteous, and only the
hope of such a future triumph of righteousness could make
the evils of the present bearable.

Of course, this was no armchair theodicy, but was

produced by concrete situations of injustice and
oppression in which the apocalyptists lived and suffered:
the continued oppression of Israel by the Gentiles, and/
or the sufferings of the righteous remnant of Israel with
whom the apocalyptists often identified themselves. It
is not always easy for us to appreciate the apocalyptists'
concern for righteousness in these situations: the desire
for Israel's vindication and her enemies' condemnation can
seem to us like mere narrow nationalism, and the
apocalyptists' conviction of belonging to the righteous
remnant which is unjustly suffering while sinners prosper
can seem to us like arrogant self-righteousness.
Undoubtedly those defects sometimes mar the apocalypses,
but it is important to realize that the genuinely ethical
character of the apocalyptic hope is far more dominant.
What is at stake in the sufferings of God's people is the
righteousness of God, which, as often in the Old
Testament, means at the same time justice for the
oppressed and against the oppressor. It is true that the
apocalyptists often fail to see that the problem of evil
extends to the sinfulness of the righteous themselves, but
they have an agonizingly clear grasp of the problem of
innocent suffering. When the problem of theodicy is
posed in that form I think we still have much to learn
from them. Moreover, the special characteristic of the
apocalyptists' grasp of the problem is that, out of their
own situation, they were able to see the universal
dimensions of the problem of evil, the universal
dominance of evil in 'this present evil age', as they
came to call the present. This universal challenge to
the righteousness of God demanded a universal righting of
wrongs, an elimination of evil on a universal, even
cosmic, scale.

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BAUCKHAM: The Delay of the Parousia 9

I have dwelt on this aspect of apocalyptic because I

hope it will enable us to see the real meaning of the
problem of eschatological delay. The imminent
expectation expresses the extremity of the situation,
the intensity of the apocalyptists' perception of the
problem of evil, in its sheer contradiction of the
righteousness of God. Surely God can no longer tolerate
it. Yet he does: there is the problem of delay. What
is greatly to the credit of the apocalyptists is that in
this dilemma they abandoned neither the righteousness
nor the sovereignty of God, which make up the theistic
form of the problem of evil. Their belief in the powers
of evil was not dualistic: God remained in ultimate
control. ~~d so in the face of the delay, they
continued to hold that God is righteous - his
eschatological righteousness is coming - and that he
remains sovereign - the delay belongs to his purpose and
the End will come at the time he has appointed. This is
the tension of imminence and delay, the tension
experienced by the theistic believer who, in a world of
injustice, cannot give up his longing for righteousness.
Thus we do not, I think, have the right to ask the
apocalyptist to explain the delay in any complete sense,
b~cause the problem of evil is not susceptible to
complete theoretical explanation. The tension which
apocalyptic faith contained within itself is the tension
which all forms of theism must somehow contain if they
take the problem of evil seriously. It is a tension
which cannot be resolved by explanation but only by the
event of the final victory of God's righteousness.

I conclude, therefore, that the apocalyptists rightly

maintained the tension of imminence and delay, and that
in some degree that tension must remain a feature of
Christian theology. The promise of God's eschatological
righteousness presses in upon the present, contradicting
the evils of the present, arousing our hopes, motivating
us to live towards it. Because the righteousness of God
himself is at stake in this expectation it demands
immediate fulfilment. That the fulfilment is delayed
will always contain a hard core of incomprehensibility:
the greatest saints have protested to C~d against his
toleration of evil, and have done so in faith, because of
their conviction of his righteousness. But must the
delay remain completely incomprehensible? The
difficulty of the mere appeal to God's sovereignty is
that it is in danger of evacuating the present in which
we live of all meaning, The present becomes the

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10 TYNDALE BULLETIN 31 (1980)

incomprehensible time in which we can only wait, and it

must be admitted that the apocalyptists do sometimes
approach this bleakly negative view of the present.

This danger, however, was partially met in the Jewish

apocalyptic tradition itself in attempts to find some
positive meaning in the delay. Such attempts become
particularly evident in the later period of Jewish
apocalyptic, especially after the fall of Jerusalem in
AD 70, and they have parallels in the Christian
literature of the same period. I think this fact must
correspond to a certain intensification of the problem
of delay in late first-century Judaism. This was not
due to the mere continuing lapse of time; it is a
mistake to suppose the problem of delay necessarily
increases the longer the delay. The problem is
intensified not by the mere lapse of time, but by the
focusing of expectation on specific dates or events
which fail to provide the expected fulfilment. In the
case of Jewish apocalyptic, the Jewish wars of AD 66-70
and 132-135 were disappointments of the most extreme
kind, for so far from being the onset of eschatol~ical
salvation, they proved to be unprecedented
contradictions of all the apocalyptists had hoped for.
Consequently the apocalyptic writers of the late first
century are engaged in a fresh and agonizing
exploration of the issues of eschatological theodicy.
The imminent expectation seems if anything to be
heightened, but it seems to require that on the other
hand some meaning be found in the interval of delay.

So we will turn to four specific examples of the problem

of delay in the late first century, two Jewish examples
and then for comparison two Christian examples which are
relatively close to the Jewish discussion. In all of
them we shall be looking especially for attempts to
understand the delay.

II FOUR EXAMPLES FROM THE LATE FIRST CENTURY AD

(a) A Rabbinic Debate

There is a well-known rabbinic tradition of a debate

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BAUCKHAM: The Delay of the Parousia 11

about the delay of eschatological redemption/7/ between

R. Eliezer b. Hyrcanus and R. Joshua b. Hananiah./8/ If
authentic, this debate will date from the late first
century AD. Unfortunately its authenticity cannot be
assumed as uncritically as it has generally been./9/
Neusner, in his classification of the traditions of R.
Eliezer according to the reliability of the attestation,
places this tradition in his least well attested
category, 'The Poor Traditions':/10/ this means not only
that the attestation of the tradition is late, but also
that its content is largely unrelated to earlier
traditions. Traditions in this category are not
thereby shown to be inauthentic, but their authenticity
is very difficult to establish with any degree of
certainty. There are, however, some things to be said
in favour of our tradition: (1) It belongs to a group of
traditions which together form a coherent set of
opinions on issues which were certainly matters of
concern to the rabbis in the period immediately after AD
70. In other words, they are historically appropriate
to Eliezer's historical situation, and they are mutually
consistent./11/ (2) Neusner also concludes that this
group of traditions represent in substance what we
should have expected Eliezer to have thought about these
topics, on the basis of the best attested sayings of
Eliezer./12/ (3) Furthermore, there is a passage in the
Apocalypse of Ezra (c. AD lOO) which proves that the
contrasting views of R. Eliezer and R. Joshua, as
represented in our tradition, were held and debated
during their lifetimes: in 4 Ezra 4:38-42, Ezra puts
forward a& a suggestion the attitude to the problem of
eschatological delay which our tradition attributes to

___________
R. Eliezer, while the angel's reply maintains the
position attributed to.......
R. Joshua. Thus, even if we

7. For the sake of simplicity, in this and the

following section I am ignoring the problems of the
distinction between expectation of the messianic
kingdom and expectation of the age to come. They do
not greatly affect our topic.
8. Midrash Tanhuma Behuqotai s, y Ta can. 1: lp b Sanh.
97b-98a. The text~ are given in translation in J.
Neusner, Eliezer ben Hyrcanus (Leiden: E. J. Brill,
1973) I 477-79.
9. E.g. Strobel, op. cit. 23-26.
10. Neusner, op. cit. II 235, no. 57.
11. Ibid. II 417-21.·
12. Ibid. II 421.

