|
“The End of Historicism?
Reflections on the Adventist Approach to Biblical Apocalyptic– Part
One”
Accepted for publication in Journal of the Adventist Theological Society 12 (Fall, 2004)
Jon Paulien, Ph.D.
Andrews University
The
Seventh-day Adventist Church derives its unique witness to Jesus Christ from a
historicist reading of the apocalyptic prophecies of Daniel and Revelation.
Historicism understands these prophecies to portray a relentless march of
God-ordained history leading from the prophet’s time up to a critical climax at
the end of earth’s history. 
The interpretation of biblical apocalyptic was at the
center of Adventist theological development in the formative years of the
Adventist Church and its theology.
There were many reasons for this emphasis on apocalyptic. 1) Daniel and Revelation
provided much of the content that makes Adventist theology unique in the
Christian world. 2) These apocalyptic books furnished the core of Adventist
identity and mission, leading to the conviction that the Advent movement was to
play a critical role in preparing the world for the soon return of Jesus. 3) The
apocalyptic sense that God was in control of history supplied confidence to go
on even when the movement was small and difficulties were large. 4) The sense of
an approaching End fostered by the study of Daniel and Revelation supplied the
motivation to take the Adventist message to the world in a relatively short
period of time. While many Christians, including some
Adventists,
disagreed with the conclusions that the Adventist
pioneers drew from Daniel and Revelation, few in the early years challenged the
historicist pre-suppositions
behind those conclusions, as they were widely held
within Protestant scholarship in North America through at least the
mid-1800s.
In
the 20th Century, however, the historicist approach to apocalyptic
has been increasingly marginalized in the scholarly world. A book that charts
that marginalization was written as a doctoral dissertation by Kai Arasola, an
Adventist church administrator in Sweden.
Arasola points out that before the time of William
Miller (1782-1849), the founder of the movement that spawned the Seventh-day
Adventist Church among others, nearly all protestant commentators on apocalyptic
utilized the historicist method of interpreting prophecy. In his book Arasola
discusses the excesses of Miller’s historicist hermeneutic that caused
historicism to be generally discredited among scholars. Within a few years of
the Great Disappointment
the “centuries-old, well-established historical method
of prophetic exposition lost dominance, and gave way to both dispensationalist
futurism and to the more scholarly preterism.”
Extremely well-written and carefully nuanced, the book
is not a diatribe against historicism, as some have suggested from its title, it
is rather a historical documentation of the process by which historicism became
sidelined within the scholarly debate on apocalyptic.
According
to Arasola, historicism as an interpretive method became generally discredited
in large part because the followers of Miller shifted, in 1842 and 1843, from a
general anticipation of the nearness of the Advent to an attempt to determine
the exact time.
With the passing of the time set by the “seventh-month
movement” under the leadership of Samuel Snow, the methods of Millerism and
Miller himself became the object of ridicule,
a ridicule that continues in some scholarly circles to
this day.
In
conclusion, Arasola soberly suggests that Miller’s heritage is two-fold. “On the
one hand, he contributed to the end of a dominant system of exegesis, on the
other he is regarded as a spiritual father by millions of Christians who have
taken some parts of the millerite exegesis as their raison d’etre.”
While historicism has been replaced in the popular
consciousness by preterism and futurism, it is not, in fact, dead. It lives on
in a modified and partly renewed form in the churches that built their faith on
Miller’s heritage.
The
purpose of this article is to take a candid look at the current scholarly debate
over apocalyptic and its implications for Seventh-day Adventist study of Daniel
and Revelation. The particular focus is the degree to which the historicist
approach is still appropriate to the biblical apocalypses of Daniel and
Revelation. I begin with a brief look at how the process Arasola described is
beginning to erode confidence in historicism among the “millions” of Miller’s
spiritual descendants. I will then review the current state of the scholarly
debate over apocalyptic and how that impacts the Seventh-day Adventist
(hereafter SDA) perspective. After suggesting some guidelines for appropriate
interpretation of biblical apocalyptic, I will argue that a historicist
approach, in spite of the scholarly consensus against it, is in fact the most
appropriate approach to certain passages within biblical
apocalyptic.
Recent Developments
Within the Seventh-day Adventist Church
Speculation
Within
the last generation, a number of challenges have damaged the SDA consensus that
the historicist understandings of Daniel and Revelation offer a solid foundation
for Adventist faith. One source of damage, ironically, arises from among those
who are most committed to the method. As various interpretations put forth by
the SDA pioneers fail to connect with today’s generation, some supporters of
historicism have tried to update the relevance of historical apocalyptic to
connect various prophecies with recent history or even the current world
scene.
An example of the kind of interpretation I have in mind
here is where some SDA evangelists have tried to see the fifth trumpet of
Revelation as a prophecy of the Gulf War, with the locusts of 9:7-10
corresponding to the Marine helicopters with their gold-tinted windshields!
