Apocalyptic Reading Research Articles

Power, Possibility, and Personal Agency: What Should Ethics Know of Sin?

One striking feature of apocalyptic readings of Paul—and the Protestant dogmatics that follows after such a Paulinism—is the ‘widescreen’ portrayal of Sin as Power. This account stresses the ‘three-agent drama’ of salvation and the bondage of human persons to anti-God forces. It resists moralising interpretations of human sins in favour of a starker moral cosmology. In this way, it seems to leave ‘ethics’ and ‘freedom’ in suspension. Contrast the approach of the moral theologian Oliver O’Donovan. Here, sin is a case study in the difference of perspectives between dogmatics and ethics. Dogmatics, ‘making sin exceedingly sinful, quickly resorts to apocalyptic largeness of scale’. Ethics is concerned instead with ‘possible’ sins. It describes sin in phenomenological rather than ultimate terms—something to be avoided in the next moment of free agency. This article distils the theological commitments each intends to secure, observes what each risks, and seeks to determine what is at stake. It draws them together in a synthetic moral ontology, but also looks further, to an integrative account that can inform moral discernment. To this end, the final section observes how subsequent work in Pauline studies converges with discussions about structural sin in Catholic social thought.

Cambios y permanencias en el discurso político argentino: el caso de la campaña electoral 2019

This paper is part of a large research on the changes presented in Argentina’s political communication since 2001 to date. Our aim is, in the first place, to investigate these transformations and determine in which realm they belong: within discourse (use of language) or, in a more general way, within political practices. Secondly, we evaluate the importance of such transformations and the eventual need for adjustments in conceptualizations that, in Argentina, discourse analysts have been using for many years. Our working hypothesis dictates that, beyond certain apocalyptic readings regarding a supposed lost of specificity in political discourse, it keeps its distinctive features and, therefore, we can argue that classical definitions have not become obsolete, but they need to be explained in detail for a better understanding of the new modalities in political practices (as in Fairclough, 2003). To verify our hypothesis, we analyse a corpus conformed by Facebook posts taken from the accounts of the two main candidates in 2019 Argentine presidential election. We contrast our results with the classical definitions of political discourse and some new explanations that propose an un-politicization of political discourse in XXI. We adopt Social Semiotics as main theoretical framework with a multimodal perspective.

APOCALYPSE LAKARDOWO: ECOCRITICAL ANALYSIS IN THE FILM LAKARDOWO MENCARI KEADILAN

Human-nature interaction today enters a worrying stage. Film as a literary work begins to record this interaction. The film Lakardowo Mencari Keadilan to be one of them. This research uses the content analysis method with an ecocritical approach. This film is a research primary data source supported by various related references. The analysis emphasizes the study of environmental literature which focuses on apocalyptic reading with pastoral views that surround it through Creswell spiral analysis methods: data management, reading, and note-taking, classification and interpretation, then data visualization. In this research, Lakardowo's environment in the film Lakardowo Mencari Keadilan reflects the impact of B3 waste pollution that's not carried out by the community. Pollution of B3 waste on land, water, and air in Lakardowo clearly record through analysis of the apocalyptic narrative as a disaster for Lakardowo village. Whereas the hopes of the community of responses to B3 waste in Lakardowo is conveying in aspects of the reading of pastoral narratives.

“Already/Not Yet”

This paper interrogates some prominent post-Marxist engagements with St Paul’s messianism by reading them in the theological context of the anti-historicist revival of Pauline eschatology in the twentieth century. In both readings, the means through which the critique of historicism is delivered is the revival of the eschatological core of Paul’s proclamation. Paul is read as inaugurating a “new world” of freedom, love and redemptive hope as opposed to the “old world” of oppression, sorrow, death and despair. And yet, it is exactly in such an apocalyptic reading of Pauline eschatology that both philosophical and theological critiques of historicism, despite protestations to the contrary, remain prisoners to the aporias of a historicist temporality. The symptom of the philosophers’ residual parasitism on historicism is expressed as antinomian negativism, while in the case of the theologians it can take the form of a self-assured Church triumphalism.

Postmodern Apocalypse in White Noise and London Fields

Postmodern Apocalypse is considered as a strategy a writer employs to depict the dreadfulness of nuclear disaster. It is a rich way of transmitting ideas of catastrophe and fear into a more meaningful fiction about a teleological end. This study analyzes postmodern apocalypse in two selected novels, namely Don DeLillo’s White Noise (1985) and Martin Amis’s London Fields (1989). The term which refers to characters who cry their concern about the destruction of the world demonstrates a sense of apocalypse in a community of nuclear age. Both DeLillo and Amis show their fear of a nuclear explosion. The present study aims to present an apocalyptic reading of two selected texts through using in the 1980s.Elizabeth K. Rosen’s Apocalyptic Transformation: Apocalypse and the Postmodern Imagination (2008).