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12 TYNDALE BULLETIN 31 (1980)

cannot be quite sure that R. Eliezer and R. Joshua

themselves held the opinions attributed to them, we can
at least be sure that those opinions were debated in the
late first century.

In the briefest version of the debate the issue is

succinctly stated as follows:

R. Eliezer says, 'If Israel repents, they will be

redeemed'.
R. Joshua says, 'Whether or not they repent, when the
end comes, they will forthwith be redeemed, as it is
said, "I the Lord in its time will hasten it" (Is.
60: 22) • I /13/

R. Joshua maintains the traditional apocalyptic appeal to

the sovereignty of God, who has determined the time of
the End. When the appointed time arrives, the
eschatological redemption will come as God's sovereign
grace to Israel, in no way dependent on Israel's
preparation. R. Eliezer, on the other hand, makes the
coming of redemption conditional on Israel's
repentance.

The idea of Israel's repentance before the End was not

new,/14/ but the view that it is a condition for the
arrival of redemption is at least rare in the earlier

13. Midrash TanQUma BeQuqotai 5 (Neusner, op. cit. I

479). The use of Is. 60:22 with reference to this
issue is well attested for this period: Ecclus.
26:8; 2 Baruch 20:lf; 54:1; 83:1; Ep. of Barnabas
4:3; cf. Ps-Philo, Lib. Ant. Bib. 19:13; 2 Pet. 3:12.
Cf. further rabbinic references in Strobel, op. cit.
92 n.6.
14. Cf. Testament of Moses 1:18. It is presupposed in
the message of John the Baptist, but his teaching in
Mt. 3:7-10 par. Lk. 3:7-9 seems to run counter to any
suggestion that Israel's redemption was a necessary
condition for the coming of the Kingdom. Similarly
Lk. 13:6-9 embodies the idea of delay in order to
give time for repentance, but explicitly not until
repentance.

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BAUCKHAM: The Delay of the Parousia 13

literature,/15/ though it subsequently became a common

rabbinic view. It seems probable that Eliezer's saying
represents a reaction to the disaster of AD 70, when
hopes of redemption were dashed and Israel experienced
instead a catastrophe which could only be interpreted
as divine punishment. The conclusion must be that
Israel was unworthy of redemption. Only when Israel
repented would redemption come.

Eliezer's position could mean that the divinely appointed

date for the End had actually been postponed because of
Israel's sins,/16/ as some later Rabbis certainly held.
/17/ Alternatively it could mean that there is no such
thing as a fixed date for the End,/18/ or, finally, it
could mean that Israel's repentance is itself part of
God's predetermined plan. This is the view suggested by
a longer version of the debate:

R. Eliezer says, 'If Israel does not repent, they

will never be redeemed •••• '.
R. Joshua said to him, 'If Israel stands and does not
repent, do you say they will never be saved?'.
R. Eliezer said to him, 'The Holy One, blessed be he,
will raise up over them a king as harsh as Haman, and
forthwith they will repent and be redeemed'./19/

In other words redemption cannot be indefinitely

postponed by Israel's failure to repent, because God
himself will stir Israel to repentance.

15. But cf. Testament of Dan 6:4; Acts 13:19-21.

16. This is how Eliezer is understood by Strobel, op.
cit. 23-26.
17. b Sanh. 97b; b •Abodah Zarah 9a.
18. This is how Eliezer is understood by E. E. Urbach,
The Sages: Their Concepts and Beliefs (ET, Jerusalem:
Magnes Press, 1975) I 669.
19. y Ta'an. 1:1 (Neusner, op. cit. I 477). I follow
Neusner (I 479, cf. II 418) in preferring this
version to that in b Sanh. 97b, which attributes the
saying about the cruel king like Haman to R. Joshua.
(Urbach, op. cit. I 669f., II 996 n. 63, prefers the
latter.) Neusner, op. cit. II 419f, also finds
evidence in Pesiqta Rabbati 23:1, that Eliezer did
believe in a fixed date at which redemption must
come.

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14 TYNDALE BULLETIN 31 (1980)

The importance of this debate is that R. Eliezer' s view

is an attempt to understand the delay. The meaning of
the delay is not totally hidden in God's mysterious
sovereign purpose. It is the time in which God
graciously waits for his people to repent and chastises
them until they repent.

{b) The Apocalypse of Baruch

The Apocalypse of Baruch dates from the late first or

early second century AD. The pseudonym Baruch and the
historical setting immediately following the fall of
Jerusalem in 586 BC are transparent vehicles for the
author's own reactions to the tragedy of AD 70.

The note of imminent expectation pervades the book (20:

lf,6; 23:7; 48:39; 54:17; 82:2, 83:1; cf. 48:32), most
memorably expressed in the often-quoted lines:

The youth of the world is past,

the strength of creation is already exhausted.
The advent of the times is very close,
yea, they have passed by.
The pitcher is near to the well,
and the ship to the port.
The course of the journey is reaching its destination
at the city,
and life approaches its end (85:10)./20/

The events of AD 70 have not dampened but inflamed the

expectation of redemption, but it is clear that the
delay, while Israel is humiliated and the Gentiles
triumph, is an agonizing problem, especially as Baruch
sees God's own honour at stake in the fate of his people
(5:1; 21:21). The problem of delay is focussed in
Baruch's question, 'How long will these things endure
for us?' {81:3; cf. 21:19), and his prayer that God may

20. Quotations from 2 Baruch are adapted from the

translation by R. H. Charles (in R. H. Charles and
w. o. E. Oesterley, The Apocalypse of Baruch
(London: SPCK, 1917)), with reference to the French
translation in P. Bogaert, Apocalypse de Baruch
(Sources Chretiennes 144. Paris: iditions du Cerf,
1969) I 463-528.

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BAUCKHAM: The Delay of the Parousia 15

'now, quickly, show thy glory, and do not delay the

fulfilment of thy promise' (21:25).

Alongside the imminent expectation, Baruch recognizes

theological factors which account for the delay. First
among these is the traditional appeal to the divine
sovereignty. Baruch has a strong sense of the
qualitative difference between God and man, the majesty
and sovereignty of God over against the dependence and
frailty of man (14:8-11; 21:4-10; 48:2-17; 54:1-13).
One aspect of this is the eternity of God (21:10; 48:13)
contrasted with the transitoriness of man (14:10f; 48:
12). Unlike man, who cannot even foresee the outcome of
his own brief life, God surveys the whole course of the
wo.rld and is sovereign over all events, determining their
times (48:2f; 54:1; 56:2f). Consequently only God knows
in advance the time of the End which he has appointed
(21:8; 48:3; 54:1). Baruch's repeated use of the phrase
'in its time' (5:2; 12:4; 13:5; 20:2; 51:7; 54:1; cf. 42:
8) stresses that the End will come only at the time which
the eternal sovereign God has appointed. This theme
therefore provides a certain counterbalance to the
urgency of the imminent expectation.

