John J. Collins has done an excellent job of bringing his readers into the worlds of Jewish apocalyptic writing. My own understanding of this type of writing was quite narrow, believing that it merely entelled discriptions of the end of the world. However, tasting the Jewish apocalyptic dishes has been fascinating. Particularly intriguing for me has been the introduction to the writings found at Qumran. Accordingly, I have now purshased an English translation of the Complete Dead Sea Scrolls, published by Penguin.
However, I must say that while Collins has done a good job at opening the door to the Jewish apocalyptic world, his hosting job has been less than satisfactory. While I was quite intrigued by his introductory analysis of literature of which I was not familiar, I was less than thrilled with his treatment of Daniel and the teachings of Jesus and Paul. He attributes the authorship of Daniel to the mid second century BC and to an evaluation of the Maccabean Revolt. He attributes many of Jesus's sayings concerning the end of the world to the early church. Several of Paul's teachings are attributed to his later disciples. Thus he seems to take a more "Jesus Seminar" approach to the development of Scripture.
While I can certainly appreciate the great possibility that the author of the book of Revelation was addressing contemporary socio-political needs, an absolute approach in this direction is both exegetically and theologically unwarranted. Such an ideology serves to divorce "super" and "natural," believing a priori in a totally naturalistic explanation for the content and formation of Scripture. It has been and continues to be exegetically demonstrated that an "already-not yet" tension is characteristic throughout the New Testament.
What in the world does my last sentence mean in "plain English?" Collins writes, "Jesus had been expected, at least by some, to restore the kingdom of Israel, but he had ignominiously failed to do so" (p. 262). He seems to make the mistake of assuming that Jesus had attempted to set up both an inner spiritual revolution in Israel, as well as begin an outward political revolution against Rome ... and was thus crucified as a "political pretender." The problem is that when read on his own terms, Jesus flatly denies he is attempting a Maccabean Revolt Part II. Yet he does maintain that he is the apocalyptic messianic figure of Daniel 7:14. In other words Jesus teaches that with him the old word is indeed passing away and the new world is dawning. Yet the new world will not completely arrive until his second return. Paul more fully elaborates on this theme.
This is called the "already-not yet" tension in the New Testament. Jesus is the sovereign king, ruling and reign right now. Yet the kingdoms of this world will officially become his at his return. We can experience the glorious life in the Spirit right now, such as the experience of divine healing, special personalized messages from God delivered through other people, etc. However, we still experience death, disease, and social destabilization resulting from human sin nature. These will not completely pass away until the return of Jesus.
Listen to Collins's concluding remarks:
The apocalyptic revolution is a revolution in the imagination. It entails a challenge to view the world in a way that is radically different from the common perception. The revolutionary potential of such imagination should not be underestimated, as it can foster dissatisfaction with the present adn generate visions of what might be. The legacy of the apocalypses includes a powerful rhetoric for dnouncing the deficiencies of this world. It includes the conviction that the world as now constituted is not the end. Most of all, it entails and appreciation of the great resource that lies in the human imagination to construct a symbolic world where the integrity of values can be maintained in the face of social and political powerlessness and even of the threat of death (p. 282).
To be fair, Collins is perhaps the least liberal of the Jesus-seminar-style scholars. Afterall he maintains the great likelihood of Daniel having been written by one author. Yet, is Scripture simply the product of the human imagination for psychologically coping with undesirable political situations and orthodox Christian faith a pipe dream? Such a conclusion is boogy-man-in-the-closet, which needs the bedroom light of sound exegetical and theological logic to extinguish it.
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