Others, usually on the fringes of the SDA Church, have sought to use apocalyptic
as a basis for determining the date of Jesus’ Coming or of other end time
events, mistakenly focusing on dates such as 1964, 1987, 1994 and the year
2000.
Even the SDA pioneers were not always attentive to the
biblical text in making applications to history.
Awareness of these speculative tendencies has caused
many thoughtful SDAs to question the entire validity of historicist
interpretation of apocalyptic. Such SDAs have found two other interpretive
options increasingly attractive.
Alternative
Approaches
Preterism.
A number of SDA thinkers, particularly those educated in religion and
history, have seen increasing light in the preterist approach to biblical
apocalyptic. This approach, the primary one among professional biblical
scholars, treats books like Daniel and Revelation as messages to their original
time and place, not as divinely-ordained chains of future historical events.
According to this approach, believers can benefit from these books, not by
seeing where they stand in the course of history, but by applying spiritual
principles drawn from the text to later situations.
This
approach should not be automatically treated as an abandonment of faith. It is,
in fact, the approach that believing Jews and Christians (including Adventists)
take to the bulk of the biblical materials. The letters of Paul, for example,
must be understood as the products of a human writer’s intention reflecting a
specific purpose and aimed at a particular audience. To read such letters as if
they were philosophical treatises with a universal purpose is clearly
inappropriate.
Nevertheless, in recognizing God’s purpose in including
these letters in the Bible, believers feel free to draw principles from Paul’s
letters and apply them to their own time and place as the Word of God. When done
with sensitivity to the original context, this is entirely appropriate for
Paul’s letters and also for parts of Daniel and
Revelation.
What
preterism as an approach to apocalyptic does is treat all of Daniel and
Revelation as if these books were little different than Matthew or Romans. While
such an approach is certainly appropriate to the narratives of Daniel and the
seven letters of Revelation 2 and 3 (Rev 1:11; 2:1,7,8.11, etc.), I will argue
below that preterism alone is not an adequate approach to the symbolic visions
of Daniel and Revelation. I will offer evidence in a future article that certain
texts in Daniel and Revelation belong to the genre of historical apocalyptic and
should, therefore, be interpreted in terms of historical sequence. I believe
that to ignore this evidence on philosophical or other grounds is to impose an
external system on the exegesis of the text.
Futurism.
A very different alternative to historicism sees apocalyptic as concerned
primarily with a short period of time still future from our own day. In my
experience this alternative has attracted a larger number of SDAs than the
preterist one, particularly those educated in law and various branches of
medicine, or those who have not had the opportunity of higher education. While
rejecting the dispensational form of futurism popularized by the Left
Behind series, such SDA Bible students are seeking end-time understandings
in every corner of Daniel and Revelation.
A
major motivation toward a futurist approach is “relevance.” Many SDAs feel that
both the preterist and historicist approaches confine interpretation to the
dusty past. They are seeking cues in the text that would enable them to speak
more directly to current issues in the world than traditional SDA applications
or scholarly exegesis appear to do. And it seems clear that many aspects of
Daniel and Revelation were intended to portray events that the biblical authors
perceived as distant from their time (Dan 8:26; 12:13) or directly concerned
with the final events of earth’s history and beyond. (Dan 2:44-45; 7:26-27;
11:40; 12:4; Rev 6:15-17; 7:15-17; 19:11-21; 21:1-22:5). So an examination of
Daniel and Revelation without an openness to a future understanding would be an
inappropriate limitation on the divine supervision of these
books.
Approaches
to Daniel and Revelation that limit the meaning of most of the text to end-time
events, however, have consistently proven to claim more than they can deliver.
In my experience Adventist forms of futurism tend toward an allegorism of dual
or multiple applications that loses touch with the original meaning and context
of these apocalyptic works. The futurist applications are of such a nature that
they tend to be convincing only to a limited number who share the same
presuppositions as the interpreter.
Post-Modernism
Another
challenge to historicist understandings of Daniel and Revelation arises from a
major philosophical shift in Western experience, sometimes called
post-modernism.
Beginning with “Generation X” most younger people have
had a tendency to reject sweeping solutions to the world’s problems. They
question both the religious certainties and the scientific confidence of their
elders. The apocalyptic idea that there could be a detailed and orderly sweep to
history seems hard to grasp and even more difficult to believe. While
post-modernists are more likely to believe in God than their baby boomer elders,
they have a hard time imagining that anyone has a detailed hold on what God is
actually like. While everyone, to them, has some handle on “truth,” no one has a
full grasp of the big picture. The confidence Adventist pioneers had about their
place in history seems, therefore, out of step with the times.
