[draft: Feb18/2013 ; Back to main series ; Back to
section on early Patristics ]
In our survey of NT and post-NT literature so far (up to
the early church fathers), we have not seen any indication that
anybody held to a ‘precise prediction’ of the Eschaton’s arrival.
With the Epistle of
Barnabas, however, we encounter an odd situation. He
indicates a belief in the ‘world week’ of 6K years (ie, the
Eschaton has to ‘wait’ for the 6,000 years to ‘end’ before it then
starts?), yet still seems to maintain a belief in ‘at any time’
and ‘unknown but could be very soon’ (ie, the Eschaton can come at
any time).
The background of this comes from Psalm 90 (sort of),
which says “For a thousand
years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as
a watch in the night.” [ESV]
This was applied to the 6 days of creation in Genesis
(yielding 6,000 years), leaving a Sabbath day (=millennium of
rest) for the 7th day.
In Christian literature, we can see references to this
world-week first in Barnabas, then Irenaeus, and later in
Hippolytus, and we can see it debunked later still by Augustine.
But whether holding to it required a denial of imminence is not that clear. Scholars can
affirm both sides of the position:
“The
second feature concerns eschatology. Hippolytus insisted that the
end was not imminent.
The ten toes of the statue and the ten horns of the fourth beast
were understood to require the division of the Roman Empire, which
had not yet come to pass. Moreover,
he held that the history of the world would last six thousand
years, followed by the sabbatical thousand-year reign of
Christ because he dated the birth of Christ fifty-five hundred
years after Adam, the end of the world was still a long way off. This position was remarkable
in view of the prevalence of imminent expectation at the
beginning of the third century. The seventy weeks of chap. 9
were understood as a prediction of the birth of Christ after
sixty-nine weeks, with the final week referring to the
eschatological future, the appearance of Elijah and Enoch and the
Antichrist.” [Collins, J. J., & Collins, A. Y. (1993). Daniel:
A commentary on the book of Daniel (F. M. Cross, Ed.). Hermeneia—a
Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible (113).
Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press.]
Versus:
“Eschatology. Clement
provides a clear argument for a future resurrection of the body in
1 Clement 24–26. The nature of the Christian’s future hope is so
wonderful that only God truly knows its greatness and beauty (1
Clem. 34.3—35.3). The final judgment of the wicked (e.g., Herm.
Sim. 9.18.2) and the blessing of the righteous (e.g., Herm. Sim.
9.18.4; 4.2-3) are important motifs in Hermas. Ignatius notes that
Jesus “was made manifest at the end of time” (Ign. Magn. 6.1) and
he can also write: “These are the last times” (Ign. Eph. 11.1),
while anticipating the future resurrection (Ign. Pol. 7.1).
Polycarp anticipates the future resurrection of the dead and the
reign of the righteous with Christ (Pol. Phil. 5.2; cf. 7.1).
Papias is notorious for his millennialism (cf. Irenaeus Adv. Haer.
5.33.3; Eusebius Hist. Eccl. 3.39.12; see Millennium). The Didache
maintains an eschatological hope (Did. 10.5) and in the concluding
chapter articulates an imminent expectation of the end of the age
(Did. 16). An expectation of the imminent end of the world can
also be found in Barnabas (Barn. 21.3; cf. “the final cause
of stumbling is at hand” in Barn. 4.3). Indeed, Barnabas can
speculate about the time of the
world as being six thousand years, the day of the Lord as another
thousand years, and a new beginning marked by an eighth such
period (Barn. 15.4-9). 2 Clement too thinks of the day of the Lord
as “already approaching” (2 Clem. 16.3) and argues for the reality
of the future bodily resurrection (2 Clem. 9.1-5) and a literal
final judgment (2 Clem. 17.4-7). Given
their distance in time from the gospel events, the
continuing—and even urgent—eschatology of the apostolic
fathers is impressive.” [Martin, R. P., &
Davids, P. H. (2000). Dictionary of the later New Testament and
its developments (electronic ed.). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity
Press.]
We need to probe a little more to see where this came
from, and if/how it relates to the interpretation of Jesus’
apocalyptic words. For example, if it originated independently of Jesus
(like so MANY biblical ‘interpretations’ seem to do!), then it has
virtually no bearing on our
question. [However, there may be one point of relevance for
us—which we will consider at the end of this excursus—in whether
this ‘eschatological timetable’ was advanced as a ‘substitute’ one
for a ‘failed one’ by Jesus.]
So, where this this world-week notion come from?
It does not seem to be native to
apocalyptic thought per
se.
I looked through several major discussions of apocalyptic
writings/images in the ANE,
but could find nothing about ‘a week of thousands’ or allegorical
interpretations of ‘days’ as thousands.
One. VanderKam
surveys the ANE data in [CANE, “Prophecy and Apocalyptics
in the Ancient Near East”, pp2083-2094] but the examples discussed
contain nothing similar and/or precise. He points out that
apocalyptic texts only “begin to surface after the conquest of the
Near East by Alexander III ‘the Great’, and during the domination
of the Hellenistic and Roman Empires.” [CANE, 2087].
The texts he discusses as ‘formal apocalyptic texts’ are
from Egypt (The Demotic Chronicle, The Lamb to Bocchoris, the
Potter’s Oracle/Apology of the Potter to king Amenhotep, and the
Apocalypse of Asclepius) and from Persia (the Zand-i Vohuman
Yasn/the Bahman Yasht, and the Arda Viraf Nameh).
The Egyptian works are not of much interest here, but the
Persian ‘formal’ apocalypses are closer to the biblical materials
and are worthy of comment.
·
The Bahman Yasht is a
historical apocalypse and ‘in part may have originated in
Hellenistic times (though it contains later references)’ [CANE,
2088]. It has a reference to a tree and four kingdoms [the fourth
of which is Greece, as in Daniel], and to the ‘millennium of Zoroaster’.
The Eschaton in this case, however, is well AFTER the millennium
of Zoroaster.
·
The Arda Viraf Nameh is an
otherworldly journey (like many apocalypses). It ‘presupposes the
passage of some time since Alexander’s conquests’ [CANE, 2088]
Then VanderKam mentions other Persian texts which are not
apocalypses formally, yet which contain apocalyptic material.
·
First is the “Oracle of Hystaspes
(Vishtasp)”, whose existence is only known from quotations
from much later sources, especially Lactantius’s Divine Institutions VII.
There is no mention of millennial themes in it.
·
But in the Zamasp-Namak, the King
Vishtasp (in the narrative) asks Zamasp ‘How many years will this Pure
Religion endure, and afterwards what times and season will come?’
“The sage informs him that the religion will last one
thousand years, at the end of which mankind will break the
covenant, Iran will fall before its enemies, evil will abound, and
nature itself will be corrupted. Following the rule of three
kings, Pesyotan will come, the wicked will perish, and joy will
return” [CANE, 2089]
·
The Bundahishn is “compendium
of learning, parts of which may preserve material from a lost
Avestan book. It incorporates the teaching that history will last twelve
thousand years…three
thousand years in a spiritual state…(then) three thousand years
everything proceeds by the will of Auharmazd (Ahura Mazda), three thousand years
there is an intermingling of the wills of Auharmazd and Aharman
[Ahriman, the evil spirit], and the last three thousand years the
evil spirit is disabled…At the end, Ahura Mazda predicts, he will
triumph, the evil spirit will be rendered impotent… the
resurrection will take place, and creatures will exist undisturbed
forever. Chapter 34 also
deals with the twelve thousand years and aligns them with the
sings of the zodiac. There, in the ninth millennium the true
religion comes (toward its end), and then in the tenth the Persian
kings, Alexander, the Sasanians, and the Arabs appear” [CANE,
2089; Note: even though this text is ‘late’, the 3K year periods
are early, as known by Plutarch’s reference to them in On Isis and Osiris,
46-47, allegedly from a 4BC historian Theopompos.]
Two. Richard Clifford
discusses “The Roots of Apocalypticism in Near Eastern Myth” [The Encyclopedia of
Apocalypticism, Vol 1: The Origins of Apocalypticism in Judaism
and Christianity, JJ Collins (ed). Continuum:2000, pp3-38].
This focuses mostly on the ancient Combat Myth, but contains
nothing on precise predictions or eschatological ‘periodization’
(in the sense of ‘world week’).
Three. Norman Cohn
also looks into the background, in Cosmos, Chaos and the World
to Come: The Ancient Roots of Apocalyptic Faith, 2nd
Edition [YaleUP:2001, Kindle.] He drills down much further into
the time periods in (later revisions of) Zoroastrianism.
Interestingly, he argues that Zoroaster himself believed in an
‘imminent’ eschaton – the ‘making wonderful’—but that later,
“state religionists” created the time periodization needed to
support imperial and royal ‘interregnums’.
“How soon, when Zoroaster
first foretold ‘the making wonderful’, did he expect that great
consummation to come about? Certainly, in the near future.
Admittedly, he cannot always have felt that all his contemporaries
would live to see it, otherwise he would hardly have concerned
himself with the fates awaiting those who died while the world was
in its present condition — their adventures at the fateful bridge,
their sojourn in heaven, hell or limbo. But the Gathas do convey a great sense of
urgency. There is no mistaking the conviction that drove the
prophet on: he clearly believed that he had been sent by Ahura
Mazda at that particular moment to urge human beings to align
themselves with the right side at once, in the short time remaining
before the transformation of the world. In one passage he
even seems to be asking the supreme god to permit him and his
followers to take part in ‘the making wonderful’. But Zoroaster
died, his figure began to fade into the past, and still the world
was not transformed.”
And
“In the
sixth century BC Zoroastrianism
became the religion of the first Iranian empire. Whether or
not it was adopted already by the founder of that empire, Gyrus
the Great (549– 529), there can be no doubt about his successors.
Inscriptions on the tombs of Darius the Great (522– 486), Xerxes
(486– 465) and Artaxerxes I (465– 424) bear witness to the
unchanging nature of the dynastic faith. But indeed every
Achaemenian monarch saw himself as Lord Wisdom's representative on
earth. However, not
everything in the religion of the Gathas was appropriate to a
state religion. An institution endowed not only with great
spiritual authority but also with great temporal power, possessed
of temples, shrines and vast estates, served by a numerous
priesthood, could hardly
be impatient for a total transformation of the world. On the
contrary, if Zoroastrianism was to function effectively as the
dominant religion of a triumphant, firmly established empire,
it was imperative that Zoroastrian eschatology should be
modified. ‘The making wonderful’ had to be postponed,
officially and definitively, to a remote future.