Czy tylko apokaliptyka? ΠΑΣΧΩ i ΠΑΘΗΜΑ w kontekście Rz 8 oraz Ga 3

In the long history of interpreting Pauline epistolarium and, in particular, the Letters to the Galatians and Romans, some authors have discovered that both texts contain apocalyptic motives, or they have postulated their apocalyptic reading. As it has been contended, the main arguments in support of such an interpretation comprise, among other things, the linguistic style as well as imagery drawing on the apocalyptic writings associated with the traditions of the Old Testament. The author of the present article points to the use of terms πάσχω and πάθημα in the letters to the Galatians and Romans and puts forward a hypothesis that in the context of these texts, St. Paul used the theological topos of the Exodus and the means of expression characteristic of apocalyptic which was at the time a popular method of presenting both the meaning of past events and the imperatives arising from the truth about reconciliation with God.

Aliens' Arrival and the End of the World — An Apocalyptic Reading of Childhood's End

Science fiction is a literary genre which provides the ground for scientific discoveries. One of the subgenres of science fiction is apocalyptic literature, which deals with the end of the world. Arthur C. Clarke is considered one of these apocalyptic writers whose Childhood’s End indicates an alien invasion and the outcome of their interference with the affairs of human beings. This article intends to emphasize the apocalyptic elements within Childhood’s End and, further, it will highlight how the writer uses this genre in order to deal with the delineation of religion and science, the mutation of children and the destruction of Earth.

Suffering and covenantal hope in Galatians: a critique of the ‘apocalyptic reading’ and its proponents

AbstractThis article addresses the so-called ‘apocalyptic reading of Paul’, taking the representative work of J. Louis Martyn and Martinus C. de Boer as its primary focus. The chief contention is that the ‘apocalyptic reading’ does not resemble the historical phenomenon of Jewish apocalyptic literature, although the scope of this article has been intentionally limited to Galatians. The present study is composed of two halves. The first half offers a critique of what it means for Paul to be an apocalyptic thinker according to Martyn and de Boer. Their emphasis is on discontinuity, duality and dichotomy, which coheres neither with first-century apocalyptic literature and its antecedents, nor with the letter to the Galatians. Their nuanced notion of apocalyptic has led to an unnecessary bifurcation between apocalyptic and covenant (not to mentionHeilsgeschichte) in the interpretation of Paul. However, this article suggests that the dichotomy has been misplaced, both in relation to the discontinuity that Paul does articulate (i.e. with the law), and the dichotomy reflected in apocalyptic literature, namely, the division between the present evil age and the glorious age to come. Thus, it is argued that Martyn and de Boer's focus on discontinuity hardly constitutes apocalyptic in a first-century historical sense. Rather, their specific emphasis owes its articulation to the theology of Karl Barth. After arguing that the ‘apocalyptic reading’ lacks historical precision (and possibly theological forthrightness), the second half of the study argues that some neglected features of Galatians, such as suffering and persecution, cohere with the apocalyptic character of the letter, and are common features of apocalyptic broadly. In fact, the division between apocalyptic and covenant in scholarship on Galatians is bridged by the themes of conflict and crisis. This is because apocalyptic hope often arises in the absence of the realisation of covenantal promises and expectations; a covenantal disconnect is created and aggravated by crises and hardships of various sorts, hence the need for apocalyptic hope. Suffering therefore ties together the strands of apocalyptic and covenant in Galatians. If Martyn and de Boer's ‘apocalyptic reading’ was truly apocalyptic in a first-century historical sense, it would have integrated the imagery of suffering and persecution found in the letter.

Pacifist Jesus?: The (Mis)Translation of ἐᾶτε ἕως τούτου in Luke 22:51

Jesus’s refusal to be defended by the sword at his arrest plays a significant role in popular and scholarly understandings of Jesus as a committed pacifist. Of the four NT accounts, the Gospel of Luke offers Jesus’s most forceful and unequivocal rebuke: “No more of this!” (Luke 22:51 NRSV), translating ἐᾶτe ἕως τούτου. Such a translation, however, is tendentious and misleading, seemingly the result of a twentieth-century translational bias that has exerted enormous influence on subsequent biblical translation and interpretation. An analysis of Luke’s lexical usage, grammar, and context rather suggests that, instead of rebuking his disciples, Jesus is reminding them of the divine plan to which Jesus must not only submit, but which he must actively carry out. In Luke’s narrative framework, Satan has received permission to sift the disciples in the present hour of darkness, and the disciples must not interfere with the divine permissio . This apocalyptic reading allows the words ἐᾶτe ἕως τούτου their more natural force: “permit until this,” or, more pointedly, “allow the arrest to continue.” The subsequent healing of the high priest’s slave guarantees the continuation of the plan and expresses Jesus’s control over the situation more than his presumed compassion or love. The implications for Christian ethics are considerable: Jesus may have been a “pacifist” but not in the way one might think.

