Abstract
Following Rowland’s and Foucault’s respective observations that apocalypses are not necessarily temporal, and that historical analyses have diverted attention unduly from spatial phenomena, this paper examines Revelation using a spatial hermeneutic, comparing it to the semi-contemporaneous Parables of Enoch. Analyzing ostensibly similar spaces that are presented divergently, the paper focuses particular attention on “doorway” phenomena in Revelation. Recent research in cognitive psychology by Radvansky et al. suggests that passing through a doorway has a measurable cognitive effect, inducing forgetfulness of prior thoughts. Revelation employs doorway and gateway language repeatedly, while Parables of Enoch does not. The respective spatial emphases of Revelation and Parables suggest diverging engagements with a traumatized material world. References in Parables of Enoch to oppressive landowners and transformative goals for the earth suggest a continuing critical engagement with the material world. The lack of comparable language in Revelation suggests a comparatively more escapist perspective. Revelation combines polemic against all the “inhabitants of the earth”, an emphasis on the replacement of the old order, and the use of compensatory cultic language to orient the reader away from the existing material world. The parallel narrative employment of doorway language suggests an operative governing psychology of separation and forgetfulness in Revelation.
Highlights
Scholars have long recognized that apocalypses are not eschatological[1] in spite of how they are popularly understood.[2]
Polemics against landowners, while important for understanding the world of the author of Parables of Enoch, do not appear in Revelation even in similar judgments against the powerful of the earth, while rather wholesale condemnations of “those who dwell upon the earth” appear in Revelation but not Parables of Enoch
There is attention to the earth, its inhabitants (“those who dwell upon the earth” or similar), and its seats of oppressive powers in both apocalypses, as well as to the heavenly dwelling of God and
Summary
Scholars have long recognized that apocalypses are not eschatological[1] in spite of how they are popularly understood.[2]. Both apocalypses are rife with spatial imagery, too much for close analysis with brevity. The systematic psychological study of the sites of our intimate lives”.13 In light of this important element of spatial analysis, some consideration of the cognitive phenomenology of space in Revelation is warranted, the cognitive effects of the door/gate/threshold both in antiquity and modern scholarship. Implications for interpretation of the apocalypse generally, pertaining to its early reception but to its continued reception in modernity This analysis, while acknowledging the anti-empire language present in the Apocalypse,[14] continues the work of problematization of meaningfully “anti-empire” readings of Revelation,[15] since wholesale condemnation and disengagement[16] appear implied. The spatial emphases present in the apocalypse point to an operative governing psychology of separation and forgetfulness, orienting the reader away from both the material world and from those who the reader believes will be judged
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