A minor attempt to fill out this appeal to the divine

sovereignty over the times is the idea that God has
determined a fixed number of people to be born into this
world, so that the End cannot come until that number is
complete (23:2-5). (A similar idea, of a predetermined
number of the righteous, is found in 4 Ezra 4:36.) This
scarcely constitutes an explanation of the delay: it
simply appeals again to the inscrutable divine decree.
/21/

Baruch, however, has something more substantial to

contribute to the understanding of delay. I observed
earlier that the imminent expectation in apocalyptic is
connected with the apocalyptic perception of the
character of God, in particular his righteousness. It is
the contradiction between the righteousness of God and

21. Cf. Ezra's (unanswered) queries in 4 Ezra 5:43-45:

why could not all the predetermined number of men
have lived as a single generation?

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16 TYNDALE BULLETIN 31 (1980}

the unrighteousness of present conditions which fires

the expectation of God's immediate coming in judgment.
It is therefore of the greatest interest that Baruch's
understanding of the delay is also related to the
character of God, in this case to his longsuffering
(patience, forbearance}. As Baruch himself is reminded
by the angel (59:6}, this quality belongs to the central
Old Testament revelation of God's character, to Moses on
Mount Sinai: 'The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and
gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love
and faithfulness ••• ' (Ex. 34:6}: the description of God
to which the Old Testament frequently refers (Nu. 14:18;
Pss. 86:15; 103:8; Joel 2:13; Jon. 4:2; Wisdom 15:1; cf.
CD 2:4}. In Baruch's words, Moses was shown 'the
restraint of wrath and the abundance of longsuffering'
(59:6}./22/ God's longsuffering is that quality by
which he bears with sinners, holds back his wrath,
refrains from intervening in judgment as soon as the
sinner's deeds deserve it, though not indefinitely./23/
As Baruch correctly sees, it is this quality of God
which accounts for the whole history of this sinful
world: 'the longsuffering of the Host High, which has
been throughout all generations, who has been long-
suffering towards all who are born, sinners and
righteous' (24:2}./24/

Baruch's use of this theme is unlikely to be original;

his references to it are too casual (12:4; 21:20f; 24:2;
48:29; 59:6; 85:8}. The related and nearly contemporary
Apocalypse of Ezra also employs the theme of God's
patience (3:30; 7:33,74; cf. 9:21}, and includes it in a
formal meditation on the character of God according to
Exodus 34:6f (7:132-139}./25/ Evidently the apocalyptic

22. Baruch refers to the other characteristics of God

according to Ex. 34:6 in 77:7 (merciful, gracious,
faithful} and 75:5 (merciful, gracious}.
23. Note Strobel's remark (op. cit. 31}: 'der fUr unsere
Begriffe anscheinend nur psychologische Begriff der
"Langmut" im hebraischen Sprachgebrauch einen
ausgesprochen chronologischen Bedeutungsgehalt hat'
(my italics} •
24. Like Paul (Rom. 2:4}, Baruch can also sometimes
connect this slightly negative quality of long-
suffering with the more positive quality of kindness
(48:29; cf. 13:12; 82:9}.
25. On this passage, see Thompson, op. cit. 202f, 301-3.

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BAUCKHAM: The Delay of the Parousia 17

tradition had already related its eschatological concerns

to the classic features of the character of God, and seen
not only God's sovereignty but also his longsuffering in
the delay.

The attribution of delay to God's patience does not

always enable Baruch to take a positive view of it. In
his grief over the fall of Jerusalem and the contrasting
prosperity of her enemies, Baruch, like Jeremiah before
him (Je. 15:15; cf. Jon. 4:2), reproaches God for his
patience, for restraining his wrath while his people's
enemies triumph (11:3; cf. Is. 64:12; 4 Ezra 3:30). And
in his impassioned plea for God to hasten the judgment,
Baruch prays:

How long will those who transgress in this world be

polluted with their great wickedness? Command them in
mercy, and accomplish what thou saidst thou wouldst
bring, that thy might may be known to those who think
that thy longsuffering is weakness (21:19f).

It is worth noticing in that passage how God's mercy is

opposed to his longsuffering. His mercy here means his
mercy to the righteous who suffer; the coming of God in
judgment is at the same time mercy to the righteous and
condemnation to the wicked (82:2)./26/ In other words
Baruch asks that God in his mercy to the righteous
should put an end to his longsuffering towards the
wicked. He is aware, then, that his plea that God
should no longer delay, while it is founded, as prayer
must be, on the character and promises of God, appeals
only to one aspect of God's dealings with men against
another. Baruch knows that if the imminence of the
judgment is demanded by God's mercy to the righteous
(which goes hand in hand with his judgment on the wicked),
the delay in judgment is also founded on the character of
God, on his longsuffering, which restrains his wrath
towards the wicked (but therefore also delays his mercy
to the righteous).

26. Baruch holds the common Jewish view of this period,

that God will show mercy to the righteous and strict
justice to the wicked; cf. E. P. Sanders, Paul and
Palestinian Judaism (London: SCM, 1977) 421.

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18 TYNDALE BULLETIN 31 (1980)

Baruch's attitude to God's forbearance varies according

to the aspect of the fall of Jerusalem which he considers.
When he laments the humiliation of Israel at the hands of
her godless enemies, God's tolerance of the situation
seems incomprehensible to Baruch. When, however, he
considers God's patience with Israel it becomes a more
positive concept (85:8). For Baruch interprets the fall
of Jerusalem as God's chastisement of his people for
their sins (1:5; 4:1; 13:10; 78:6; 79:2): 'They were
chastened then so that they might be forgiven' (13:10).
Although the fall of Jerusalem was God's judgment on
Israel, it was a judgment which manifested God's
patience with them. It was a warning judgment, designed
to bring them to repentance, whereas when the final
judgment comes there will no longer be any time left for
repentance (85:12). In this way the delay gains the
positive aspect of a respite, in which God's people, who
would perish if the final judgment came sooner, are
graciously granted the opportunity of repentance./27/
In the paraenetic sections of the book Baruch urges this
lesson on his readers (44:2-15; 46:Sf; 77:2-10; 78:3-7;
83:1-8; 84:1- 85:15).

Finally we must notice the initially puzzling statement

in which God says: 'Therefore have I now taken away Zion,
so that I may hasten to visit the world in its time'
(20:2)./28/ The meaning of this verse must be that
because God wills the repentance of his people before
the End, he has stirred them to repentance by destroying
Jerusalem. The fall of Jerusalem brings the End nearer,
in that it brings about a precondition of the End, the
repentance of Israel. The thought is similar to R.
Eliezer' s saying about the cruel king like Haman. Here
it is even clearer than in R. Eliezer's case that there
is no contradiction between this thought and the idea,
which Baruch stresses, that the End will come at the
time God has determined. That God will 'hasten to visit
the world in its time' does not mean that he will
advance the date of the End, but that, now Jerusalem has
fallen, the appointed time of the End is fast approaching.