The necessary revision
was achieved, not later than the first half of the fourth century
BC, by certain scholar-priests
who had abandoned orthodox Zoroastrianism in favour of the
heresy known as Zurvanism. This version of the religion,
which was adopted by the later Achaemenian monarchs and again by
the Sasanians, easily
accommodated a scheme of successive world-ages. In that
scheme, which was influenced by the speculations of
Babylonian astronomers about the ‘great year’, ‘limited time’
was divided into a number of equal periods. In one of
the versions that have come down to us the totality of ‘limited
time’ comprises 9000 years, divided into three periods of 3000
years each; in another, it comprises 12,000 years, divided into
four periods. But in the original version it was probably fixed at
6000 years; and even in the 9000- and 12,000-year versions, the last 6000 years
include everything that happens on this earth. … In this scheme of
world history the present moment had its place: it could only be
some time before the appearance of the first saoshyant [ie, Savior].
But that meant that ‘the making wonderful’, which Zoroaster had
expected to take place in his lifetime or shortly after it, and
which later generations of Zoroastrians had still awaited with
impatience, lost all
immediacy. Between the time when Zoroastrianism first became
a state religion and the final transformation of the world there
was set a comfortable
interval of more than 2000 years. Whatever their intentions
may have been, and however purely philosophical their interests,
the Zoroastrian priests had done something that had social and
political implications: they had modified the prophet's
original message in such a way that Achaemenian monarchs,
and after them Parthian and Sasanian monarchs, could find in it an ideology
perfectly suited to their needs.”[Cohn, Norman (2001-08-11).
Cosmos, Chaos and the World to Come (Yale Nota Bene) (Chapter4,
section 9). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.]
The Plutarch passage is described by Collins:
“Plutarch, “On Isis and
Osiris,” Chapter 47. The account of Persian religion by
Plutarch acquires special interest for a study of pre-Sassanian
materials since it can at least be dated, firmly, much earlier
than any of the Pahlavi writings. If, as seems highly probable,
Plutarch derived his material from Theopompus, then it can be
dated to the third century BCE. The passage is, again, a summary
which gives no indication of the way in which these doctrines were
supposed to have been revealed. Like the Bundahišn, it begins with
an account of “Horomazes” and “Areimanius.” The course of history
will follow assigned periods: “Theopompus says that according to
the Magians, for three
thousand years alternately the one god will dominate the
other and be dominated, and that for another three thousand years
they will fight and make war, until one smashes up the domain of
the other. In the end Hades shall perish and men shall be happy;
neither shall they need sustenance nor shall they cast a shadow,
while the god who will have brought this about shall have quiet
and shall rest, not for a long while indeed for a god, but for
such time as would be reasonable for a man who falls asleep.” --- The relation of this
eschatological schema to what we find in the Persian writings is
problematic. It is possible that the six millennia followed by a
decisive destruction of evil should be correlated with the last
nine thousand years of the Bundahišn (1:28). Alternatively, it may
be correlated with the six saecula
of the Oracle of Hystaspes. --- The brief account in Plutarch is of interest here
chiefly because of its early attestation of the periodization of
world history with an eschatological conclusion.” [“PERSIAN
APOCALYPSES” by John
J. Collins, in
Semeia, 14, 212–213.]
Well, this is not as promising as it once looked, I guess.
Yes, there is periodization of history/future, but the ‘thousand
year’ divisions no longer appear as ‘similar’ to the world-week
theme:
·
There is no
connection/correlation with ‘day’ or creation.
·
The time periods obviously
do not match (1K is not 3K).
·
The cosmic lifetime does
not match (6-7K is not 9-12K).
·
Their periods are aligned
with the zodiac, which is ‘polemically unacceptable’ (smile) to
post-exilic Judaism (with exceptions).
So, whatever (mutual) influences existed between Persia
and Israel, the world-week periodization (based on the days of
creation) do not seem to have had a close precedent in
Zoroastrian/Persian religion. And however ‘apocalyptic thought’
visualizes the imminence of its particular version of the
Eschaton, it does not have imminence as a sine qua non – it is
often present, but the central motif is that of subversion (or
better “supra-version”?) of the ‘ordinary’ by the
‘super-ordinary’.
Now where do we look?
When we turn now to Jewish materials of the pre-Christian
and early-Christian periods, we find the first references to
world-week TYPE material. Not all of it matches world-week images,
but much of it implies a background of 6K/7K cosmic lifespan. And
it is represented in a fairly wide range of texts, also.
Since it ‘looks like’ an allegorical interpretation
of the Genesis days of creation, let’s look first for evidences of
this kind of interpretation in Jewish sources.
One: Aristobulus of
Alexandria and Philo. Although there are numerous cases of
‘re-use’ of biblical materials by later biblical authors, only a
couple come close to ‘full’ allegory in our sense. The two that
come first to mind to me are Jeremiah’s ‘reversal of creation’
passage (Jeremiah 4.23) and the trees-as-nations image in Ezekiel
(Ezek 16.8).
But pride of place for this (in extra-biblical lit) will
have to go to Aristobulus
of Alexandria, in mid-2nd century BC. He used
allegorical methods of interpretation (somewhat restrained,
though) along the same lines as Greek and Hellenistic
re-interpretations of their
sacred mythology and literature. He is followed by Philo of
Alexandria, who engages in thorough-going allegorical
interpretation of the Hebrew bible.
“Allegory. A narrative
which uses symbolic figures and actions to suggest hidden meanings
behind the literal words of the text. It is similar to riddle and
parable genres, which use figurative language and images to convey
a truth hidden behind the literal meaning of the words. The word “allegory”
originated in the Greek world and was used most frequently by
authors who wished to retain the truths of traditional
worldviews when ancient traditions were being challenged by
new knowledge. The Homeric stories of the gods were
interpreted allegorically by later Greeks who wished to
“demythologize” the tales of the capricious and immoral
deities of Olympus and make them more
intellectually meaningful and ethically acceptable to a people
whose worldview was becoming more scientific and sophisticated.
The word “allegory” itself was first used in Hellenistic times by
Stoics and Cynics seeking to counter
the attacks on the Olympian pantheon which had been made by
Xenophanes, Pythagoras, and Plato. In Hellenistic Judaism ca.
the
middle of the 2nd century B.C.E. Aristobulus of Alexandria
used an allegorical interpretation of the OT extensively as he
sought to reconcile the Hebrew Scriptures with Greek culture. Philo of Alexandria became
the Jewish theologian who used the allegorical interpretation the
most extensively and was able to maintain a balance between the
allegorical and literal reading of the Law.” [Goodman, W. R.,
Jr.,. (2000). Allegory. In D. N. Freedman, A. C. Myers & A. B.
Beck (Eds.), Eerdmans dictionary of the Bible (D. N. Freedman, A.
C. Myers & A. B. Beck, Ed.) (43–44). Grand Rapids, MI: W.B.
Eerdmans.]
“Allegorical
interpretation
can be found among early
Greeks who read Homer and other epic tales as allegories ... Philo Judaeus of
Alexandria (50 B.C.) was a Jewish Platonist who exerted great
influence on the course of biblical interpretation. In his
commentary of the Pentateuch, Philo employed allegorical exegesis.
In addition to the literal meaning, Philo found higher levels of
meaning, avoiding unpalatable statements.” [Brand, C., & Bond,
S. (2003). Allegory. In Draper Charles, A. England, E. R.
Clendenen & T. C. Butler (Eds.), Holman Illustrated Bible
Dictionary (Draper Charles, A. England, E. R. Clendenen & T.
C. Butler, Ed.) (47). Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers.]
“Fragment
5 of the work of Aristobulus (ca. middle of 2d century B.C.)
explains the sabbath in
relationship to cosmic orders, also linking the sabbath to
wisdom (Frag. 5.9–10) and the
sevenfold structures of all things (Frag. 5.12). This work
is an attempt to bring the sabbath into relationship with
Hellenistic thought similar to that of Philo.” [Hasel, G. F.
(1992). Sabbath. In D. N. Freedman (Ed.), . Vol. 5: The Anchor
Yale Bible Dictionary (D. N. Freedman, Ed.) (854). New York:
Doubleday.]
“In
discussing the “standing” of God (F. 2:9–12),
Aristobulus used the allegorical method of interpretation
which the Stoics had applied to Homer and which
later Philo also applied to the Bible. --- In fragment 5, wisdom
is associated with the seventh day (F. 5:9f.). The seventh day, in turn, is
associated with the sevenfold principle (logos), the sevenfold structure of all things
(F. 5:12). ---
Fragment 5 provides important evidence for Jewish use of Pythagorean
ideas in the second century B.C. Both Aristobulus and Philo
(SpecLeg 2.15(59)) seem
to presuppose a traditional, allegorical interpretation of the
biblical account of creation. This interpretation
made use of Pythagorean reflections
on the number seven as a prime
number.” [Collins, A. Y. (1985). Aristobulus: A New
Translation and Introduction. In . Vol. 2: The Old Testament
pseudepigrapha and the New Testament, Volume 2: Expansions of the
"Old Testament" and Legends, Wisdom, and Philosophical Literature,
Prayers, Psalms and Odes, Fragments of Lost Judeo-Hellenistic
Works (835). New Haven; London: Yale University Press.]
Aristobulus’ passage is given in [OTP2:841ff, Fragment 5,
in Eusebius, 13.12.9–16] as follows:
9 Following these
things, after other (remarks), he [Aristobulus] adds:
“And
connected (with this) is (the fact) that God, who established the
whole cosmos, also gave us the seventh day as a rest, because life
is laborious for all. According
to the laws of nature, the seventh day might be called first
also, as the genesis of light in which all things are
contemplated.
10 And the same
thing might be said metaphorically
about wisdom also. For all light has its origin in it. And
some of those belonging to the Peripatetic school have said that
wisdom holds the place of a lantern; for as long as they follow it
unremittingly, they will be calm through their whole life.
11 And one of our
ancestors, Solomon, said more clearly and better that wisdom
existed before heaven and earth; which indeed agrees with what has
been said. And it is plainly said by our legislation that God rested on the seventh day.
This does not mean, as some interpret, that God no longer does
anything. It means that, after he had finished ordering all
things, he so orders them for all time.
12 For the
legislation signifies that
in six days he made heaven and earth and all things which are in
them in order that he might make manifest the
times and foreordain what precedes what with
respect to order. For, having set all things in order, he
maintains and alters them so (in accordance with that order). And
the legislation has shown plainly that the seventh day is legally
binding for us as a sign of the sevenfold principle
which is established around us, by which we have knowledge of
human and divine matters.
13 And indeed all
the cosmos of all living beings and growing things revolves in
series of sevens. Its being called “sabbath” is
translated as “rest.” And both Homer and Hesiod, having taken
information from our books, say clearly that the seventh
day is holy. Hesiod (speaks) so: To begin with, (the) first,
(the) fourth and (the) seventh, (each) a holy day; And again he says: And on the seventh day (is)
again the bright light of the sun.
14 And Homer speaks so: And then indeed the seventh
day returned, a holy day; [and Then was the holy seventh day]
and again: It was the
seventh day and on it all things had been completed and: And on the seventh morning we
left the stream of Acheron.
15 He (Homer)
thereby signifying that away from the forgetfulness and evil of
the soul, by means of the
sevenfold principle in accordance with the truth, the things
mentioned before are left behind and we receive knowledge of the
truth, as has been said above.