Post-modernism
raises some valid concerns about the “modernistic” confidence with which SDA
evangelists and teachers have trumpeted questionable interpretations of prophecy
in the past. Many have been all to quick to promote personal viewpoints as
absolute truth. But while it is healthy to acknowledge that everyone, including
SDAs, are ignorant about aspects of the “big picture” there is no reason to deny
that a big picture exists. While we may never grasp truth in the absolute sense,
the Bible teaches that absolute truth was embodied in Jesus Christ and revealed
sufficiently in His Word that we can have a meaningful relationship with Him. I
will argue below that one aspect of that revelation is apocalyptic of a
historical variety.
Conclusion
As
a result of these and other challenges SDAs today are paying less and less
attention to the historic Adventist approach to apocalyptic. Liberal,
conservative, old and young alike are experimenting with alternative approaches
and questioning traditional ones. But this lack of attention is not a neutral
matter. It is creating a radical, if unintentional, shift in the core message of
the Adventist Church. Prophetic preaching and interpretation is increasingly
left to the evangelists, while weekly sermons focus more on social scientific
insights and story telling. The result is, in my opinion, a crisis in Adventist
identity.
Biblical
interpretation is often subject to pendulum swings. The excesses or mistakes of
those who follow one approach may cause the next generation of interpreters to
swing to the opposite extreme, albeit for good reason. But balanced biblical
interpretation draws its impetus from the biblical text rather than fashion or
external assumptions. Historicism has been prone to excesses. It
has been applied to texts where it probably doesn’t belong (like the
seven churches of Revelation). But I will nevertheless argue that it offers the
best way to read many texts in Daniel and Revelation, texts supportive of the
historic Adventist identity. Totally abandoning the method would cause us to
misinterpret these portions of the biblical message.
In
the next section of this article I will examine some recent trends in
apocalyptic scholarship, in general first, and then with particular focus on
Adventist concerns and issues. I conclude the section with a proposal for
re-invigorating Adventist interpretation of Daniel and Revelation.
Recent Developments in
Apocalyptic Scholarship
The Definition and Genre
of Apocalyptic
Over
the last three decades apocalyptic scholarship has focused intently on issues of
genre and on the definitions of terms like apocalypse and
apocalyptic.
The leading figures during this period of study are John
J. Collins and his mentor Paul Hanson.
Working with a team of specialists under the auspices of
the Society of Biblical Literature, Collins helped shape the definitions that
are in working use today.
The
term “apocalypse” is drawn from the introductory phrase of the Book of
Revelation (Rev 1:1) and means “revelation” or
“disclosure.”
From the second Christian century onward it became
increasingly used as a title or “genre label”
for extra-biblical works of a character similar to
Daniel and Revelation in the Bible. As modern scholars took note that a whole
collection of similar works existed in ancient Judaism, they applied this later
label also to books like Daniel, Ethiopic Enoch, 4 Ezra, 2 Baruch and other
works produced before and contemporary with Revelation.
Paul
Hanson was among the first to distinguish between the terms apocalypse,
apocalyptic eschatology, and apocalypticism.
For him as for most others, “apocalypse” designates a
literary genre, which has since been given a scholarly definition (see
below).
Hanson defines apocalyptic eschatology, on the other
hand, as the world view or conceptual framework out of which the apocalyptic
writings emerged.
Apocalyptic eschatology was probably an outgrowth of
prophetic eschatology.
“Apocalypticism” occurs when a group of people adopt the
world view of apocalyptic eschatology, using it to inform their interpretation
of Scripture, to govern their lives, and to develop a sense of their place in
history.
There
is a general consensus among the specialists that the genre apocalypse should be
defined as follows:
“An
apocalypse is a genre of revelatory literature with a narrative framework, in
which a revelation is mediated by an otherworldly being to a human recipient,
disclosing a transcendent reality which is both temporal, insofar as it
envisages eschatological salvation, and spatial, insofar as it involves another,
supernatural world.”
As I understand this
definition, an apocalyptic work like Daniel or Revelation is revelatory
literature, which means it claims to directly communicate information from God
to humanity. This is accomplished in the form of a story, a “narrative
framework,” rather than poetry or some other form. The revelation is
communicated to a human being by “otherworldly beings” such as angels or the 24
elders of Revelation. The revelation discloses “transcendent reality,” that
which is beyond the ability of the five senses to apprehend, about the course of
history leading up the God’s salvation at the End, and about the heavenly,
“supernatural” world.
While this definition is
general enough to seem a fair description of books like Daniel and Revelation, I
find what it does not say extremely interesting. For one thing, it does not
insist that pseudonymity is a necessary component of apocalyptic
literature.
This is significant for Adventists, whose view of
God-ordained prophetic history is dependent on the possibility of predictive
prophecy.
While not present in the above
definition of “apocalypse,” scholars also distinguish between two types of
apocalyptic literature, the historical and the
mystical.