27. Baruch's hints that the delay can also benefit

Gentiles are less explicit., but cf. 1:4; 41:4; 42:5.
28. This verse is dependent on Is. 60:22; cf. n. 13
above.

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BAUCKHAM: The Delay of the Parousia 19

The present time of delay retains in the Apocalypse of

Baruch a predominantly negative character: Baruch's
expressions of the miseries and worthlessness of this
life have often been cited as prime examples of
apocalyptic pessimism./29/ In the shadow of the tragedy
of AD 70 this aspect is hardly surprising. More
remarkable, for our purposes, are the traces of a
positive theological understanding of the delay in terms
of God's longsuffering and his desire for his people's
repentance. Here Baruch fills out the reported sayings
of R. Eliezer./30/ The urgency of the imminent expecta-
tion is not diminished by this recognition of the
positive character of the delay: the two are held in
tension.

(c) 2 Peter 3

2 Peter 3 contains the most explicit treatment of the

delay of the parousia in the New Testament. It is also,
as we shall see, the most thoroughly Jewish treatmen~,
reproducing exactly the arguments we have been studying
in the Jewish literature. In fact the passage 3:5-13
contains nothing which could not have been written by a
non-Christian Jewish writer, except perhaps the use of
the simile of the thief, derived from Jesus' parable, in
verse 10. It is possible that the author is closely
dependent on a Jewish apocalyptic writing in this
chapter, just as he depends on the epistle of Jude in
chapter 2./31/

29. 21:13f; 83:10-21; but cf~ 52:6: 'Rejoice in the

sufferings which you now endure. '
30. Strobe!, op. cit. 32f, thinks that Baruch agrees with
R. Joshua rather than R. Eliezer, because he holds
that R. Eliezer thought the date of the End was
postponed on account of Israel's sins, while Baruch
held to God's unconditional determination of the End.
31. D. von Allmen, 'L'apocalyptique juive et le retard de
la parousie en II Pierre 3:1-13' Revue de Theologie
et de Philosophie 16 (1966) 255-74, attempts to
identify specific verses as quoted from a Jewish
apocalypse, but, in view of the way he uses Jude, it
is unlikely that the author of 2 Peter would quote
without adaptation. It is possible that he is using
the apocryphal writing quoted in 1 Clement 23:3f and
2 Clement 11:2f.

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20 TYNDALE BULLETIN 31 (1980)

The problem of delay has been raised by false teachers,

who so far as we can tell from the letter combined
eschatological scepticism with ethical libertinism (eh.
2), apparently supporting the latter by appeal to Paul's
teaching on freedom from the Law (2:19; 3:15). Whether,
as has often been thought, both these features were
connected with a Gnostic or proto-Gnostic form of over-
realized eschatology /32/ is less certain, since there
is no clear hint of this in 2 Peter, but it is certainly
a real possibility./33/

The allegation of the 'scoffers' that the delay of the

parousia disproves the expectation of the parousia is met
in verses 8 and 9, with what I take to be two distinct
arguments. The xirst reads: 'But do not ignore this one
fact, beloved, that one day before the Lord is as a
thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.'
Precisely what this argument is intended to prove is a
matter of debate among the exegetes, who divide into two
schools: (1) those who interpret the verse according to
parallels in contemporary Jewish and Christian
literature, and conclude that it is not intended to meet

32. E.g. c. H. Talbert, 'II Peter and the Delay of the

Parousia' Vigiliae Christianae 20 (1966) 137-45, who
holds that their realized eschatology was the real
basis of their denial of the parousia: 'it seems
that their question about the delay of the parousia,
just as their appeal to the stability of the
universe, is but an argument used to justify a
position held on other grounds' (p. 143). Cf. also
E. Kasemann, Essays on New Testament Themes (ET,
London: SCM, 1964) 171.
33. In parallel passages where the reality of future
eschatology is defended against over-realized
eschatology, it is the reality of future resurrection
which is usually given special attention (1 Cor. 15;
1 Clement 23-26; 2 Clement 9-12; '3 Corinthians' 3:
24-32), but it is c~ite possible that the author of 2
Peter deliberately preferred to deal with the question
of future judgment because for him the ethical
implications of traditional eschatology were
paramount and he clearly regarded the eschatology of
the 'scoffers' as an excuse for their immoral
behaviour (cf. also Polycarp, Philippians 7).

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BAUCKHAM: The Delay of the Parousia 21

the problem of delay;/34/ (2) those who interpret the

verse as an answer to the problem of delay, aud
conclude that the author has here produced an original
argument which has no known precedent or parallel in
the literature.

The first school point to the many rabbinic and second-

century Christian texts in which an eschatological
chronology is based on the formula 'A day of the Lord is
a thousand years'. This seems to have been a standard
exegetical rule, derived from Psalm 90:4 ('a thousand
years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past'),
but existing as an independent formulation. The
procedure is to quote a biblical text in which the word
'day' occurs; then the rule 'A day of the Lord is a
thousand years' is cited, with or without a further
quotation of Psalm 90:4 to support it; the conclusion is
therefore that where the text says 'day' it means, in
human terms, a thousand years. The rule was sometimes
applied to the creation narrative, in order to yield the
notion that the history of the world is to last six
thousand years, six 'days' of a thousand years each,
followed by a millennial Sabbath: this calculation lies
behind the widespread millenarianism of the second
century./35/ Or, similarly, the rule could be appliad to
texts which were thought to mention the day or days of
the Messiah (Is. 63:4; Ps. 90:15): in another tradition
of debate between R. Eliezer and R. Joshua, R. Eliezer
concluded that the messianic kingdom would last a
thousand years, but R. Joshua argued that 'days'
(plural, Ps. 90:15) implies two thousand years./36/ The
application of the rule was not always to eschatological

34. F. Spitta, Der zweite Brief des Petxus und dex

Brief des Judas (Halle: Buchhandlung des
Waisenhauses, 1885) 251-57; Strobel, op. cit. 93f;
van Allmen, art. cit. 262.
35. Ep. of Baxnabas 15:4; Irenaeus, Adv. Haex. 5:28:3;
cf. b Sanh. 97a.
36. Midxash on Psalms on Ps. 90:4; Pesiqta Rabbati 1:7
(where R. Eliezer is the later R. Eliezer b. R. Jose
the Galilean). There are further calculations on a
similar basis in Pesiqta Rabbati 1:7; b Sanh. 99b;
Justin, Dial. 81.

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22 TYNDALE BULLETIN 31 (1980)

matters:/37/ it was also very commonly used to

interpret Genesis 2:17 in accordance with the length of
Adam's life./38/ But all of these instances are
chronological calculations: the point is not, as
originally in Psalm 90:4, to contrast God's everlasting
life with the transience of human life, but simply to
yield the chronological information that one of God's
days, when Scripture mentions them, is equal to a
thousand of our years.

If these parallels are to govern the interpretation of 2

Peter 3:8, then the verse means that the 'day of
judgment', mentioned in verse 7, will last a thousand
years. Verse 8 is then not a contribution to the debate
about the delay, but an explanation of the eschatological
expectation set out in verse 7.

