BEING OPEN TO THE VISION: A STUDY FROM FOURTH EZRA

Abstract

This paper considers what the visions of the apocalypses say to us. This paper argues that the knowledge we expect from these texts is preset by our understanding of the kind of information we expect to gain from any one thing or event. The experience of the visionary Ezra provides an outstanding example of the problems of endeavouring to make sense of a vision of the divine Insights from William Blake, Isiah Berlin and Jacques Derrida indicate that the scientific methodology cannot be paradigmatic for all human knowing This particularly applies to the content apocalyptic books are concerned with visions of the divine. Applied to such texts, scientific methods of analysis are reductive, where open and imaginative approaches do justice to the otherness of the divine.