Source: John J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to Jewish Apocalyptic Literature, Third Edition (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2016), 321–351.
9. Early Christian Apocalypse.mp4
Apocalypticism in Early Christianity.wav
This podcast delves into the presence of apocalypticism within early Christianity, tracing its origins in Jewish apocalyptic thought and examining its influence on figures like Jesus and Paul, as well as the Book of Revelation. It explores the ongoing debate about whether Jesus himself held an apocalyptic worldview, contrasting this with interpretations of him as primarily a wisdom teacher, while highlighting the strong eschatological focus of early Christian communities and the writings within the New Testament. The text then specifically analyzes the Book of Revelation, positioning it as a distinct apocalyptic work despite its unique characteristics like the absence of pseudonymity and a letter format, and discusses how it adapts Jewish apocalyptic themes, notably in the portrayal of Jesus as both the slain Lamb and the divine warrior, ultimately reflecting a blend of inherited tradition and Christian innovation.
For many, the popular image of Jesus is that of a gentle teacher, a purveyor of timeless wisdom and parables about love, forgiveness, and inner morality. This is the serene figure who taught his followers to turn the other cheek and love their neighbors. While this portrait contains elements of truth, it often overlooks a crucial, and far more intense, dimension of the world in which the first Christians lived and believed.
The earliest followers of Jesus existed in a world saturated with apocalyptic expectation. This worldview, which flourished in the intense political and social pressures of 1st-century Judea under Roman occupation, dramatically shaped their understanding of Jesus, his death, and the future. In the decades preceding and following the first Jewish revolt against Rome, the conviction that history was rapidly approaching a cataclysmic end was not a fringe belief but a powerful force. This article will explore four of the most surprising and counter-intuitive insights from modern scholarship about this apocalyptic mindset, revealing a version of early Christianity that is far more urgent and radical than is often portrayed.
For over a century, one of the most fiercely debated questions in New Testament scholarship has been the very nature of Jesus’s message. Against the modern image of Jesus as a moral philosopher, early 20th-century scholars like Albert Schweitzer championed a view called “thoroughgoing eschatology.” They argued that Jesus’s core message wasn't about developing God's rule in the human heart but about an imminent, world-ending “cosmic catastrophe.” In this framework, Jesus was not a serene teacher of timeless ethics but an urgent apocalyptic prophet, warning that the present world order was about to be violently swept away.
In the late twentieth century, however, this scholarly consensus was challenged. A revisionist school of thought argued that Jesus was primarily a wisdom teacher. This view gained traction with the discovery of texts like the Gospel of Thomas, which presents Jesus’s sayings without a futuristic, apocalyptic component, and through analyses of the “Q” source (material common to Matthew and Luke) that suggest its apocalyptic elements were later additions. The surprise, then, is not simply that Jesus may have been an end-times prophet, but that this question—prophet of cosmic doom or teacher of inner wisdom—remains a central, hard-fought debate among historians trying to understand the man at the center of the Christian faith.
“Jesus’ message is connected with the hope … primarily documented by the apocalyptic literature, a hope which awaits salvation not from a miraculous change in historical (i.e., political and social) conditions, but from a cosmic catastrophe which will do away with all conditions of the present world as it is.”