Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Setting the scene: a modern debate about faith and history
- 2 Relating scripture and systematic theology: some preliminary issues
- 3 Ways of approaching the Book of Revelation
- 4 The spatial dimension of the Book of Revelation
- 5 The temporal dimension of the Book of Revelation
- 6 Pannenberg, Moltmann, and the Book of Revelation
- 7 Conclusions
- Bibliography
- Index of passages cited
- Index of modern authors
- Index of subjects
4 - The spatial dimension of the Book of Revelation
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Setting the scene: a modern debate about faith and history
- 2 Relating scripture and systematic theology: some preliminary issues
- 3 Ways of approaching the Book of Revelation
- 4 The spatial dimension of the Book of Revelation
- 5 The temporal dimension of the Book of Revelation
- 6 Pannenberg, Moltmann, and the Book of Revelation
- 7 Conclusions
- Bibliography
- Index of passages cited
- Index of modern authors
- Index of subjects
Summary
The spatial setting of the text
The importance of the temporal dimension of apocalyptic thought has long been recognized, given the central role which eschatology often plays in apocalypses. However, recent analyses of apocalypses have sought to underline the importance of the spatial dimension of the genre alongside the temporal dimension. This is reflected in the important definition of the genre of apocalypse, put forward in 1979 as a result of work in the SBL Apocalypse Group: ‘“Apocalypse” is a genre of revelatory literature with a narrative framework, in which a revelation is mediated by an otherworldly being to a human recipient, disclosing a transcendent reality which is both temporal, insofar as it envisages eschatological salvation, and spatial insofar as it involves another, supernatural world.’ It is the idea that the Book of Revelation seeks to disclose a transcendent spatial reality which underlies my treatment of the spatial dimension of the text in this chapter.
In an influential reassessment of apocalyptic thought Rowland has laid particular emphasis on the importance of the spatial dimension of this literature, in the sense of the revelation of heavenly secrets. It is this feature of apocalyptic which is for Rowland its most distinctive characteristic – more distinctive even than the eschatological interest which is usually held to be central to the genre. Rowland's suggestion that eschatology should not be regarded as the central feature of the apocalyptic genre has been criticized.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- God and History in the Book of RevelationNew Testament Studies in Dialogue with Pannenberg and Moltmann, pp. 81 - 108Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2003