With this morning's study I was skimming the surface of
apocalyptic as worldview and the concomitant historical and social context. The
apocalyptic rose in the period beginning around the Babylonian exile of the
Jewish elite around 570BCE to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans around
70CE. This directly influences the thought, language, and literature throughout
this era. The cultural zeitgeist of apocalypticism and subsequent literature is
one marked by the themes of crisis, secret knowledge, and a dispensational or
periodized perspective.
What I find particularly interesting is that within rabbinic
tradition following the destruction of Jerusalem the apocalyptic view fell out
of favor and was rejected as a way of continued framing of cultural identity
and understanding of their world. It only survived and proliferated because of
the fledgling movement known then as "the way" which was the early
followers of the ethic of Jesus. They
had taken interest in and appropriated it, obviously modified using more
ethereal elements as it continued to frame their worldview. It is in this sense
these ideas never had a true "Christian" origin.
Recently, within the stream of a seven year long theological
discourse, and before beginning this overview, I had put forward the idea that
the only reason that the strange language and beliefs unique to the ancient
apocalyptic era still exist within the sub-culture of religion is because of it
being mishandled by the reformers. So this is only partly true in that its roots
go back much further. The hope within the second temple era seemed to be
inextricably linked to an apocalyptic expression of messiah as a deus ex
machina of violent redemption. That simply never was to be and was subversively redefined by the ethic and self-giving life and death of Jesus. The destruction
of Jerusalem brought with it the deconstruction of the apocalyptic worldview
from within Jewish rabbinical thought.
This new movement-followers of the way-was able to
grasp-albeit in limited ways-the subversive aspect of the hope yet they did not
critique and leave behind the apocalyptic cultural bias as did the more
scholarly rabbinical groups. So apparently it seems then that those deeply
knowledgeable of and acculturated to the Jewish "way" missed the subversive
appearing of messiah while the multicultural-and largely illiterate-adopters of
"the way" of Jesus were able to grasp this subversity yet were still
adrift within a world of cultural ideas and hopes framed almost entirely by
folklore and superstition.
This simply shows why there is need for a fully orbed faith.
A faith that never turns its eyes and mind from reality in favor of embracing
cultural or religious sub-cultural delusions. What is sometimes obvious to
those who make a habit of broad study is missed by those who merely do
devotions-by definition the antithesis of study-and participate in religious
culture at large. Yet those participants can if not careful find themselves
first on the margins, then at the center, of irrelevancy by not getting the
mind in the game and working things out.
It doesn't require much thought to question whether
something is true or not. An entirely more engaging question is to ask:
"How is it true?"