Now it is true that 2 Peter 3:8 appears to cite the

current exegetical rule in the first half of the saying
('one ~y before the Lord is as a thousand years')/39/
and then, in the second half, to back it up by citing
Psalm 90:4. It is also a sound hermeneutical principle
to expect a writer to follow the exegetical methods of
his contemporaries./40/ In this case, however, the
resulting exegesis of verse 8 is very hard to sustain in
context: (1) The introductory words ('But do not ignore

37. As von Allmen, art. cit. 262 n. 1; cf. Strobe!, op.

cit. 93.
38. Jubilees 4:30 (the earliest example of this use of
Ps. 90:4); Gen. R. 19:8; 22:1; Midrash on Psalms on
Ps. 25:6; Justin, Dial. 81; Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. 5:
23:2; Pirqe de R. Eliezer 18. Gen. R. 8:2 uses the
rule to prove from Pr. 8:30 that the Torah preceded
the creation of the world by 2000 years.
39. This is closer to Ps. 90:4 trnu, the usual
formulation of the rule, but, for Kapa KupC~, see
Ep. of Barnabas 15:4 (Kap' auT~), and, for ws, see
Justin, Dial. 81; Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. 5:23:2;
5:28:3.
40. Von Allmen, art. cit. 262 n. 1.

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BAUCKHAM: The Delay of the Parousia 23

this one fact, beloved') formally signal a fresh line of

thought, not an explanatory footnote to verse 7. (2) If
verse 8 means that the day of judgment will last a
thousand years, it contributes nothing to the argument
against the 'scoffers'. It is hard to believe that in
such a brief section the author would have allowed
himself this entirely redundant comment. (3) There is
actually no parallel to the idea that the day of
judgment would last a thousand years, and it is difficult
to see how it could fit into the eschatology of 2 Peter 3.

Must we then conclude, with the majority of exegetes,

that the author's use of Psalm 90:4 in this verse is
entirely unprecedented?/41/ Not at all, for there are in
fact two relevant Jewish parallels which, so far as I can
tell, the commentators have not noticed, presumably
because Strack and Billerbeck missed them.

The first is a piece of rabbinic exegesis which belongs

to the tradition of apocalyptic interpretation of the
revelation to Abraham in Genesis 15. It is ascribed to
the early second-century Rabbi Eleazar b. AZariah, and
although the attestation is late, the fact that it seems
closely related to the traditions embodied in the
Apocalypse of Abraham/42/ perhaps permits us to consider
it in this context. From the text of Genesis 15 it is

41. E.g. J. N. D. Kelly, A commentary on the Epistles of

Peter and of Jude (London: A. & c. Black, 1969) 362.
42. Apocalypse of Abraham 28-30: the text is partly
corrupt and in eh. 29 has suffered Christian
interpolation, so that it is difficult to be sure of
the chronological reckonings. It seems that the
whole of this 'age of ungodliness' is reckoned as
one day of twelve hours (perhaps on the basis on Gen.
15:11), and perhaps each hour lasts 400 years (as in
eh. 32) rather than lOO years (as the present text of
eh. 28 seems to indicate) • In any case, the general
approach to Gen. 15 is similar to that in Pirqe de R.
Eliezer 28, and it is relevant that L. Bartman, 'The
Functions of Some So-Called Apocalyptic Timetables',
NTS 22 (1975-6) 10, considers that the message of the
'timetable' in the Apocalypse of Abraham 'is not a
calculation of the end, but rather an attempt to
solve the moral and religious problem posed by the
situation of the faithful'.

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24 TYNDALE BULLETIN 31 (1980)

deduced that the period during which Abraham

(according to 15:11) drove away the birds of prey from
the sacrificial carcasses was a day, from sunrise to
sunset. The birds of prey are taken to represent the
Gentile oppressors of Israel during the period of the
four kingdoms. Therefore, R. Eleazar says, 'From this
incident thou mayest learn that the ruie of these four
kingdoms will only last one day according to the day
of the Holy One, blessed be he'./43/ The reference to
'the day of the Holy One' must be to the maxim 'A day of
the Lord is a thousand years'.

The relevance of this text is that, unlike the other

rabbinic texts already mentioned, it does relate to the
delay of the End, for in Jewish apocalyptic the period
of the four kingdoms is precisely the period of delay.
Moreover, I doubt whether the exegesis is primarily
intended as a chronological calculation,/44/ again
unlike the other texts. The point is that the rule of
the four kingdoms 'will only last one day', i.e. that
although for oppressed Israel the time seems very long,
from God's eternal perspective it is a very brief period.
This reflection therefore has the function of

43. Pirqe de R. Eliezer 28: translation from G.

Friedlander, Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer (New York:
Hermon Press, 19G52) 200. I owe my knowledge of
this text to P. Bogaert, op. cit. II 88, who quotes
from the same tradition in Yalqut Shim'oni 76.
44. If the text were interpreted chronologically, then
perhaps it would be plausible to suggest a date of
origin for the tradition when the end of a period
of one thousand years from 586 BC was approaching.
But even in the case of texts which appear to be
more interested in chronology, such calculations of
date cannot be trusted: if 4 Ezra l0:45f; 14:llf
were taken literally and according to modern
chronology, the End would have.been far distant
in the future when the bop~ was wr~tten;
similarly Ps-Philo, Lib. Ant. Bib. 19:15 (accepting
the very plausible emendation proposed by M.•
Wadsworth, 'The Death of Moses and the Riddle of the
End of Time in Pseudo-Philo' JJS 28 (1977) 14f).

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BAUCKHAM: The Delay of the Parousia 25

consolation for Israel, in that it relativizes the

importance of the period of Gentile domination. It thus
provides a parallel to the thought of 2 Peter 3:8,
which is surely that those who complain of the delay
have got it out of perspective: in the perspective of
eternity it is only a short time.

With the second parallel we are on chronologically safer

ground, for it comes from the Apocalypse of Baruch. In
a passage clearly inspired by Psalm 90, Baruch reflects
on the contrast between the transience of man and the
eternity of God:

For in a little time are we born,

and in a little time do we return.
But with thee the hours are as the ages,
and the days are as the generations (2 Baruch 48:12f).
/45/

At least this text proves that it was possible for a

contemporary of the author of 2 Peter to read Psalm 90:4
in its original sense of a contrast between God's
endless existence and man's brief span of life. In its
immediate context in 2 Baruch it is not directly
related to the problem of delay, but it is an instance
of Baruch's frequent theme of God's sovereignty over the
times, which, as we have seen, is one of the themes
which serves to balance the theme of eschatological
imminence.

These two parallels seem to me to illuminate the meaning

of 2 Peter 3:8. This verse is not, as Kasemann complains,
'a philosophical speculation about the being of God, to
which a different conception of time is made to apply
from that which applies to us'./46/ It does not mean
that God's perception of time is so utterly unrelated to

45. As R. H. Charles, The Apocalypse of Baruch (London:

A. & c. Black, 1896) 75, ad loc., notes, we should
have expected 'the ages are as the hours and the
generations are as the days'; perhaps this should
caution us against seeing too much detailed
significance in the two halves of the saying in 2
Pet. 3:8.
46. Op. cit. 194.