16 And Linus speaks so: And on the seventh morning
all things were made complete; and again: (The) seventh (day) is of
good quality and (the) seventh
(day) is birth; and: (The) seventh (day) is among the prime
(numbers) and (the) seventh (day) is perfect;
[and] And all seven
(heavenly bodies) have been created in the starry heaven,
Shining in their orbits in the revolving years.”
Such
then are the remarks of Aristobulus.
This is clearly some form of allegorizing, but we do not
get all the way to ‘day = millennium’ of course.
Two. We have the
allegorical interpretation of the Song of Songs in the first
century AD.
“In the
extrabiblical book called The
Apocalypse of Ezra (4:24, 26 (The Apocalypse of Ezra,
or 4 Ezra, is a Jewish
book dated to the end of
the first century CE, whose subject is the destruction of
Jerusalem and the Second Temple by the Romans in 69 CE), the
community of Israel is designated ‘dove’ and šwšnh (lily? iris?),
symbolical attributes gleaned from the SoS. That is the first evidence
for symbolical interpretations of the SoS, interpretations
which came into vogue between the fall of the
Second Temple and the Bar Kokhba revolt in 132–135 CE.
The SoS is understood to be an allegory, mystical and/or
symbolical, for the love story between God (‘Solomon’; dwd,
‘lover’; ‘shepherd’) and the community of Israel (‘sister’;
‘bride’; ‘the Shulammite’; r‘yh, ‘companion’). By
the time of Rabbi Akiba (50–132 CE), the allegorical
elaboration has supplanted the literal one and has
become the favourite and even the only legitimate interpretation
of the SoS, so much so that R. Akiba considered the book to be one
of the utmost religious importance (Mishna Yadayim 3.5; Chapter
1). Midrashic and Talmudic literature abounds in
historical-allegorical clues for the divine/human love
relationship: so in the Song of Songs Rabbah, the Aramaic Targum
to the SoS, and the Taanit Scroll (4:8). (The Taanit Scroll (Heb.
‘Fast’) is a tractate of the order Mo’ed in the Mishna, Tosefta,
the Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmud, dealing mainly with fasts and
days on which fasting is expressly forbidden).” [Brenner, A.
(1989). The Song of Songs (69). Sheffield: Sheffield Academic
Press.]
But still nothing really about ‘world week’—although with
allegory we are getting closer.
Now, let’s turn to
references that make ‘day’ into a ‘long time’—in Jewish
literature of the period this often seems to mean 1,000
years. It might not be ‘strict’ allegory, but close enough for our
purposes here. We will look specifically for references to
‘thousand’.
Of course, the word “Day” itself is used in the
Hebrew bible to designate longer periods of time than 24 hours
as a simple concordance look-up would reveal: the “day of
salvation” (Is 49.8; Jer 30.7f), “day of the Lord” (Mal 4.5), “day
of wrath” (Joel 2.1ff), “day of vengeance” (Is 63.4), “day of
ruin” (Zeph 1.15), ‘day of Jezreel” (Hos 1.11), ‘day of
indignation’ (Ezek 22.24), ‘day of your pride’ (Ezek 16.56), etc.
These are often periods of
indeterminate time, but never associated with 1K years in the
biblical text.
We will do these extra-biblical Jewish sources in
‘approximately’ chronological order (even though these are wide
ranges and sometimes widely contested!):
* (2nd
Century BC) Jubilees 4.29: And at the end of the
nineteenth jubilee in the seventh week, in the sixth year, Adam
died. And all of his children buried him in the land of his
creation. And he was the first who was buried in the earth.
30 And he lacked seventy years from one
thousand years, for a thousand years are like one day in the
testimony of heaven and therefore it was written concerning
the tree of knowledge, “In the day you eat from it you will
die.” Therefore he did not complete the years of
this day because he died in it.” [Charlesworth, J. H.
(1985). Vol. 2: The Old Testament pseudepigrapha and the New
Testament, Volume 2: Expansions of the "Old Testament" and
Legends, Wisdom, and Philosophical Literature, Prayers, Psalms and
Odes, Fragments of Lost Judeo-Hellenistic Works (63–64). New
Haven; London: Yale University Press.; Note: the Genesis ‘day’ of
the garden = 1,000 years. This seems to be a clear use of Psalm
90.4 for this equation. ]
* (Late 1st
Century AD) 2nd
Enoch: [Chapter 32 -- After Adam’s
transgression. God expels him into the earth from which he had
been taken. But he does not wish to destroy him in the age to
come.] 32.1 “And I said |to him|, ‘You
are earth, and into the earth once again you will go, out of
which I took you. And I will not destroy you, but I will send
you away to what I took you from. Then I can take you once
again at my second coming.’ And I blessed all my
creatures, visible and invisible. And Adam was in paradise for 5
hours and a half. 32.2 And I blessed the 7th day
(which is the Sabbath) in which I rested from all my doings. [Chapter
33 --God shows Enoch the epoch of this world, the existence
of 7000 years, and the eighth thousand is the end, neither years
nor months nor weeks nor days.--] 33.1 “On the 8th day I likewise
appointed, so that the 8th day might be the 1st, the
first-created of my week, and that it should revolve in the revolution of 7000; (so that the 8000)
might be in the beginning of a time not reckoned and unending,
neither years, nor months, nor weeks, nor days, nor hours ‹like
the first day of the week, so also that the eighth day of the
week might return continually›.” [2 Enoch, Charlesworth,
J. H. (1983). Vol. 1: The Old Testament pseudepigrapha: Volume 1
(154–156). New York; London: Yale University Press.; Note: the 1K year rest
is the 8th K in this case and NOT the 7th
K—not a ‘sabbath’ per se.]
* (Late 1st
Century AD) 4th
Ezra: 10.38 He
answered
me and said, “Listen to me and I will inform you, and tell you
about the things which you fear, for the Most High has revealed
many secrets to you. 39 For
he has seen your righteous conduct, that you have sorrowed
continually for your people, and mourned greatly over Zion.
40 This therefore is the meaning of the vision. 41 The woman who
appeared to you a little while ago, whom you saw mourning and
began to console—42 but
you do not now see the form of a woman, but an established city
has appeared to you—43 and
as for her telling you about the misfortune of her son, this is
the interpretation: 44 This
woman whom you saw, whom you now behold as an established city, is
Zion. 45 And as for
her telling you that she was barren for thirty years, it is because there
were three thousand years in
the world before any offering was offered in it. 46 And after three thousand
years Solomon built the city, and offered offerings; then it was
that the barren woman bore a son. 47 And as for her
telling you that she brought him up with much care, that was the
period of residence in Jerusalem. 48 And as for her
saying to you, ‘When my son entered his wedding chamber he died,’
and that misfortune had overtaken her, that was the destruction
which befell Jerusalem. 49 And behold, you saw her likeness,
how she mourned for her son, and you began to console her for what
had happened.” [Charlesworth, J. H. (1983). Vol. 1: The Old
Testament pseudepigrapha: Volume 1 (547–548). New York; London:
Yale University Press.; at 4
Ezra 10.38]
“10.49 The date is a
calculation by millennia. This is discussed in some detail in
10:45 Commentary. Such
dates are (pace
Artom) in existence from the time of Jubilees
at least. In b. Sanh. 97a we find a number of calculations of the
end by dates anno mundi.
The first is based on the idea of a week of millennia: the world
will exist for six thousand years, then will come the end, a
sabbatical millennium. The second calculation reckons the end as
coming after 85 jubilees (4,250 years). An additional tradition is
quoted which, drawn from a scroll in square Hebrew letters seen by
the tradent, sets the end at 4290 and then speaks of the renewal
of creation after 7,000 years. Both this last tradition and the
first one are based on the idea of a world week. 4 Ezra here may
also be dating Ezra sometime in the fifth millennium, though it is
far from certain that it knew this 6,000 + 1,000 scheme.” [Stone,
M. E. (1990). Fourth Ezra:
A commentary on the book of Fourth Ezra (F. M. Cross, Ed.).
Hermeneia—a Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible (442).
Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press.]
“10.45 The events
referred to are related in 9:43–44. For “thirty,” Latin reads
“three,” which number is accepted by Gunkel but is secondary, as
has been pointed out in the textual notes. The idea of barrenness
is used metaphorically in 4 Ezra on a number of occasions; see
particularly 5:1 and 6:28, both of which are related to the
eschatological events. The
woman’s thirty-year barrenness is interpreted as three thousand
years in which no offerings were made in Zion. … It may be asked what was the
significance of the figure 3,000. Did it actually relate to
some era of creation according to which the building of the Temple
was anno mundi 3,000?
Some such reckonings are
known from later than 4 Ezra and they set the building of
the Temple early in the fifth millennium. Some
sort of millennial reckoning is also at play in the
fragmentary verses at the start of the Testament of Moses
(1:2), where a date of 2,500 is given,
apparently anno mundi,
and seemingly related to the life of Moses. If these assumptions
are correct, this reckoning, in general, might be like that in 4
Ezra here. … Further, it might be
added that if the division of the world age into twelve parts in
14:11–12 is taken seriously, and each of these parts is 500
years, that would support the idea of there being a world age of
12 × 500 = 6,000 years. Ezra would then be living in
the period from 4,500 to 5,000, which would, once more, conflict
with all of the above schemes. --- However, considering 4 Ezra’s
reserve about exactly this sort of special information, the two
and a half parts remaining according to 14:11–12 might well be typological
and dependent on Daniel “two times and half a time” (Dan 12:7).
Daniel is referred to explicitly in that pericope. It may be that the author
used all sorts of symbolic and typological dating schemes to
make his point about the imminence of the end, or of Ezra’s
assumption, or of the centrality of the building of the Temple,
without ever working them together
into a single, coherent scheme. [Stone, M. E.
(1990). Fourth Ezra: A commentary on the book of Fourth Ezra (F.
M. Cross, Ed.). Hermeneia—a Critical and Historical Commentary on
the Bible (336–337). Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press.]
* (1st
to 2nd Century AD) Testament of Abraham: “Abraham said to Michael,
“Tell me, man of God, and reveal to me why you have come here.”
2 And Michael said, “Your son Isaac will disclose (it) to
you.” … 15 And Michael said to Abraham, “Your son
Isaac has spoken the truth; for you are (the sun), and you will
be taken up into the heavens, 16 while your body remains on
the earth until seven thousand
ages are fulfilled. For then
all flesh will be raised. 17 Now,
therefore, Abraham, make a will (governing) the things of your
household and concerning your sons, for you have heard
completely the dispensation concerning you.”” [Charlesworth,
J. H. (1983). Vol. 1: The Old Testament pseudepigrapha: Volume 1
(898–899). New York; London: Yale University Press.; Testament of Abraham,
Recension B, chapter 7]
* (2nd
to 5th Century AD) Testament of Adam: “You have heard, my son Seth,
that a Flood is coming and will wash the whole earth because of
the daughters of Cain, your brother, who killed your brother
Abel out of passion for
your sister Lebuda [See also GenR 22.7 and PRE 21; L
Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews (Philadelphia, 1928) vol. 1, pp.
