Loading...
Loading...
Click here if you don’t see subscription options
Richard J. CliffordDecember 01, 2007
Some readings at the end of the liturgical year and the beginning of Advent are from "apocalyptic" books such as Daniel and the "little apocalypses" in the Synoptic Gospels. These passages refer to cosmic disturbances (sun and mood falling out of the sky), wars, and terror-stricken people, giving the impression of punishment by an angry God. The impression is completely false. Apocalyptic literature was written to encourage people and enliven their hope in God’s rule of history.

Here are three rules of thumb for interpreting apocalyptic literature, which may assist preachers. (1) The literature originated among ancient royal scribes. Employees of the king, they naturally interpreted the course of history as the successive rise and fall of empires, e.g., the Assyrian kingdom followed by the Babylonian kingdom followed by the Persian kingdom. Moreover, taking the rule of the gods seriously, they assumed that the succession of empires reflected the rise and fall of an empire’s patron deity. (2) Destruction and war customarily accompanied change of empire, and the destruction was sometimes expressed metaphorically as the disruption of natural processes such as heavenly luminaries and earthquakes. (3) Biblical authors used this ancient way of speaking to express their conviction that the succession of empires, "the course of history," would eventually end and yield to the empire or kingdom of God (e.g., Daniel). New Testament writers adopted the Old Testament perspective and taught further that the definitive kingdom of God had arrived in Jesus, though it co-exists for the time being with other kingdoms. Christians had to learn to live in this kingdom, which had not yet arrived in its completeness. They thus rejoiced in this kingdom even as they waited for its full realization.

Richard Clifford, S.J.
Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.
17 years 6 months ago
When I was in college, I took an independant study on this topic. I wanted to thank you for condensing some of the consistent themes in that type of writing and for mentioning its prevelence in the accepted (Church sanctioned passages) books of the Bible. So many seem to focus on Revelations as the only apocalyptical writing and that just isn't so.

The latest from america

Father Robert Prevost’s early years in Peru shaped his ministry and vision for the church—but few know the brutal reality he encountered there in the 1980s and 1990s.
Inside the VaticanJuly 09, 2025
A Homily for the Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, by Father Terrance Klein
Terrance KleinJuly 09, 2025
A Palestinian man stands next to a burned car after an attack by Israeli settlers in Kafr Malik, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, June 26, 2025. (OSV News photo/Ammar Awad, Reuters)
On July 7, settlers carried out a daytime arson attack on the Church of St. George and a Byzantine Christian cemetery. The fifth-century church is “one of the oldest and most venerated places of worship for Christians in Palestine.”
Kevin ClarkeJuly 09, 2025
Pope Leo XIV met with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy today and reaffirmed the Vatican's willingness to host peace talks between Russia and Ukraine.