Pacifist Jesus? The (Mis)Translation of ἐᾶτε ἓως τούτου in Luke 22:51

Jesus's refusal to be defended by the sword at his arrest plays a significant role in popular and scholarly understandings of Jesus as a committed pacifist. Of the four NT accounts, the Gospel of Luke offers Jesus's most forceful and unequivocal rebuke: “No more of this!” (Luke 22:51 NRSV), translating ἐᾶτε ἓως τούτου. Such a translation, however, is tendentious and misleading, seemingly the result of a twentieth-century translational bias that has exerted enormous influence on subsequent biblical translation and interpretation. An analysis of Luke's lexical usage, grammar, and context rather suggests that, instead of rebuking his disciples, Jesus is reminding them of the divine plan to which Jesus must not only submit, but which he must actively carry out. In Luke's narrative framework, Satan has received permission to sift the disciples in the present hour of darkness, and the disciples must not interfere with the divine permissio. This apocalyptic reading allows the words ἐᾶτε ἓως τούτου their more natural force: “permit until this,” or, more pointedly, “allow the arrest to continue.” The subsequent healing of the high priest's slave guarantees the continuation of the plan and expresses Jesus's control over the situation more than his presumed compassion or love. The implications for Christian ethics are considerable: Jesus may have been a “pacifist” but not in the way one might think.

Climax of the Covenant vs Apocalyptic Invasion: A Theological Analysis of a Contemporary Debate in Pauline Exegesis

AbstractFocusing on the work of N.T. Wright, J. Louis Martyn and Douglas Harink, in this article I offer a theological analysis of the debate between salvation‐historical and apocalyptic readings of Paul as a debate in Christology. I argue that in the end both these positions are christologically deficient in ironically similar ways: both positions conceive of Christ as accidental to the divine intent for creation, a notion that falls short of the robust Christology Paul adheres to. I offer an alternative that preserves both the notions of a salvific history and an apocalyptic revelation, but is also imbedded in what I call a supralapsarian Christology.

“Las señales de los últimos tiempos”. Laicidad y escatología en el pensamiento católico hispanoamericano del siglo XIX

This article analyzes, from the perspective of the intellectual history, the laicism process during the nineteenth century in Hispanic America, focusing on the eschatological reading on the part of certain Catholic intellectuals. The argument is that eschatological thought must be understood beyond its theological dimensions, considering it as an apocalyptic reading of the social and cultural changes that political modernity brought about for religion and its role in the public sphere during the 19 th Century.

Apocalyptic and Covenant: Perspectives on Paul or Antinomies at War?

The terms ‘apocalyptic’ and ‘covenantal’ are ubiquitous in Pauline studies and are increasingly set against one another as competing lenses by which to view Pauline theology. In search of clarity behind the terminology, this article traces two shifts in recent apocalyptic readings of Paul. First, there is a rhetorical shift which increasingly sets a cosmological apocalyptic reading of Paul against one focused on forensic and covenantal concerns. Secondly, one can detect a theological shift which actually brings the apocalyptic reading of Paul closer to a view that sees a fulfilment of the prophetic promise of the new covenant in his theology and ministry. In closing, the two arguments most often advanced to resist such a marriage of approaches are challenged; namely, the view that Paul belongs to a cosmological and not forensic stream of Jewish apocalyptic thought, and the argument that, whatever Paul is doing in earlier chapters, forensic language is absent from, or peripheral to, Rom. 5–8.

Return to the City of Quartz: Excavating the Future 20 Years On

This paper revisits Mike Davis’ seminal City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles twenty years after it was originally published. It argues that the book continues to provide an indispensable model for left, politically engaged forms of urban research. The paper criticizes the apocalyptic readings of City of Quartz that have multiplied over time and instead suggests that Davis be read for his emphasis on an urban dialectic—the constant and ongoing struggles over urban form, politics and culture that shape the geographies of Los Angeles to this day. To this end, the paper looks to the city's more recent history, especially current battles being fought over the future of downtown L.A., to illustrate how we might continue to use Davis’ framework for critical analyses of urban power. At the same time, the paper addresses inadequacies of what has been called the “L.A. School” and its singularly postmodern approach to urban questions that fail to provide coherent understanding of the material realities of modern American cities. It argues that something like an L.A. School can be more properly grounded in the historical-materialist, even socialist, forms of writing and thinking developed in works like City of Quartz and much of the critical urban geography that came in its footsteps. Ultimately the paper is a call for scholarship on Los Angeles to be deeply engaged with both the concrete and abstract dimensions of a place, not for the sake of theory alone, but to further radical praxis in Los Angeles and all American cities.