180f.; vol. 5, pp. 138f.],
since sins had been created through your mother, Eve. And after the Flood there will be six
thousand years (left) to the form of the world, and
then its end will come.” [Testament of Adam,
Charlesworth, J. H. (1983). Vol. 1: The Old Testament
pseudepigrapha: Volume 1 (994). New York; London: Yale University
Press.; Note: this is
6K from the Flood, and NOT from creation.]
“RELEVANCE
FOR EXEGESIS IN CANONICAL MATERIAL. The Testament of Adam has
relevance for biblical exegesis on several counts. First, it is
not dualistic in its outlook. God is credited for creating all
things, even demons. They must worship him. There is also a
definite time frame for the existence of life on earth. This work is an early
witness to the idea that the earth was intended to last for six thousand years after the
Flood, presumably to make the entire created
enterprise last seven
thousand years, a time span of numerical completion from a numerological
perspective.” [Penner, K., & Heiser, M. S. (2008). Old
Testament Greek pseudepigrapha with morphology. Bellingham, WA:
Logos Bible Software.]
We should note that the later date of this document does
not imply that the contents are ‘late’. The reference to Lebuda,
the sister of Abel, shows up in rabbinic lore also:
“Sisters of Cain and Abel
are mentioned several
times in rabbinic sources (see L. Ginzberg, The Legends of
the Jews [1909–38], I, pp. 108–109 and V, pp. 138–39).” [Jonge, M.
d., & Tromp, J. (1997). The life of Adam and Eve and related
literature. Guides to Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha (84–85).
Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press]
[Here
is the material in Ginzberg: “BR 22.7; PRE 21; Ephiphanius, Haer.,
1, 6; Theodoretus, Haer., 1, 11; Schatzhöhle, 34; Clementine,
Homilies, 3.25 (hence he was called
Cain, because he was
jealous of his brother on account of his wife; … on the later
statements of Christian and Mohammedan writers concerning the
struggle of the brothers on account of their sister…. Along with the view that
Abel had two twin-sisters, there is also another which maintains
that each of them had one twin-sister only; a third view states
that Cain, but not Abel, had a twin-sister. Comp. BR 22.2 and
61.4; PRE, loc. cit.; Yebamot 62a, and Yerushalmi 11, 11d;
Sanhedrin 58b, and Yerushalmi 5, 22c, as well as 9, 26d; ARN 1, 6;
Sifra 20.7; Targum Yerushalmi Gen. 4:2 (thus the passage is to be
understood that Cain was born with a twin-brother, and Abel with a
twin-sister; Abel’s twin-sister became Cain’s wife; comp. PRE,
loc. cit.); Zohar I, 54b and III, 44b. [Ginzberg, L., Szold, H.,
& Radin, P. (2003). Legends of the Jews (2nd ed.).
Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society.]
Of course, by now we are well into the Christian era, with
the Patristic writers using the same day=millennium equation of
the earlier and/or contemporary Jewish writers. Before we look at
a couple of these (which are covered in other parts of this
series),
let us note the Rabbinical references to
world-week and related interpretations:
Here are the main texts and comments by Stone (on b. San):
“The
sevenfold calculation of the duration of the world is most
prominent in somewhat later
Jewish and Christian chiliastic thought. For examples, see b. Sanh. 97a, which cites
Tanna debe Eliyyahu. In b.
Sanh. 97b we find what may well be a citation of a
fragment of an apocalyptic text:
R. Ḥanan b. Taḥlipha sent a
message to R. Joseph, “I met a man who possessed scrolls written
in square Hebrew characters and in the holy language. And I said
to him, ‘Whence did you get this?’ He said to me, ‘I was a
mercenary in the Roman army, and I found it in the archives
(treasuries) of Rome. And it was written therein, “Four
thousand, two hundred and ninety-one years after the creation,
the world will come to an end; some years will be the wars of
the Leviathians (i.e., the war of creation), and some years will
be the wars of Gog and Magog, and the remainder will be the days
of the Messiah. And the
Holy One, blessed be He, will not renew his world before seven thousand have elapsed.” ’ ”
The connection of the week, the
Sabbatical week, the world-week, and redemption is behind
all these figures.
In b. Sanh. 97a–b there is a
citation from Tanna debe Eliyahu that relates to the world-week of
7,000 years:
Tanna debe Eliyyahu (says):
The world (will) exist for six thousand years,
the two thousand years of chaos (Tôhû), the two
thousand years of Torah, and the two thousand years of the days
of the Messiah, and because our sins are many, those of them
that have passed, have passed.
The eschaton, then, will follow the messianic age,
but, unlike the text cited
above, it will be the seventh millennium and not following the
seventh millennium. Nonetheless, the connection of the week,
the Sabbatical week, the world-week, and redemption lies behind
all these numbers.
The world-week is inferred
also in the following passage:
There is a Baraita in
accordance with R. Ktina: As in the matter of the Sabbatical
year one year in seven is a release, thus the world has a
thousand year’s release in seven thousand years,
as we may infer from Isa 2:11, “and the LORD alone will be
exalted in that day,” and from Ps 92:1, “A Psalm or song for the
Sabbath day,” which means the day which will be all Sabbath, and
from Ps 90:4, “For a thousand years are in thy eyes but as the
yesterday when it is passed” (i.e., the Sabbatical day is a
thousand years long) (b.
Sanh. 97a).
For such an attempt to be
made, the notion must have developed that time has a distinct
and ordered pattern and that it has an overall span, from
beginning to end.” [Stone, M. E. (2011). Ancient Judaism: New Visions
and Views (71–75). Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.:
William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.]
And here is another passage (excerpts, duplicating some of
the material from above) from the Talmud Abodah Zarah 9a-9b
[Neusner, J. (2011). Vol. 17b: The Babylonian Talmud: A
Translation and Commentary (310–312). Peabody, MA: Hendrickson
Publishers.]:
II:5: The Tannaite
authority of the household of Elijah stated, “The world will last for six
thousand years: two thousand years of chaos, two thousand
years of Torah, two thousand years of the time of the Messiah. But
because of the abundance of our sins, what has passed of the
foreordained time has passed.”
II:8: Said R. Hanina,
“When four hundred years have passed from the destruction of the
Temple, if someone says to you, ‘Buy this field that is worth a
thousand denars for a single denar, don’t buy it.”
The dating of these passages is controversial, of course,
but they certainly show that the world-week was a part of the
perspective of Rabbinic Judaism, and that there is no pushback
to such interpretations in the apocryphal literature.
[We can also notice in passing that the periodization of
the Rabbis (3 sets of 2K) is different than that of the Persians
(3-4 sets of 3K), in case somebody wanted to make too vocal an
argument of ‘borrowing’…smile)]
In between some of these more-Jewish works (with ‘world-week’ elements in
them) and the later
Patristic materials (with ‘world-week’ elements in them)
lies the New Testament.
There are a couple of passages and/or motifs that might connect to this.
* The numerous
references to indefinite periods of time by the word “day”
are obvious (eg, Day of the Lord, Day of Christ, day of God, day
of salvation, day of redemption, day of visitation etc) and are in
continuity with the Hebrew Bible. But nothing seems to refer/imply
a ‘world week’ eschatological scheme.
* The Book of
Hebrews uses ‘expanded’ notions of ‘day’ and ‘Sabbath’ to
speak of eschatological periods (but not specifically ‘millennial’
ones):
For example, 4.2-11:
2 For good news came to us just
as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them,
because they were not united by faith with those who listened.
3 For we who have believed
enter that rest, as he has said, “As I swore in my wrath, ‘They
shall not enter my rest,’ ” although his works were
finished from the foundation of the world.
4 For he has somewhere
spoken of the seventh day in this way: “And God rested on the
seventh day from all his works.”
5 And again in this
passage he said, “They shall not enter my rest.”
6 Since therefore it
remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received
the good news failed to enter because of disobedience,
7 again he appoints a
certain day, “Today,” saying through David so long afterward, in
the words already quoted, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your
hearts.”
8 For if Joshua had given
them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on.
9 So then, there remains
a Sabbath rest for the people of God,
10 for whoever has entered
God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.
11 Let us therefore strive
to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of
disobedience.
Of course, there is no chronology or eschatological
timeline in this, so it is more representative of ‘standard’
rabbinic hermeneutics (ie, connecting similar words) and/or
Alexandrian allegory than of apocalyptic schema.
“Given
the foundational nature of the Genesis passage, it is somewhat
surprising that it is not quoted or alluded to more often in the
primary Jewish sources. It is reported that at the beginning of
the Sabbath, in the synagogue liturgy, the recitation of Ps.
95:1–11 was followed by Gen. 2:1–3 (Lane 1991: 1:100), though this
suggestion is based on very late materials (Laansma 1997: 350).
--- Odes of Solomon, a
thoroughly Jewish-influenced Christian hymn collection from the
late first or early second century AD, contains a straightforward
allusion to Gen. 2:2 in a psalm of praise to God for his creation,
proclaiming, “And he set the creation and aroused it, then he
rested from his works. And created things run according to their
courses, and work their works, and they are not able to cease and
be idle. And the hosts are subject to his word” (16:12–14). Josephus, in his
account of the creation of the world (Ant. 1.33), explains that
God’s rest on the seventh day of creation is the source of the
Jewish practice of the Sabbath. --- Philo comments
extensively on Gen. 2:2. For instance, he is intent on the
philosophical significance of the numbers of the days of
creation. Using the Greek version of the OT, he notes,
“When, then, Moses says, ‘He finished His work on the sixth day,’
we must understand him to be adducing not a quantity of days, but
a perfect number, namely six”
(Alleg. Interp. 1.3). Further, speaking of the significance with
which God vested the seventh day, Philo calls that blessed,
dignified day “the birthday of the world” (Moses 2.210) and a
“festival, not of one city or country, but of all the earth”
(Creation 89). More
significantly for the use in Hebrews, he comments on the nature
of the rest mentioned in Gen. 2:2. At Alleg. Interp. 1.16 he
notes that Moses says “caused to rest” rather than “rested” in
order to make clear that God never ceases from activity. Philo
goes on to explain that this means that God quit shaping the
mortal and began to craft the divine things. Elsewhere Philo
explains that Moses named the Sabbath “God’s Sabbath” (e.g., Exod.
20:10), for God, being free from any imperfection and therefore
any weariness, is the only thing in the universe that truly can be
said to rest. This does not mean that he is inactive; rather,
“God’s rest is a working with absolute ease, without toil and
without suffering,” and so “rest belongs in the fullest sense to
God and to Him alone” (Cherubim 87–90). … What
is clear is that the “rest,” though not always tied directly
to the Genesis passage, generally took on an eschatological
slant in Jewish exegesis (see Attridge [1989:
129n85], who cites, e.g., Gen.