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26 TYNDALE BULLETIN 31 (1980)

ours that the very idea of delay becomes quite

meaningless and nothing can any longer be said about ~he
time until the parousia. Rather the verse contrasts man
man's transience with God's everlastingness, the limited
perspective of man whose expectations tend to be bounded
by his own brief lifetime with the perspective of the
eternal God who surveys the whole of history. The
reason why the imminent expectation of the apocalyptist
tends to mean to him the expectation of the End within
his own lifetime is, partly at least, this human
limitation: he is impatient to see the redemption
himself. The eternal God is free from that particular
impatience./47/ The implication is not that the
believer should discard the imminent expectation,/48/ but
that he must set against it the consideration that the
delay which seems so lengthy to him may not be so
significant within that total perspective on the total
course of history which God commands.

In 2 Peter 3:9 the author offers his positive

understanding of the delay: 'The Lord is not slo~T about
his promise, as some count slowness, but is forbearing
toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that
all should reach repentance.' I hope that adequate
comment on this verse has already been provided by the
whole of our study of the Jewish apocalyptic material.
The problem of delay is here met in a way which had
become standard in the Jewish thinking of the time:/49/

47. Cf. Augustine's saying, quoted by c. Bigg, A Critical

and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistles of St Peter
and St Jude (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1901) 295, and
repeated by M. Green, The Second Epistle G~neral of
Peter and the G~neral Epistle of Jude (London: IVP,
1968) 134, that God is patiens quia eternus.
48. T. Fornberg, An Early Church in a Pluralistic Society
(Coniectanea Biblica: NT Series 9. Lund: Gleerup,
1977) 68 thinks that '2 Pet 3:8 is the earliest
example of the explicit abandonment by an orthodox
Christian writer of the expectation of a speedy
Parousia'.
49. Fornberg, ibid. 71, who wishes to stress the
Hellenistic and non-Jewish character of 2 Peter,
neglects the Jewish parallels to 3:9 in favour of the
parallel in Plutarch, De sera numinis vindicata. But
the whole context makes the Jewish parallels the
relevant ones.

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BAUCKHAM: The Delay of the Parousia 27

in fact this verse is a succinct statement of the ideas

about the delay which we have traced in Jewish apocalyptic.
There is first of all the appeal to God's sovereignty: he
is not late in fulfilling his promise (this point is made
by means of the standard reference to Hab. 2:3);/50/ the
delay belongs to his purpose. Then the positive meaning
of the delay is explained as R. Eliezer and the Apocalypse
of Baruch explained it. God restrains his anger in order
to give his people (now Christians rather than Jews)
opportunity to repent./51/

The author of 2 Peter, then, met the problem of delay as

posed by the 'scoffers' from the resources of the Jewish
apocalyptic tradition. His arguments were not novel
arguments hastily contrived to meet the unexpected crisis
of delay. They were arguments familiar in contemporary
Jewish circles where the problem of delay was part and
parcel of the apocalyptic tradition. Like the author of
the Apocalypse of Baruch, the author of 2 Peter recognized
that alongside the theological factors which make f9r
imminence must be set theological factors which account
for delay. Against the apocalyptists' longing for '

So. Cf. Ecclus. 35:18, but there the emphasis is very

different.
51. The naVTa~ must mean, initially at least, all the
readers. The Christian mission is not here in
view: contra A. L. Moore, The Parousia in the New
Testament (SUpplements to Novum Testamentum 13.
Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1966) 154.
The further comment, in 3:12, that Christians by
living holy lives may 'hasten' the coming of the End
is the obverse of 3:9. The reference to Is. 60:12
was traditional (seen. 13 above), though it is
usually God who is said to hasten the time of the End.
There are, however, rabbinic parallels, such as the
saying of R. Judah, 'Great is charity, for it brings
redemption nearer' (b Baba Batra lOa) , and the saying
of R. Jose the Galilean, 'Great is repentance, for it
brings redemption nearer' (b Yoma 86b).
As we have already noticed in the case of R. Eliezer
and the Apocalypse of Baruch, this idea need not
contradict the view that God has appointed the time cf
the End; it only means that God's sovereign
determination takes human affairs into account.

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28 TYNDALE BULLETIN 31 (1980)

eschatological righteousness, which this writer clearly

shared (3:13), must be set the patience of God who
characteristically holds back from condemning the sinner
while he may still repent. The believer must hold the
two sides of the matter in tension. Only God from the
perspective of eternity knows the temporal point at which
they meet, where the tension will be resolved in the
event of the End. The problem of delay is thus contained
within the expectation, as it always had been in the
Jewish tradition.

(d) The Apocalypse of John

Finally, we turn to the Apocalypse of John, which, rooted

as it is in the apocalyptic tradition, employs the
traditional Jewish approaches to the problem of delay,
but also, being a deeply Christian apocalypse, employs
them with far more creative Christian reinterpretation
than we have found in 2 Peter.

By now it should come as no surprise to learn that the

imminent expectation and the delay of the parousia both
feature in Revelation. The note of imminence is more
obvious, owing to the emphasis it receives in the opening
and closing sections of the book (1:1,3; 22:6,7,10,12,20).
The motif of delay is somewhat less evident to us, but
would have been clear enough to John's readers: it can be
found principally in the section chapters 6-11.

We should notice first how the imminent expectation

receives a thoroughly Christian character: it is the
parousia of Jesus Christ which is expected. Not simply
the End, but Jesus, is coming soon (2:16; 3:11; 22:7,12,
20; cf. 1:7; 3:3; 16:15). Moreover, this Jesus has
already won the eschatological victory over evil (3:21;
5:5; 12:7-11); as the passover Lamb he has already
accomplished the new Exodus of the End-time (5:6-10; cf.
15:3); he already holds the keys of death, and rules the
world from his Father's throne (1:18; 3:21; 1:5).

It has frequently been said that, by comparison with

Jewish apocalyptic, the problem of eschatological delay
was less acute for the early church because of the element
of realized eschatology in Christian thinking. No longer
was the future expectation paramount, because in the
death and resurrection of Jesus in the past God had

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BAUCKBAM: The Delay of the Parousia 29

already accomplished the decisive eschatological act./52/

There is truth in this argument - and, as we shall see,
it is this past act of God in Christ which gives the
present time of delay its positive meaning in Revelation
- but it should also be noticed that the tension of
'already' and 'not yet' in early Christianity also
functioned to heighten the sense of eschatological
imminence. For if the victory over evil has already
been won, it seems even more necessary that the actual
eradication of evil from the world should follow very
soon. The powers of evil at work in the world loom
large in the imagery of Revelation: the problems of
theodicy which they pose are, in one sense, not
alleviated but intensified by the faith that Christ has
already conquered them. Thus the characteristic tension
of imminence and delay in Jewish apocalyptic seems to be,
if anything, sharpened by the 'already' of Christian
faith, since it contributes to both sides of the tension.