“Once upon a Time”: Galatians as an Apocalyptic Story

Is it possible to combine narratival and apocalyptic readings of Paul in general and Galatians in particular? The answer offered in this essay is a nuanced yes. I will follow trails blazed by J. Louis Martyn and Richard B. Hays in examining aspects of both “historical continuity”/“horizontal linearity” and “apocalyptic discontinuity”/“vertical disruption” in the apostle's fiery communiqué ταĩϛ ἐκκλησίαιϛ τῆϛ Γαλατίαϛ. I begin by scouring the letter along temporal lines before turning to consider, with the aid of French semiotician A. J. Greimas as mediated by Hays, the timely/timeless story set forth in the letter's weighty lines.

“Once upon a Time”: Galatians as an Apocalyptic Story

Is it possible to combine narratival and apocalyptic readings of Paul in general and Galatians in particular? The answer offered in this essay is a nuanced yes. I will follow trails blazed by J. Louis Martyn and Richard B. Hays in examining aspects of both “historical continuity”/“horizontal linearity” and “apocalyptic discontinuity”/“vertical disruption” in the apostle's fiery communiqué ταĩϛ ἐκκλησίαιϛ τῆϛ Γαλατίαϛ. I begin by scouring the letter along temporal lines before turning to consider, with the aid of French semiotician A. J. Greimas as mediated by Hays, the timely/timeless story set forth in the letter's weighty lines.

The Bible and the Novel: Apocalyptic Reading

The Bible and the Novel: Apocalyptic Reading

“Quid est homo quod memor es ipsius?” Calvin and Cocceius (1603–1669) on Psalm 8

This article addresses a controversy between Reformed theologians on the exegesis of Psalm 8 which arose in the Dutch Reformed Church during the late seventeenth century. The followers of the Leiden theologian Johannes Cocceius proposed an eschatological (even apocalyptic) reading of this Psalm which was vehemently contested by the followers of the Utrecht professor Gisbertus Voetius. Both parties appealed to Calvin’s exegesis of this Psalm and argued that their opinions were in continuity with those of Calvin. By comparing Calvin’s exegesis of this Psalm to Cocceius’s explanation, it is possible to illuminate the seventeenth-century debate on this issue. This may also be instructive for explaining the variegated views on Biblical prophecy within the Reformed tradition. At the same time, an investigation of the sources of both theologians enables us to locate them in the history of exegesis.

The deliverance of God: an apocalyptic rereading of justification in Paul

This book breaks a significant impasse in much Pauline interpretation today, pushing beyond both Lutheran and New perspectives on Paul to a noncontractual, apocalyptic reading of many of the apostle's most famous -- and most troublesome -- texts. In The Deliverance of God Douglas Campbell holds that the intrusion of an alien, essentially modern, and theologically unhealthy theoretical construct into the interpretation of Paul has produced an individualistic and contractual construct that shares more with modern political traditions than with either orthodox theology or Paul's first-century world. In order to counteract that influence, Campbell argues that it needs to be isolated and brought to the foreground before the interpretation of Paul's texts begins. When that is done, readings free from this intrusive paradigm become possible and surprising new interpretations unfold.

An Apocalyptic Reading of Psalm 78 in 2 Thessalonians 3

2 Thessalonians has suffered from neglect in biblical scholarship for many reasons, such as its brevity, its similarities in content and structure with 1 Thessalonians and its supposed dubious authorship. However, detecting an allusion to Ps. 78.8 (LXX Ps. 77.8) in 2 Thess. 3.5 (that includes verbal and thematic parallels) may offer insight into literary features of the hortatory section of the letter—a portion commonly considered to be disjointed and almost incoherent. Psalm 78 recounts the history of Israel, demonstrating God's goodness and Israel's ingratitude and persistent stubbornness and failure. The psalmist's hope that the `next generation' would rise above the `wicked and perverse' previous generation is re-envisaged by Paul in an apocalyptic fashion, with the new generation (those `in Christ') able to attain a faith(fulness) not possible for the `Israel' of the Psalm—an important message for a church in turmoil.