Rab. 10:9; m. Tamid 7:4;
Pirqe R. El. 18; ʾAbot R. Nat. 1 [1c]).
For instance, 2 Baruch, a Jewish
work reflecting on the destruction of the temple in AD 70, gives
“rest” an eschatological bent, saying that after
God “has brought down
everything which is in the world, and has sat down in
eternal peace on the throne of the kingdom, then joy will be
revealed and rest will
appear” (7:31).” [Beale, G. K., & Carson, D. A. (2007).
Commentary on the New Testament use of the Old Testament
(957–958). Grand Rapids, MI; Nottingham, UK: Baker Academic;
Apollos.]
* The most
promising passage would appear to be 2 Peter 3.8, but this
will prove disappointing for us. The focus of the author’s use of
Ps 90 has nothing to do
with chronology of the world, world-week, or even eschatological
‘time’. It seems to be strictly a reference to the character
(and ‘options’—thankfully!) of God.
“My dear friends, do not
overlook this one fact, that
with the Lord one day is as a thousand years and a thousand
years are as one day. 9The Lord is not late in fulfilling
the promise, according to some people’s idea of lateness, but he
is forbearing toward you, because it is not his will that any
should perish, but that all should come to repentance. 10 But
the day of the Lord will come like a thief. On that day the
heavens will pass away with a roar, the heavenly bodies will be
dissolved in the heat, and the earth and the works in it will be
found.”
“The Context in Judaism.
Early Judaism (much of it
later than 2 Peter) and early Christianity appealed to Ps.
90:4 “(1) to define the length of one of the days of creation, (2)
to explain why Adam lived one thousand years after his sin, (3) to
calculate the length of the Messiah’s day, and (4) to explain the
length of the world” (Neyrey 1993: 238, with appropriate
references). Some scholars have appealed to such passages as 2 En.
33:1–2 to suggest that our passage, 2 Pet. 3:8, is asserting that
the day of judgment will be one thousand years long (e.g., von
Allmen 1966: 262). Bauckham (1988: 308–9) links a number of
passages together (Pirqe R. El. 28; Apoc. Ab. 28–30; 2 Bar.
43:12–13; L.A.B. 19:13) to argue that Ps. 90:4 was used in
apocalyptic contexts to encourage believers to recognize that the
End could be long delayed, even if in God’s time it was short, and
that therefore the argument in 2 Pet. 3:8 plausibly derives from a
Jewish apocalypse. Davids (2006: 276–77), rightly, is more
cautious: there is no
convincing evidence of dependence by Peter on any Jewish
apocalypse, but the argument that Peter advances was “in the
air,” and seems like a
reasonable enough inference from Ps. 90:4 that more than one
exegete could have drawn it at about the same time. --- Peter’s Use of the OT in
3:8. Although Ps. 90:4 is designed to underscore God’s
eternality and therefore his unfailing reliability over against
human transience and without reference to the End, Peter’s
application of this truth to how one thinks about God’s own
perspective on how “soon” or “quickly” the End will come does
not seem like much of a reach. It is an obvious inference, and
is mirrored in others drawing a similar inference.
Certainly
it is far removed from the highly speculative literal
inferences, without literary sensitivity, drawn from Ps. 90:4
by others about the length of creation days and the like.”
[Beale, G. K., & Carson, D. A. (2007). Commentary on the New
Testament use of the Old Testament (1059; 2nd Peter
3.8). Grand Rapids, MI; Nottingham, UK: Baker Academic; Apollos.]
“Psalm 90 was the impetus for
the development in Jewish thought that “one day” was a way to
speak figuratively of “a thousand years” (Jub. 4.30: “For a
thousand years are like one day in the testimony of heaven”; 2 En.
33.1–2; Gen. Rab. 19.8; 22.1), that is, “one day” is to God as “a
thousand years” according to human calculation. After the first century, the
same math appeared in the theology of the church, so that
the six days of creation represented six thousand years in human
history. For example, Barn. 15.4 interpreted Gen. 2:2 accordingly:
“Notice, children, what is the meaning of ‘He made an end in six
days’? He means this: that the Lord will make an end of everything
in six thousand years, for a day with him means a thousand years.
And he himself is my witness when he says, ‘Lo, the day of the
Lord shall be as a thousand years (ἡ γὰρ ἡμέρα παρʼ αὐτῷ σημαίνει
χίλια ἔτη).’ So then, children, in six days, that is in six
thousand years, everything will be completed.” The form of the
citation in Barnabas is close to 2 Pet. 3:8 and may have been
influenced by this letter instead of being a direct citation from
Ps. 90:4 (see also Irenaeus, Haer. 5.23.2; 5.28.3). ---
However, we should not interpret 2 Pet. 3:8 along these lines.
Peter does not forward
an interpretive key by which
we may understand certain “days” in God’s plan as if they
represent “a thousand years,” or even understand references
to “a thousand years” as if this period means “one day” (Rev.
20:2–7). Peter includes the comment taken from Psalm 90:4 [89:4
LXX] to explain his declaration in
the following verse (“The Lord is not slow to fulfill the
promise, as some count slowness”). His argument is simply that
the divine perspective on time is not the same as the human
perspective. A period that may appear prolonged by human
standards is actually brief according to divine calculation. A
similar thought appears in 2 Bar. 48.12–13, which contrasts the brevity of
human existence (“For we are born in a short time, and in a
short time we return”) with the divine perspective on time
(“With you, however, the hours are like the times, and the
days like generations”; cf. Sir. 18:9–10). Peter
does not relativize time but simply affirms that the criteria for
“rapid” and “slow” are different for humans and God (contra
Käsemann 1982: 193–94). On the basis of his affirmation,
Peter constructs the argument of the following verse.” [Green, G.
L. (2008). Jude and 2 Peter. Baker Exegetical Commentary on the
New Testament (325–326). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic.]
And this contrast between God’s ‘time perspective’ and
ours does NOT imply a
denial of imminent expectation!
“The
intended contrast between man’s perception of time and God’s is
not a reference to God’s eternity in the sense of atemporality
(Luther, Chaine). It does not
imply, as Käsemann 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” (“Apologia,” 194), so that the very idea of
the delay of the Parousia becomes meaningless and nothing can
any longer be said about the time until the Parousia. The
point is rather that God’s perspective on time is not limited
by a human life span. He surveys the whole of
history and sets the times of events in accordance with his
agelong purpose. His perspective is so much more comprehensive
than that of men and women who, accustomed to short-term
expectations, are impatient to see the Parousia in their own
lifetime. Nor does this v imply that the Christian
should discard the imminent expectation so
characteristic of primitive Christianity (against Fornberg,
Early Church, 68). Of course, the figures used in v 8—a thousand
years, one day—are borrowed from Ps 90:4 and its use in Jewish
apocalyptic; they tell us
nothing about the actual length of the period the author of
2 Peter expected to
elapse before the Parousia (against Windisch). The author in fact
continues to speak as though his readers will be alive at the Parousia
(1:19; 3:14). This is not at all surprising. It was
characteristic of Jewish and Christian apocalyptic to hold in
tension the imminent expectation and an acknowledgment of
eschatological delay (see Bauckham, TynBul 31
[1980] 3–36). Second Peter’s readers may continue to expect the
Day of the Lord which will
come unexpectedly like a thief, but lest they succumb to the
skepticism of the scoffers, they must also consider that the delay
which seems so lengthy to us may not be so significant within that
total perspective on the total course of history which God
commands. Because he alone has such a perspective, God retains the
date of the End in his own knowledge and power, and it cannot be
anticipated by any human calculation.” [Bauckham, R. J. (1998).
Vol. 50: 2 Peter, Jude. Word Biblical Commentary (306–310).
Dallas: Word, Incorporated.]
So, within the New Testament writings, we do not encounter
this ‘world-week’ schema, even though it seems to be part of the
milieu.
Now the Christian ‘allegorical approach’…
The use of allegorical methods and pre-existing ‘expansion
schema’ is neither surprising (given the Jewish matrix) nor even
very innovative. The allegorical method was already in use by
those ‘around them’:
“The
Patristic Period (ca. 100–600) can be divided into three
sub-periods: the Apostolic Fathers (100–150), the
Alexandrian-Antiochan debate (150–400), and the deliberations of
the church councils (400–590). The Patristic Fathers were endeared
to the Old Testament and generally literal in their
interpretation. However,
they were fond of locating typological meanings in the Old
Testament, such as Rahab’s scarlet thread as representing the
blood of Christ. They also allegorized
the six days of creation to represent six thousand years
of earth history. Additionally, the midrash in the Qumran literature
caused them to seek symbolic
meanings for numbers in Scripture.” [Bigalke, R. J.
(2010). “Historical Survey Of Biblical Interpretation”. In . Vol.
14: Journal of Dispensational Theology Volume 14 (42) (39). North
Richland Hills, TX: Tyndale Theological Seminary.]
The Epistle of Barnabas
is where the Christian tradition picks up this world-week image:
“Barnabas is the earliest
Christian writer who based the notion that the world was to
last six thousand years upon the six days of creation, and the
Psalmist’s expression, “One day is with the Lord as a thousand
years.” In this fantastic inference he is followed by Irenaeus,
Hippolytus, Lactantius, Hilary, Jerome, and many others.” [Farrar,
F. W. (1886). History of interpretation (170). London: Macmillan
and Co.]
Here’s the text:
15. Furthermore, concerning the
Sabbath it is also written, in the “Ten Words” which he spoke to
Moses face to face on Mount Sinai: “And sanctify the Lord’s
Sabbath, with clean hands and a clean heart.” (2) And in another place he says:
“If my sons guard the Sabbath, then I will bestow my mercy upon
them.” (3) He speaks of the Sabbath at
the beginning of the creation: “And God made the works of his
hands in six days, and finished on the seventh day, and rested
on it, and sanctified it.” (4) Observe,
children, what “he finished in six days” means. It means
this: that in six thousand years the Lord will bring
everything to an end, for with him a day signifies a
thousand years. And he himself bears me
witness when he says, “Behold, the day of the Lord will be as a
thousand years.” Therefore,
children,
in six days—that is, in six thousand years—everything will be
brought to an end. (5) “And he rested on the seventh
day.” This means: when
his Son comes, he will destroy the time of the lawless one and will
judge the ungodly and will change the sun and the moon and the
stars, and then he will
truly rest on the seventh day. … (8) Finally, he says to them: “I
cannot bear your new moons and sabbaths.” You see what he means:
it is not the present sabbaths that are acceptable to me, but the one that I have
made; on that Sabbath, after I have set everything at
rest, I will create the beginning of an
eighth day, which is the beginning of another world.
(9) This is why we spend the
eighth day in celebration, the day on which Jesus both arose
from the dead and, after appearing again, ascended into heaven.”
[Epis Barn 15,
Holmes, M. W. (1999). The Apostolic Fathers : Greek texts and
English translations (Updated ed.) (315–317). Grand Rapids, Mich.:
Baker Books.]