The message of Revelation is conveyed as much by literary

impact as by conventional theological statement, and this
is true of the motif of delay in chapters 6-11. In those
chapters John portrays the movement from Christ's victory
on the cross towards the fulfilment of that vict,ry at
the parousia, and he structures that movement in the
series of sevens: the seven seals, the seven trumpets,
and the further series of seven bowls which follows in
chapter 16. In chapter 5 the reader has heard of the
victory of the Lamb, who is declared worthy to open the
scroll, i.e. to release into the world God's purpose of
establishing his Kingdom. The Lamb's victory on the
cross is the fundamental achievement of that purpose; all
that remains is its outworking in world history. So
John's original readers would move into chapter 6 full of
expectancy: a rapid series of apocalyptic judgments
would quickly crush all opposition and inaugurate the
Kingdom. This expectancy, however, is deliberately
frustrated throughout chapters 6-11. The impressive
quartet of horsemen who are released into history when
the Lamb opens the first four seals turn out (6:8) to be
disappointingly moderate judgments, affecting only a
quarter of the earth. The readers' sense of disappoint-
ment will correspond to the cry of the martyrs, 'Bow

52. Cf. Cullmann, Christ and Time, 86-90, though

Cullmann does acknowledge that the 'already' of
primitive Christianity did intensify the
eschatological expectation.

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30 TYNDALE BULLETIN 31 (1980)

long?', at the opening of the fifth seal (6:10). With

the sixth seal, however, expectation will mount again:
the familiar apocalyptic imagery heralds the actual
arrival of the day of judgment. But again John holds
his readers in suspense, inserting a long parenthesis
(eh. 7) before the final, seventh seal.

The series of trumpets follow a similar pattern. The

judgments are now intensified, but they are still
limited, this time affecting a third of the earth and its
inhabitants. Instead of accomplishing a swift
annihilation of the enemies of God, it becomes clear that
these judgments are preliminary warning judgments,
designed, in the patience of God, to give men the
opportunity of repentance. Following the sixth trumpet,
however, we are told that these judgments have not
brought men to repentance; they remain as impenitent as
ever (9:20f). Once again, therefore, the readers'
expectation will rise: God's patience must now be
exhausted; surely the final judgment of the seventh
trumpet will now follow. Once again, however, John
frustrates this expectation, inserting a long passage
between the sixth and seventh trumpets, just as he had
done between the sixth and seventh seals. Only when we
reach the seven bowls (eh. 16), with which 'the wrath of
God is ended' (15:1), do we find an uninterrupted series
of total judgments moving rapidly to the final
extinction of the evil powers.

In this way John has incorporated the motif of delay into

the structure of his book, especially in the form of the
parentheses which precede the final seal and the final
trumpet. John's understanding of the meaning of the delay
we shall expect to find in the content of these
parentheses, and also in the episode of the fifth seal
(6:9-11), which is his first explicit treatment of the
issue of delay.

The martyrs' cry 'How long?' (6:10) is the traditional

apocalyptic question about the delay (Dn. 12:6; Hab. 1:2;
Zc. 1:12; 2 Baruch 21:25; 4 Ezra 4:33,35), and the problem
from which it arises - the problem of justice and
vindication for the martyrs - dates at least from the time
of the Maccabean martyrs. The answer to the question is
also traditional. The delay will last 'a little while
longer' (cf. Is. 26:20; Hg. 2:6; Heb. 10:37; the same
motif in Rev. 12:12; 17:10) until the predetermined quota
of martyrs is complete. This idea is cl-early akin to 2

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BAUCKHAM: The Delay of the Parousia 31

Baruch 23:2-5 (discussed above) and even closer to 1

Enoch 47 and 4 Ezra 4:35-37: the last passage may suggest
that John has taken over even the depiction of the scene
from tradition.

John has therefore taken over this tradition about the

meaning of delay without modification, except that he has
placed it in the context of the significance of martyrdom
according to his work as a whole./53/ For John, Christian
martyrdom belongs to the Christian's discipleship of Jesus
and the Christian's participation in Jesus' own witness
and victory through the cross. In that context the
meaning of the delay in this passage goes deeper than the
idea of an arbitrarily decreed quota of martyrdoms. In
advance of his final victory over evil by power, God has
already won the victory of sacrificial suffering, the
victory of the slain Lamb. He has done so because he
prefers to come to sinners in grace, rather than in
merely destructive wrath. But the Lamb's mission
and victory must be continued in the followers of the
Lamb. Therefore the vindication of the martyrs must wait
until all have sealed their witness in blood and God's
purposes of grace for the world have been fulfilled
through them. The logic of delay here is the logic of the
cross. This is the significance which 6:9-11 will gain as
the rest of Revelation unfolds the significance of the
martyrs.

John does not, in so many words, attribute the delay to

the longsuffering of God, but characteristically he
pictures this motif. Chapter 7, the parenthesis between
the sixth and seventh seals, opens with the picture of
the four angels holding back the four winds of the earth,
to prevent them from harming the earth: a picture of what
Baruch called 'the restraint of wrath' (2 Baruch 59:6).
God holds back the release of his final judgment on the
world until the angels 'have sealed the servants of God
on their foreheads' (7:3): in other words, the delay is
the period in which men become Christians and are
therefore protected from the coming wrath of God.

53. Cf. G. B. Caird, The Revelation of St John the Divine

(London: A. & c. Black, 1966) 87~ J. Sweet,
Revelation (London: SCM, 1979) 142.

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32 TYNDALE BULLETIN 31 (1980)

(Paradoxically, this protection makes them potential

martyrs: 7:14.)

Thus, from the treatment of delay within the seven seals

section, we learn that God delays the End for the sake
of the church, so that the Lamb may be the leader of a
vast new people of God drawn from every nation and
sharing his victory through suffering.

The treatment of delay in the seven trumpets section is

less easy to follow, because the parenthesis between the
sixth and seventh trumpets (10:1 - 11:13) is probably
the most obscure passage in Revelation, as the wide
variety of suggested interpretations shows. It will be
easier to begin with the latter part of it: the story of
the two witnesses (11:1-13). With many commentators, I
take this as a parable of the church's mission to the
world./54/ The witnesses are two because of the
Deuteronomic requirement of two witnesses. They
prophesy for three and a half years (11:3) because this
is the symbolic figure (taken over from Daniel) which
John uses to designate the 'little while' of the delay.
Along with many Old Testament allusions in the passage,
the fact that the witnesses' career is modelled on
that of Jesus is noteworthy: their dead bodies lie in
the street of the city 'where their Lord was crucified'
(11:8), and after three and a half days they are raised
and ascend to heaven. In all probability the final
words of the section, 'the rest were terrified and gave
glory to the God of heaven' (11:13), are intended to

54. I have discussed this passage briefly in 'The Role

of the Spirit in the Apocalypse', EQ 52 (1980) 66-83.
Commentators who take a similar view include H. B.
Swete, The Apocalypse of St John (London: Macmillan,
21907) 134-41; M. Kiddle, The Revelation of St John
(London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1940) 176-206; Caird,
op. cit. 133-40; G. R. Beasley-Murray, The Book of
Revelation (London: Oliphants, i974) 176-87; R. H.
Mctmce, The Book of Revelation (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1977) 222-9; Sweet, op. cit. 181-9.

