Presenter:

Rev. Richard Beckford

Things I will not do tonight…

•I will not interpret the “four great beasts”

•I will not interpret the “seventy weeks”
•I will not interpret “666”
•I will not interpret the “144,000”
•I will not interpret the “son of man”
•I will not interpret the “four horse men”
•I will not interpret the “dragon”
The ESSENCE of our Study

• This study will equip you with the necessary

exegetical tools to discover the intended meaning
by the authors within the apocalyptic Literature
of the Bible.

• I will not impose on you a hermeneutical approach

(even though I have a preference to a particular
hermeneutical method) to apocalyptic Literature.
Hermeneutical Approaches to Apocalyptic Literature (specifically the book of Revelation):

Preterist The Historicist

This view sees the fulfillment of Sees the book as a pre-

Revelation Prophecies in the written record of the
ancient past. It has already course of history. It
taken place. Some Preterist view started with the
the final chapters of Revelation Apostle to the end of
as the second coming of Christ.
Others believe that everything the world. So its
including the second coming of progressive even as we
Christ already took place speak.
Hermeneutical Approaches to Apocalyptic Literature (specifically the book of Revelation):

The Futurist The Spiritual Approach/

Symbolic/Idealist
Approach
This view determines that
majority of the prophecies Revelation is a great
in Revelation has not been drama depicting
fulfilled and will be in the transcendent spiritual
future. So whatever happens realities, depicting
after chapter 4 is a series of heavenly vindication and
brief events right before the final victory of Christ and
second coming of Christ. his saints.
 What has influenced my reading of the Apocalypses or Apocalyptic Literature?

•Denomination
•Tele-Evangelist
•Left-Behind Series
•Zionism
 What is an apocalypse?

• Apocalypse is a literary genre type found within and outside

the Bible that were written during a 400-500 year period
(300/200 B.C.E – 200 C.E). The Greek word for the book
Revelation is “apocalypsis” and it actually means “disclosure”
or “uncovering.”
• Working Definition: “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
envisages eschatological salvation, and spatial insofar as it
involves another, supernatural world” (Semeia 14, 1979).
 Apocalyptic Literature:
The ambivalent term “apocalyptic” has experienced much
deliberation throughout its etymology connoting a period, a series
of thought, a corpus of literary works, and so forth. D.S. Russell
opines that the term refers to “certain religious perspective or
complex of ideas exemplified by the apocalypse and related
literature, a perspective that is wider than that of eschatology but
is characterized by a peculiar pre-occupation with “last things” and
the coming judgement, and wider too than those books designated
apocalypses, being recognizable also in writings of a related kind”
(D. S. Russell The Method and Message of Jewish Apocalyptic,
(Philadelphia: Westminster, 1964), 13).

Apocalypticism: A worldview that is common within apocalypses.

 List of Non-Biblical Apocalypses:

• 1 Enoch, the Book of • The Testament of

Jubilees Abraham
• The Sibylline Oracles (Book • II Enoch
III) • The Sibylline Oracles
• The Testaments of the XII (Book IV)
Patriarchs
• II Esdras
• The Psalms of Solomon
• II Baruch
• The Assumption of Moses
• III Baruch
• The Apocalypse of Moses
• The Sibylline Oracles
• The Apocalypse of Abraham (Book V)
 List of Biblical Apocalypses:

•Daniel

•Revelation
 List of Apocalyptic Literature:
• Ezekiel 37-39
• Isaiah 24-27
• Olivet Discourse (Mark 13, Matthew 24-25, Luke
21:5ff)
• 1 Corinthians 15
• 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17
• 2 Thessalonians 2
• 2 Peter 2-3
 Historical Context for Apocalyptic Literature

During this time,

TheJudaism
Persians,
arose
Greeks
and evolved.
and Romans
Subsequent were progressively
to this period, the dominant the persecution of the
early church
world powers during increased under the Roman Empire.
this time.

Under Persian
1st Temple destroyed by therule,
2the
nd Jews were allowed to rebuild the Temple
Babylonians
Temple in 586 BCEbyPeriod
destroyed
The between
the Romans in 70 538
CE – BCE to 7024:1-3;
Matthew CE is considered the
(538 – 521 BCE) – Haggai 1:1; Ezra 1:2-4; 6:3-5
Mark 13:1-3; Luke Second
21:5-7 (The OlivetPeriod.
Temple Discourse)
 Exegesis of Apocalypses
1. 2. The interpreter should
prepare to encounter a
1.1. Seek the author’s possible secondary meaning
that transcends the author
original intent. The first and the first recipients. This is
recipient of the writings. hermeneutically influenced
and must be governed by the
intended original meaning.

1.3. Approaching imagery

and symbols:

 Be mindful of the historical

context for the imagery employed
by the author. Images in Biblical
 The interpretation of the apocalypses have been taken from
images within the apocalypses the Bible (Old Testament/Hebrew
should be used as a guide to Bible), other apocalyptic literature
understand specifics or overall and ancient mythology. They may
idea being transmitted (Daniel not mean the same thing in all the