Irenaeus
follows closely behind:
“Irenaeus on the Sabbath of
Creation. Irenaeus expressed a premillennial view
characteristic of the first three centuries: The present world
would endure six thousand years (analogous to the six days
of creation), after which
there would be a period of
suffering and apostasy that would accelerate until the coming of
the Antichrist, seated in the temple of God. The entire
apostate throng is headed up by the Antichrist, “recapitulating in
himself the diabolic apostasy … he will tyrannically attempt to
prove himself God” (Irenaeus, Ag. Her. V.25.1), whereupon Christ
will appear, the saints will be resurrected, and the kingdom will be
established on earth for another thousand years, the seventh
millennium (Ag. Her. V.28.3; 33.2). --- This seventh millennium
corresponds to the seventh day of creation, when God re-creates
the world and the righteous, thus hallowing the last day of the
world’s week as a millennium of rest and peace. For one day with
God is as a thousand years (Ps. 90:4). A new city of God, a new
Jerusalem, would then become the center of a new period of peace
and righteousness (Matt. 26:29; Irenaeus, Ag. Her. V.33.3, 4). At
the end of this thousand-year reign, the final judgment will
occur, a new creation will make way for eternity (Ag. Her.
V.36.1). The dawning of the eighth day was for the Letter of Barnabas
analogous to the Christian’s Lord’s Day, the day on which Christ
rose from the dead and ascended into heaven (15.5–9, AF, pp.
294–95).” [Oden, T. C. (1992). Life in the Spirit: Systematic
theology, vol. III (426–427). San Francisco, CA:
HarperSanFrancisco.]
Many later Christian writers refer to this world-week as
well…
But some of the discussions of it were not very
‘defendable’—they worked within the assumption of the
world-week, and any defenses of it were based on allegory or
typology or numerology.
We might look, for example, at Irenaeus’ discussion of the
number ‘666’ and at Victorinus On the Creation of the World
to see this ‘in action’:
Irenaeus: “Finally, how are we to
understand 666? The
best way is to follow Minear (I Saw a New Earth, ch. 5) and Newman
(“Domitian Hypothesis,” pp. 133ff.) and return to one of the most
ancient interpretations, that of Irenaeus. Irenaeus proposed
(while still holding to a personal Antichrist) that
the number indicates that the beast is the sum of “all
apostate power,” a concentrate of
six thousand years of unrighteousness, wickedness,
deception, and false prophecy. He states that “the
digit six, being adhered to throughout, indicates
the recapitulations of that prophecy, taken in its full extent,
which occurred at the beginning, during the intermediate periods,
and which shall take place at the end.” ” [Johnson, A. F. (1981).
Revelation. In F. E. Gaebelein (Ed.), The Expositor’s Bible
Commentary, Volume 12: Hebrews through Revelation (F. E.
Gaebelein, Ed.) (535). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing
House.; at 13.8]
Victorinus: “And in Matthew we read, that
it is written Isaiah also and the rest of his colleagues broke
the Sabbath—that that true and just Sabbath should be observed
in the seventh millenary of years. Wherefore to those seven days
the Lord attributed to each a thousand years; for thus went the
warning: “In Thine eyes, O Lord, a thousand years are as one
day.”9 Therefore in the
eyes of the Lord each thousand of years is ordained, for I
find that the Lord’s eyes are seven. Wherefore, as I have
narrated, that true
Sabbath will be in the seventh millenary of years, when
Christ with His elect shall reign. Moreover, the seven heavens
agree with those days; for thus we are warned: “By the word of
the Lord were the heavens made, and all the powers of them by
the spirit of His mouth.”11 There are seven spirits. Their
names are the spirits which abode on the Christ of God, as was
intimated in Isaiah the prophet: “And there rests upon Him the
spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the spirit of counsel and
might, the spirit of wisdom and of piety, and the spirit of
God’s fear hath filled Him.”… 20 Behold the seven horns of the
Lamb, the seven eyes of
God 21—the seven eyes are the seven spirits of the Lamb;
seven torches burning
before the throne of God 23 seven golden candlesticks, seven
young sheep, 25 the seven women in Isaiah, the seven churches in
Paul, 27 seven deacons, seven angels, 29 seven trumpets, seven
seals to the book, seven periods of seven days with which
Pentecost is completed, the
seven weeks in Daniel, 31 also the forty-three weeks in
Daniel; with Noah, seven of all clean things in the ark; seven
revenges of Cain, 2 seven years for a debt to be acquitted, the
lamp with seven orifices, 4 seven pillars of wisdom in the house
of Solomon.” [Victorinus of Pettau. (1886). On the Creation
of the World R. E. Wallis, Trans.). In A. Roberts, J. Donaldson
& A. C. Coxe (Eds.), The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume VII:
Fathers of the Third and Fourth Centuries: Lactantius, Venantius,
Asterius, Victorinus, Dionysius, Apostolic Teaching and
Constitutions, Homily, and Liturgies (A. Roberts, J. Donaldson
& A. C. Coxe, Ed.) (342–343). Buffalo, NY: Christian
Literature Company.]
Okay—what has this
got to do with the words of Jesus in the Synoptics that are
(alleged) timing passages?
Nothing… simply, ‘Nothing’…!
Jesus never
leads His followers into this interpretation, never mentions this
world-week theme, never
alludes to Psalm 90, and never
develops any periodization other than the ‘this age versus the age
to come’ eschatological one.
The only periodization of time taught in the NT is that of
the ‘two aeons’ or ‘two ages’. We see this over and over again in
the NT (we have also discussed this earlier in the series).
“Age. The division of
history into a series of preordained “ages” figures prominently in
several ancient Jewish and Christian texts. The oldest extant
Jewish apocalypses, Daniel (notably in chs. 7 and 9) and 1 Enoch
(esp. 91:11-17; 93:1-10), present schematic divisions of history.
This theme continues into later apocalypses such as 4 Ezra, the
Apoc. Ab., and Rev 6:10-11; 20:2-10 . --- In the NT the synoptic Jesus
distinguishes between this age (or TIME) and the age to come
(Matt 12:32 ; Mark 10:30 ; Luke 18:30; 20:34-35 ), while Paul
expresses antagonism toward the “wisdom” and the “rulers” of “the
present evil age” (e.g., 1 Cor 2:6 ; Gal 1:4 ) [NIDB, s.v. “age”]
“The language of the two ages,
a feature of Jewish
apocalyptic, was probably
characteristic of the teaching of Jesus, being found in Mark
and the traditions peculiar to Matthew and Luke. Matthew,
influenced by Jewish apocalyptic, has increased the use of this
language. It is altogether absent from Q and from John, though
John’s use of “this world” (kosmos) is formally similar but on
closer inspection differs in meaning.” [Dictionary of Jesus and
the Gospels. 1992 (J. B. Green, S. McKnight & I. H. Marshall,
Ed.) (888). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press. S.v. ‘world’]
“The NT
makes a striking modification of the contemporary Jewish
division of time into the present age and the age to come.
There is still a point of
transition in the future between ‘this time’ and ‘the world
to come’ (Mk. 10:30; Eph. 1:21; Tit. 2:12–13), but there is an
anticipation of the consummation, because in Jesus God’s purpose
has been decisively fulfilled. The gift of the Spirit is the mark
of this anticipation, this tasting of the powers of the world to
come (Eph. 1:14; Heb. 6:4-6; cf. Rom. 8:18–23; Gal. 1:4). Hence
John consistently stresses that we now have eternal life, zōē
aiōnios (e.g. Jn. 3:36). It is not simply that aiōnios has
qualitative overtones; rather John is urging the fact that
Christians now have the life into which they will fully enter by
resurrection (Jn. 11:23–25). This ‘overlapping’ of the
two ages is possibly what Paul has in mind in 1 Cor. 10:11.”
[Wood, D. R. W., & Marshall, I. H. (1996). New Bible
dictionary (3rd ed.) (1188). Leicester, England; Downers Grove,
IL: InterVarsity Press.]
Even though the notion of ‘world-week’ was available to
Jewish interpretation, the dominant periodization was still that
of the TWO ages (this age, the age to come).
This world-week belief is therefore extraneous (and
unwarranted, therefore) for assessing the teachings of Jesus.
To the extent an early Christian believed this—and
adjusted his/her interpretations of Jesus’ eschatological
pronouncements on the
basis of this belief—to that same extent their conclusions
and/or predictions cannot
be assumed to be ‘derived from Jesus’. One simply cannot
‘blame Jesus’ for any loss of, or heightening of, the expectation
of imminence affected by this belief.
In this sense, Augustine
is perfectly justified in trying to counter this belief:
“THE
MOMENT OF LEAST AWARENESS. AUGUSTINE: Why “at midnight”? That is
the moment of least expectation. There is no thought of it. It is
a moment of complete unawareness. It is as though one might
calculate complacently, … “So many years have passed since Adam,
and the six thousand years are being completed, and then
immediately, according to the computation of certain expositors,
the day of judgment will come.” Yet these calculations come
and pass away, and still the coming of the bridegroom is delayed.
So the virgins who had gone to meet him now are sleeping. But just
when he is least looked for, when the best calculators are saying,
“The six thousand years were waited for, and, look, they are
already gone by. So how
then shall we know when he will come?”—he comes at midnight. So
what is “midnight”? It means when you are least aware.
SERMON 93.7.” [Simonetti, M. (2002). Matthew 14-28. Ancient
Christian Commentary on Scripture NT 1b. (217–218). Downers Grove,
Ill.: InterVarsity Press.]
“The
belief that the human race would become extinct in six thousand
years was widespread among the early Christians, since a
millennium was made to correspond with each of the six days of
creation, to which was added a seventh millennium as the
eschatological day of rest. Augustine rejects these
chronological computations and warns his listeners not to base
their hopes and expectations on them.” [Simonetti, M.
(2002). Matthew 14-28. Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture
NT 1b. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press.]
He—regardless of his eventual view on the City of God and
allegorical interpretation of the Eschaton—holds to the
biblically-centric teachings of Jesus on the ‘unpredictability’ of the Eschaton—as taught by the
Jesus of the Synoptics (see below).
Well, if Jesus did not teach this, then why did it show
up in Christian theological history??
To me, it seems like there are two basic reasons for why
(some of) the Church adopted/expanded this Jewish construct:
(1)
Jesus never gave an eschatological timetable--and the Church
‘filled in the gap’; and
(2)
Jesus referred to the eschatological woes and opposition
(mentioning Daniel) before His Return—and the Church placed them
within the world-week framework.
On the first point—that
Jesus never gave a precise time schedule—I have been arguing this
throughout the series, and have pointed out that it is NATURE of
apocalyptic discourse to be ‘vague’ in its timing predictions (see
the Intermission Reality
Check for more discussion on this). By way of
reminder:
“Precise prediction of
years of the eschatological drama was not completely absent from
Jewish and Christian speculation in antiquity, but in comparison with
medieval and modern chiliasm it was evidently extremely rare.