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BAUCKHAM: The Delay of the Parousia 33

indicate sincere repentance./55/ In other words, the

men who after the judgments of the six trumpet-blasts
remained impenitent (9:20f), are now brought to
repentance through the suffering witness of the church.

Thus the question with which the original readers may

well have concluded chapter 9 - 'Surely God will no
longer be patient?' - is answered in chapter 11. Yes,
he will be patient because he has another strategy to
reach the impenitent, a strategy which began with the
sacrifice of the Lamb and continues in the suffering
witness of his followers. This is John's further
answer to the meaning of delay: not only is the delay for
the sake of the church itself (eh. 7), it is for the sake
of the church's witness to the world. God's desire that
sinners should repent does not stop at simply giving them
time, or even at inflicting warning judgments on them;
more than that, God actively seeks them in the mission of
his Son and his church. The delay of the parousia is
filled with the mission of the church.

We turn to the problematic chapter 10. The episode of

the seven thunders (l0:3f) has puzzled the commentators.
Probably the seven thunders represent a further series
of warning judgments, like the seals and the trumpets.
/56/ The command to 'seal up what the seven thunders
have said' (10:3) is odd, since John has not written what
they said, and he is told not to write it: there is no

55. So Swete, op. cit. 141; R. H. Charles, A Critical and

Exegetical Commentary on the Revelation of St John
(Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1920) I, 29lf; Caird, op.
cit. 139f; L. Morris, The Revelation of St John
(LOndon: Tyndale Press, 1969) 152; G. E. Ladd, A
Commentary on the Revelation of John (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1972) 139f; Beasley-Murray, op. cit. 187;
Sweet, op. cit. 189.
56. J. Day, 'Echoes of Baal's seven thunders and
lightnings in Psalm xxix and Habakkuk iii 9 and the
identity of the seraphim in Isaiah vi' VT 29 (1979)
143-51, finds a Ugaritic reference to the seven
thunders of Baal, which are reflected in Ps. 29.
Probably, therefore, John's reference to 'the seven
thunders' (10:3) is to a standard apocalyptic image
which derives ultimately, like much apocalyptic
imagery, from Canaanite mythology.

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34 TYNDALE BULLETIN 31 (1980)

document to seal up. Some have ·suggested that the

content of the seven thunders is to be kept secret:
John is not to reveal it as he has revealed the content
of the seven trumpets./57/ In that case, there are to
be further warning judgments, but John's readers are not
permitted to know about them. This explanation has the
disadvantage of seeming to contradict verse 6, where the
angel swears that there will be no more delay. The
alternative suggestion is that the seven thunders
represent a further series of warning judgments which are
revoked./58/ They are sealed up because they are not to
occur. Here 'seal up' is being used as the antithesis of
'open the seal' in chapter 6: if to 'open the seal' means
to release the contents of the document into history,
then to 'seal up' would mean to prevent the seven
thunders being released into history. On this view,
verse 6 follows logically: God has cut short the series
of warning judgments, and so there will be no more delay
before the final judgment of the seventh trumpet.

However, when we turn to the angel's statement in verses

6f, there are further problems. These verses are
dependent on Daniel 12:6f, where in reply to Daniel's
question 'How long?' the angel swears that it will be
1 for a time, two times, and half a time; and that when

the shattering of the power of the holy people comes to

an end all these things would be accomplished'. John's
angel appears to contradict Daniel's: instead of three
and a half times (years) of delay, there will be no more
delay./59/ , But if John means to indicate that the words

57. So Swete, op. cit. 128; w. Hendriksen, More than

Conquerors (London: Inter-Varsity Press, 1962) 124;
Morris, op. cit. 139; Ladd, op. cit. 143.
58. So A. M. Farrer, The Revelation of St John the Divine
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964) 125; Caird, op. cit.
126f; Mounce, op. cit. 209f.
59. All commentators now agree that xpovos oux€TL lcrraL
(10:6) should be translated 'there shall be no more
delay'. The words probably echo Hab. 2:3.

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BAUCKHAM: The Delay of the Parousia 35

of Daniel's angel are inappropriate at this stage of

history because there is now to be no more delay, it is
strange that, almost immediately (in 11:2f), he goes on
to use Daniel' s period of three and a half years as his
own symbol of the period of delay before the End, during
which the power of the new holy people, the church, is
being shattered in martyrdom. On grounds of structure
/60/ I would reject the suggestion/61/ that in chapter
10 John stands at the end of the three and a half years
and then in chapter 11 recapitulates the three and a
half years.

We seem, then, to be faced with a straight contradiction.

In 10:1-7 we are told that there are to be no more
warning judgments and no more delay before the final
trumpet-blast which is about to sound./62/ In 11:1-13
(to which 10:8-11 is introductory) we find a delay which
is filled with the church's mission: if God has revoked
further warning judgments it is not because his patience
is ended, but because he purposes to reach men through
the church's witness.

I tentatively suggest that John intended this

contradiction. The days of the sixth trumpet in which
he placed himself are the days in which 'the time is
near' (1:3; 22:10), when the final 'woe' is coming

60. The whole section 10:1 - 11:13 is a unit closely

associated with the sixth trumpet (9:13-21) by means
of 9:12 and 11:14. It is clear from 10:8 that 10:
8-11 succeeds the episode of the seven thunders:
John is forbidden to reveal the content of the
thunders but instead is given a new commission to
prophesy (10:11). This commission is fulfilled
initially in 11:1-13, more expansively in chs. 12-14.
61. Hendriksen, op. cit. 125; Morris, op. cit. 140.
62. Some.have sought to evade the difficulty by arguing
either (1) that l0:6f means only that there will be
no more delay before the period of three and a half
years (so Charles, op. cit. I, 263, 265f; caird, op.
cit. 127f; Mounce, op. cit. 211; Sweet, op. cit.
127f), or (2) that l0:6f means only that when the
seventh trumpet sounds there will be no more delay
(so Swete, op. cit. 129). But these are evasions
which miss the point of the passage.

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36 TYNDALE BULLETIN 31 (1980)

•soon' (11:14), when there is to be no more delay (10:7).

And yet, while God does still delay, the church is called
to bear her faithful witness in prophecy and martyrdom
(11:1-13). The tension of imminence and delay is here
starkly set out, and John makes no attempt to resolve it:
he only knows that the clmrch must live in this tension.

To conclude: Revelation maintains the typical apocalyptic

tension of imminence and delay, now sharpened and
characterized in a peculiarly Christian manner. The
imminent expectation focuses on the parousia of the
already victorious Christ: and the book ends with the
promise, 'I am coming soon' , and the church' s urgent
response, 'Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!' (22:20). But the
manner of the victory which Christ has already won - a
sacrificial offering to ransom sinners from every nation
(5:9) - gives fresh meaning to the delay, which now
becomes the time of the church's universal mission,
characterized by suffering witness in discipleship to the
crucified Christ. In this way, it should be noticed, the
apocalyptic theodicy problem of innocent suffering gains
a fresh perspective. Innocent suffering still cries out
for eschatological righteousness (6:10; cf. 18:1- 19:3).
But on the other hand, God delays the parousia not simply
in spite of his people's sufferings, but actually so that
his people may suffer that positive, creative suffering
which comes to the followers of the cross of Christ.

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