From the Middle Ages until today the search for dates is one of
the most typical occupations of eschatological movements.”
[Flusser, D. (1988). Judaism and the origins of Christianity
(231). Jerusalem: The Magnes Press.]
The fact that there was no precision given by Jesus can be
seen clearly (I would think) from the fact that there are indications of
BOTH imminence AND ‘prerequisites’ given by Him in the
Synoptics. These are sometimes called ‘tensions’ by the
scholars, but it is no different than many of the other ‘tensions’
that exist within mature systematic theology.
[This is, btw, why there is no intrinsic contradiction
between holding to a world-week and to imminence, as the Fathers
seemed to do…]
Just to remind ourselves of this belabored point, let’s
note this again from Mark,
Matthew, and Luke—that the ‘tensions’
are part-and-parcel of the
‘unpredictability’ as taught explicitly by Jesus. Most of
the authors below will accept a late dating view of the Synoptics,
so ‘delay’ will be part of their interpretive grid already:
Mark:
“Mark integrates the
expectation of the parousia into an eschatological schedule (see below,
§8.2.8), thus holding fast both to the assurance
of the imminent advent of the Son of Man and the
indefiniteness of the exact time (Mark 13:24–27).
He connects the eschatological expectation to the historical event
of the destruction of the temple (Mark 13:2ff.) while at the same time disconnecting it from a
particular historical schedule, because only God knows the date
when the Coming One will appear (cf. Mark 13:27). Mark
exemplifies a view that is aware of the delay of the
parousia but does not necessarily lead to a de-eschatologized
understanding of the faith. In Mark this awareness
leads to an even more
intensive expectation (cf. Mark 13:14, 17, 18, 30, “Truly I
tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these
things have taken place”), combined
with a clear awareness of delay (cf. Mark 13:10, “And the
good news must first be proclaimed to all nations,” 21, 33–36).
The intensification of the imminent expectation generated the
possibility of rethinking the prolongation of the expected time
and of strengthening the awareness of the community’s election
(cf. Mark 13:20). In other words, in Mark’s time around 70 CE,
imminent expectation and awareness of the delay of the
parousia were not alternatives between which the community had
to choose.” [Schnelle, U. (2009). Theology of the
New Testament (M. E. Boring, Trans.) (368). Grand Rapids, MI:
Baker Academic.]
Matthew:
“Running through the
prophecies of eschatological or quasi-eschatological events in the
Gospel of Matthew are
strands of imminence and delay. One of the greatest
challenges for the interpreter is to bring these diverse strands
together, and that is also the particular challenge of the present
discourse.
“In
regard to the length of time itself, several of the imminence
sayings in Matthew fit the fall of Jerusalem particularly well.
Thus the references to “this generation” not passing before some
predicted event takes place (23:36; 24:34) and also the reference
to “some standing here who will …” (16:28) make especially good
sense if they refer to the approximately forty years between the
time of Jesus and the fall of Jerusalem. Possibly also 10:23 is to
be understood in the same way.
“References to the parousia
and the accompanying final judgment, on the other hand, contain
a consistent note of delay. We may point, for example, to
24:6, 8 but particularly to the parables of chaps. 24 and 25 (see
esp. 24:48: “my master is delayed”; 25:5: “the bridegroom was
delayed”; and 25:19: “after a long time”). In agreement with this
motif of delay are such things as the choosing of the twelve
(4:19), the building of the church (16:18–19; 18:18), the need to
proclaim the gospel to the nations (24:14; 28:19), and Jesus’
promise to be with his people to the end of the age (28:20). These verses presuppose an
interim period of unspecified length between the death of Jesus
and the parousia, although the evangelist may well have
believed that the period of forty years satisfied the various
requirements, including the preaching of the gospel to the nations
(cf. Paul’s view in Rom 10:18). He also may have regarded the
interim as sufficiently long to account for the delay passages.
“Two key facts provide the
basis for understanding these complex data. The first of
these is the statement of
Jesus in 24:32 (= Mark 13:32) that “about that day and hour no
one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only
the Father”—a statement that the early church can hardly have created. This overt statement concerning Jesus’
own ignorance of the time of the parousia makes it virtually
impossible that he ever himself spoke of the imminence of that
event. The second key fact is that the disciples
were unable to conceive of the fall of Jerusalem apart from the
occurrence of the parousia and the end of the age (as the question
of 24:3 indicates). In light of these two facts, the following
conclusion becomes plausible. Although Jesus taught the
imminent fall of Jerusalem, he did not teach the imminence of
the parousia, leaving the latter to the undetermined future (cf.
the sayings about the impossibility of knowing the time of the
parousia and about the consequent need for being constantly
ready: e.g., 24:42, 44, 50; 25:13). The disciples, however,
upon hearing the prophecy of the destruction of the temple,
thought immediately of the parousia and the end of the age.
Knowing that Jesus had taught the imminence of the fall of the
temple, they naturally assumed the imminence of the parousia. In
their minds, the two were inseparable. Consequently, the imminence
that was a part of the destruction of the temple prophecy now
became attached to the parousia itself, and they began to speak of
both as imminent.” [Hagner, D. A. (1998). Vol. 33B: Matthew 14–28.
Word Biblical Commentary (711). Dallas: Word, Incorporated.]
Luke:
“Since
Conzelmann, much of
scholarship has taken it as
a given that Luke is writing to respond to the “delay of the
parousia.” Thus, he writes in the 80s or 90s, at a time when
the imminent expectation of the end has died down and Christians
are coming to terms with a longer “salvation history.” Marshall critiques this
position. First, the evidence suggests that the
focus of the earliest church’s life was the death and
resurrection of Jesus rather than his parousia.
Second, the evidence is that Paul was aware of a
“waiting” period before the end (e.g., 1 Thess.
1:10; 4:13–5:11, from an acknowledged early letter), and thus the
issue of the “delay” should not be located with Luke alone—there
was recognition of it
earlier and elsewhere. Third, considerable continuity
exists between the theology of the Spirit and of mission in Paul
and Luke—Acts, and thus Luke’s concerns are not new in his later
period in response to a “delay.” Indeed, to speak of “delay”
is to suggest that the coming of Christ is “late,” whereas the major emphasis of Luke, in common with
other NT authors, is that the timing of the parousia is
unpredictable (e.g., Acts 1:7).” [McKnight, S.,
& Osborne, G. R. (2004). The face of New Testament studies: A
survey of recent research (245). Grand Rapids, MI.: Baker
Academic.]
“Though
one must not underplay any of the above, none of this should be taken
to mean that Luke has some sort of consistent realized
eschatology that totally dismisses, ignores, or neglects future
eschatology. Both in the Gospel and in Acts we hear about the Son of
Man’s future coming (Luke 21:27; indeed, he will come as he
went Acts 1:11), and occasionally there is a note about
vindication of the saints εν ταθει (Luke 18:7–8). What
one can say is that the emphasis in Luke-Acts lies on what has
already and is now happening, what has already been fulfilled
and is now being fulfilled. As Fitzmyer suggests,
the shift is from focusing primarily on the eschaton to
emphasizing what has happened and is happening “today” (cf. the
use of σημερον in Luke 4:21; 5:26; 19:5, 9; 23:43, or of καθʼ
ημεραν [“daily”] in Luke 9:23; 11:3; 16:19; 19:47). Part
of this emphasis on the past and present is only what we would
expect since Luke intends to present a two-volume work of
historiography, not primarily a collection of
prophecies about the future. --- knowing matters of timing about
the future (“times and seasons” when the concluding
eschatological events affecting Israel and others will happen, cf.
Acts 1:7) is not [important]. Matters
of timing are in God’s hands and plans, but they are not for the
disciples to know. In
short, Luke rules out speculation, or eschatological forecasting
of such matters. This means, I think, that J. T. Carroll
is right to say that the “baseline, as Luke sees it, is the
unpredictability of the parousia. No one knows—or can know—the
timing of the End. Chronology remains a matter of
the freedom and prerogative of God.… Yet ignorance of the ‘then’
is countered by certainty of the ‘that.’ ” But if we accept this
conclusion, then it is improper to
speak about Luke believing in a “delay” of the parousia, for the
concept of delay implies that the event is late, that it did not
occur at the expected and predicted time. Agnosticism about timing means
one cannot speak in such terms.--- In any event, while Luke
does not neglect future eschatology, his emphasis lies quite
naturally on what has already and is now happening that amounts to
fulfillment, climax, conclusion of God’s plans and dealings with
Jews and others. This is
only to be expected from a historian.” [Witherington, B.,
III. (1998). The Acts of the Apostles: A socio-rhetorical
commentary (185–186). Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
Co.]
So, given this ‘gap’ (and given the Jewish milieu in which
and from which Jesus taught and ministered), it is certainly
reasonable to believe that the Church ‘filled in the
eschatological narrative gap’ with a pre-existing Jewish
timetable. The NT apocrypha is evidence enough that the Church was
interested in ‘filling in gaps’ left in the NT writings.
And, given the fact that ‘tensions’ could exist within
those differing timetables, any dissonance would not necessarily
be seen as a show-stopper.
On the second point—that
Jesus referred to the eschatological woes and opposition
(mentioning Daniel)—we can note that the Church placed these
within the last period of the present age, just as Jewish
apocalyptic had done. When the ‘present age’ was mapped into the
‘world week’, the persecutions and experiences of the early church
were seen as indications of the imminence of the Eschaton.
For the church, this was largely about the development of
the theme of the Antichrist, described in the NT as the main
eschatological opponent of God, and how it was understood in
post-Exilic Judaism.
But early Jewish eschatology also included belief in
eschatological opposition and turmoil in the ‘end of days’:
“Characteristics of Early
Jewish Eschatology. During the Hellenistic and Roman
periods, many inhabitants of Judea and Galilee experienced
feelings of anxiety and frustration under the rulers whom they
judged to be illegitimate, imperialist, and oppressive. One of the
aspects of Jewish resistance
to these rulers was the burgeoning of eschatological and apocalyptic hope.
From the images inherited from prophets, wisdom, and other
traditional lore, the Jewish theologians of the Second Temple
period derived a wide spectrum of symbols and ideas that would
subsequently become shared by both Judaism and Christianity. Among
them are: 1) the
subdivision of history into a sequence of different periods;
2) the turmoil of the “end of days”;
3) the coming of an eschatological prophet; 4) the advent of the
Messiah, a charismatic leader sent by God to usher in the end
times; 5) the return of the lost tribes to the land of Israel; 6)
the waging of a HOLY WAR against the hostile
nations; 7) the descent on earth of the heavenly
Jerusalem and its holy Temple; 8) the final triumph of the God of
Israel, who will reign over the pacified and renewed
“world-to-come”; 9) the resurrection of the righteous; and 10) the
JUDGMENT of sinners. These eschatological ideas led people to
found sectarian communities that attempted to live in preparation
for the end times (as the Community of the Renewed Covenant at
QUMRAN) or who organized groups that fought for freedom (as did
the Sicarii, the ZEALOTs, and Bar Kochba’s partisans). [NIDB, s.v.
“Eschatology in Early Judaism”, Pierluigi Piovanelli]
The appearance of eschatological
opposition as a subset of ‘distress’ (often concentrated in
one person, nation, or force) is prevalent in Jewish apocalyptic,
and can be seen in early forms in the Hebrew scripture [DDD, s.v.
“Antichrist”].
“Neither
the word antichristos
nor a Hebrew or other equivalent is used in any of the versions of
the OT or in extra-biblical literature of the period.
But although the word is not used before the Epistles of John,
the concept of eschatological opposition reaching its climax
in the appearance and activity of a single person is already
found in some OT passages: Ezek 38–39 mentions Gog
of Magog as Israel’s final enemy (cf. Rev 20:8); Dan 7–8, 11
describes the appearance of an evil tyrant who will act as the
final enemy of God and Israel. The tradition of an evil
tyrant as the climax of eschatological evil should be understood
as a specification of the tradition of the eschatological enmity
of the pagan peoples and
Israel (cf. Isa 5:25–30; 8:18–20; 10:5–7; 37:16–20; Nah
3:1–7; Joel 4; Zech 14). This
expectation of eschatological hostility between Israel and the
peoples is also expressed in
extra-biblical sources. Sometimes the hostility is
thought to reach a climax in the rise of an eschatological
tyrant ( 1 En.90:9–16; Ass. Mos. 8; 2 Apoc. Bar. 36–40; 70;
4 Ezra 5:1–13; 12:29–33; 13:25–38). Among the various passages of
the Qumran literature
containing forms of eschatological dualism, the account of
Melchizedek and Melchiresha in 4Q280-282 and 4QAmram takes a
special place as an analogy: as in the case of Christ and
Antichrist the typology of agent (= prototype) and opponent (=
antitype) appears to have been constitutive.
“There
are a number of passages in the NT that predict or record the
appearance of eschatological opponents without using the word antichristos. In
Mark 13:22 false Christs (pseudochristoi)
and false prophets (pseudoprophētai)
are described as appearing before the end (cf. v 6). They will
deceive people by doing signs and wonders (cf. Matt 7:15; 24:11,
23–24). … In 2 Thess 2:3–12 the coming of the ‘Lawless One’ is
described as preceding the parousia
of Christ. This Lawless One will act haughtily, and proclaim
himself as a god. He will act with the power of Satan, and deceive
people by doing signs and wonders. Ultimately, he will be
vanquished by Christ (v 8). Although the word antichristos is not used,
the Lawless One is often regarded as the earliest description of
Antichrist. This interpretation
is attested at least since Irenaeus (Adv. Haer. III:8.7).
Still it should be noted that the Lawless One is rather a future,
eschatological ‘anti-God’ than an Antichrist (v 4). --- In Revelation there are a
number of eschatological opponents. The most prominent of
these are the Dragon
and the two Beasts
mentioned in chaps. 12–13; 16:13; 20:10. The Dragon is presented
as “the Old Serpent”, “Satan” (20:2). The second Beast, the Beast
from the Land (13:11–18), is identified as “the false prophet”
(16:13; 20:10). The first Beast is only spoken of as “the Beast” (to thērion), and is also
described without the Dragon and the second Beast (11:7; chap.
17).” [Peerbolte, L. J. L. (1999). Antichrist. In K. van der
Toorn, B. Becking & P. W. van der Horst (Eds.), Dictionary of
deities and demons in the Bible (K. van der Toorn, B. Becking
& P. W. van der Horst, Ed.) (2nd extensively rev. ed.)
(62–63). Leiden; Boston; Köln; Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge:
Brill; Eerdmans.]
It was easy to connect this opposition to the figure in
Daniel (even though Jesus did not make this connection in His
teachings—His remark was about the ‘abomination’), and the early
church did so:
“Some
early interpreters take the position that the Antichrist will be a
person, a world deceiver who will reign for the last half of
Daniel’s seventieth week (Dan 7:25). The Epistle of Barnabas
(A.D. 70–100?) warns believers to be alert to the imminent appearing of “the
final stumbling-block,” who is identified with the “little
horn” of Daniel 7:24 (4.3–6, 9–10, ANF 1:138–39).
The Didache (early
second century?) refers to a “world deceiver [who] will appear in
the guise of God’s Son. He will work ‘signs and wonders’ and the
earth will fall into his hands and he will commit outrages such as
have never occurred before” (16.4, in Cyril C. Richardson, ed.,
Library of Christian Classics, vol. 1, Early Christian Fathers,
[Philadelphia: Westminster, 1953], p. 178). Justin Martyr (d.165)
likewise looked for the appearance in his lifetime of the
Antichrist prophesied by Daniel,
who would reign for three and one-half years according to Daniel
7:25 (Dialogue 32; ANF, 1:210).” [Johnson, A. F. (1981).
Revelation. In F. E. Gaebelein (Ed.), The Expositor’s Bible
Commentary, Volume 12: Hebrews through Revelation (F. E.
Gaebelein, Ed.) (521). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing
House. At 13.8]
Although this connection (with the figure in Daniel) might
have seemed obvious, the connection between the eschatological
conflict/woes and a ‘day of thousand years’ is not so obvious.
And I am not sure
the leap was actually made by the church. They placed the
eschatological opposition in the ‘end of days’—as did the Jewish
writers—but I cannot find any passages which explicitly place them
into a specific timeslot within a specific day.
The Judaic context of the synoptic pronouncements match up
pretty well with Jesus’ words of the “Synoptic Apocalypse” in Mark
13, so we can see the
basic continuity (minus the ‘world week’ theme) between the teachings of
Jesus and His environment [NT:CHGM,pp397-431 gives all the
extra-biblical source material for Mark 13]:
“Although
Apocryphal Lamentation A (from Qumran) is a memory and mourning of
the Babylonian destruction of the temple in Jerusalem and exile of
many Judeans, there is a
functional parallel to Jesus’ prophecy about the destruction
of the Temple… [NT:CHGM, 404]
“Zechariah
14:1-15 and Bavli tractate Shabbat 118a demonstrate the continuity
of expectations of travail prior to eschatological restoration,
while continuing expectation of a messiah ben David is indicated
by Bavli tractate Sanhedrin 96b-97a… In this section of Mark,
Jesus warned his followers against deceptions that would come, but
not to mistake them for the signs that, properly interpreted,
would allow them to determine the correct time to flee (Mark
13:14). The phrase
translated variously as ‘end of days’, ‘last days’ or ‘latter
days’ (Hebrew, aharit
ha-yamim) occurs over thirty times in the Dead Sea Scrolls;
a third of these occurrences are found in Florilegium, sometimes
considered a part of an ‘eschatological midrash.’ It may be that
the community in its use of the phrase ‘end of days’ described two
distinct phases, the time
of testing and the coming of the Messiahs. The Qumran sect
regarded the rule of the gentiles (Greeks and Romans)
to be an intermediate period of testing, in which the forces
of Belial were allowed to reign… The sectarians
understood the signs and portents as eventually coming to fruition
in the events of their own days. Thus, the expected future victory
was imminent.”
[NT:CHGM, 408f]
“Though
many details of the Jesus’ movement’s eschatological outlook
differ greatly from that of the Qumran sect, their outlooks share a basic
structure of eschatological expectations. The present
time was seen as an age of the dominion of God’s enemies and
the nations. Both groups expected persecution
until the dominion of God was accomplished; both
groups encouraged their members in the face of such persecution.”
[NT:CHGM, 412]
“Reference
to ‘the abomination of desolation’ cites Daniel 11:31; 12:11 and
perhaps 1 Maccabees 1:54, while the qualitative assessment of the
travail echoes Daniel 12:1…. According to many biblical prophets,
‘day of the Lord’ begins
with great destruction. The siege practices of ancient
armies likely inform the basic theme of Jesus’ prophecy regarding
Jerusalem, and also the concerns of the Qumran sect: the threat of foreign
invaders.” [NT:CHGM, 419]
“Targum
Isaiah 24:23 links cosmic dissolution to divine judgment
and the appearance of God’s kingdom, and the
wording that refers to this dissolution echoes Deuteronomy 30:4;
Isaiah 13:10; Joel 2:10; 3:15. Daniel
7:13-14 provides the specific eschatological figure.
Bavli tractate Sanhedrin 91b shows how the Isaian imagery was
reconciled with the promise involved in divine judgment.”
[NT:CHGM, 424]
“From
biblical-like texts, which allude to the miracles of the Exodus
(Sapiential Work 12i:13-15), to zodiacal texts that interpret
natural and astrological phenomena as omens for purposes of
divination (Zodiology and
Brontology VIII:6-9), the corpus of sectarian manuscript from Qumran evidences vibrant
and diverse understandings and interpretations of signs and
portents. However, ultimately, only God has exact
knowledge of the exact details of divine plans
(Community Rule Serekh ha-Yahad IX:18-20). Nonetheless,
the sectarians, like Jesus’ disciples, were encouraged to
remain alert and diligently look for the fulfillment of the
signs (Pesher Isaiah(b) ii:1-9; Words of the
Maskil 3-4ii:3-10; Mysteries(b) 1a ii-b:1-4; Instruction(c)
1i:1-8, 2i:10-13)” [NT:CHGM, 431]
But, apart from a fragment of the passage from Jubilees on
the lifespan of Adam (4.29; at Qumran 11Q12 Frag. 5), the Qumran sectarians do not
refer to the world-week and do not cite Psalm 90.4 at
any point in the extant literature. Psalm 90 is even missing
from the biblical scrolls at the site. The eschatological
themes of the Synoptics and early church seem to match up with the
Quman and other extra-biblical sources—apart from the relative
frequency of references to the ‘world week’.
What can we make of
this world-week construct?
·
First, the world-week
construct shows up in the shared substrate of Jewish and Christian
worldviews.
·
Second, it does not seem to
be dominant in either worldview except as an explanatory device,
hermeneutical tool, or ‘horizon framework’.
·
Third, it does not seem to
dictate any eschatological predictions of a precise nature (these
were all done, rather, by reference to Daniel and from
allegorical/numerological 'interpretations')
·
Fourth, it does not seem to
negate imminence, in either Jewish or Christian thought (until
after Constantine, at least).
·
Fifth, it is not pervasive
in all the Christian writers.
·
Sixth, it does not seem to
crowd-out any Jesus-based themes (ie, all the topics He DID teach
about are discussed along with world-week, without any apparent
need to re-interpret anything).
·
Seventh, it is not taught
in the Hebrew bible or New Testament—especially not by Jesus.
So, I have to conclude that a belief in the world-week
construct does NOT require a denial or rejection of imminence by
someone holding to that belief. But also that it is not a
biblical-based belief that should be accepted or assumed as
theologically valid or prescriptive.
Hope this helps—little glenn