The historical type, characteristic of Daniel, gives an
overview of a large sweep of history, often divided into
periods,
and climaxing with a prediction about the end of history
and the final judgment.
Historical apocalyptic visions tend to be highly
symbolic; the images themselves are not intended to be literally true, but they
refer to heavenly and earthly beings and events.
While the prophetic visionary views this symbolic sweep
of history, he does not usually play a role in the visionary narrative
itself.
The mystical type of
apocalypse, on the other hand, describes the ascent of the visionary through the
heavens, which are often numbered.
This journey through the heavens is usually a sustained
and straightforward narrative involving the author or the implied author of the
apocalypse.
While symbolism may be used in mystical apocalyptic,
there is more of a sense of reality in the description, the visionary ascends
into a real place where actions take place that affect the readers’ lives on
earth.
There is some debate among
scholars whether these two types of apocalypses should be viewed as distinct
genres. Both types, however, can clearly occur in a single literary
work.
Both types, the historical and the heavenly, convey a
revealed interpretation of history, whether that history is past, present
(heavenly journey) or future.
For SDAs, as we have seen, the historical type of
apocalypse has traditionally been of primary interest.
Some scholars believe that the
historical type of apocalyptic thinking began with Zoroaster, a pagan priest of
Persia, but the relevant Persian documents are quite late and may be dependant
on Jewish works rather then the other way around.
It is more likely that the “dawn of apocalyptic” can be
traced to the prophetic works of the Old Testament, like Isaiah 24-27, 65-66,
Daniel, Joel and Zechariah.
When the prophetic spirit ceased among Jews during the
Persian period (6th to 4th century
BC),
pseudonymity became a way that uninspired writers sought
to recapture the spirit of the ancient prophets and write out what those ancient
prophets might have written had they been alive to see the apocalyptist’s
day.
How the book of Daniel fits into this larger historical
picture will be taken up below.
The Apocalyptic World
View
The term “apocalypticism,” as
noted earlier,
designates the world view that is characteristic of
early Jewish and Christian apocalypses, such as Daniel and
Revelation.
The world view of apocalypticism centered on the belief
that the present world order is evil and oppressive, and under the control of
Satan and his human accomplices. The present world order would shortly be
destroyed by God and replaced with a new and perfect order corresponding to
Eden. The final events of the old order involve severe conflict between the old
order and the people of God, but the final outcome is never in question. Through
a mighty act of judgment God condemns the wicked, rewards the righteous and
re-creates the universe.
The apocalyptic world view,
therefore, sees reality from the perspective of God’s overarching control of
history, which is divided into a series of segments or eras. It expresses these
beliefs in terms of the themes and images of ancient apocalyptic
literature.
Although this world view can be expressed through other
genres of literature,
its fundamental shape is most clearly discerned in
apocalypses.
While many consider the
apocalyptic world view inappropriate for a post-scientific world, many
fundamental SDA beliefs are grounded in biblical apocalyptic. In other words,
for Adventists the books of Daniel and Revelation are not marginal works, they
are foundational to the Adventist world view and its concept of God. Rejecting
the apocalyptic world view would inaugurate a fundamental shift in Adventist
thinking. The purpose of this article is not to settle whether such a shift
would be a good thing, but to examine whether careful biblical scholarship is
capable of sustaining the biblical basis for the Adventist world
view.
Recent SDA Scholarship
on Apocalyptic
In reaction to the work of
Desmond Ford,
an earlier generation of Seventh-day Adventist scholars
sought to distinguish the genres of prophetic and apocalyptic
eschatology.
“Prophetic” literature was divided into two major types;
1) general prophecy, represented by Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos and others, and 2)
apocalyptic prophecy, represented by Daniel and
Revelation.
General prophecy, sometimes called “classical prophecy,”
was seen to focus primarily on the prophet’s own time and place, but with
glimpses forward to a cosmic “Day of the Lord” culminating in a new heaven and a
new earth. Apocalyptic prophecy, on the other hand, was seen to focus on history
as a divinely-guided continuum leading up to and including the final events of
earth’s history.
William Shea, for example, felt that general prophecy
focuses on the short-range view, while apocalyptic prophecy includes the
long-range view.
It was argued that general
prophecy, because of its dual dimension, may at times be susceptible to dual
fulfillments or foci where local and contemporary perspectives are mixed with a
universal, future perspective.
Apocalyptic prophecy, on the other hand, does not deal
so much with the local, contemporary situation as it does with the universal
scope of the whole span of human history, including the major saving acts of God
within that history. The greater focus of general prophecy is on contemporary
events, the greater focus of apocalyptic prophecy is on end-time
events.
While general prophecy describes the future in the
context of the prophet’s local situation, apocalyptic prophecy portrays a
comprehensive historical continuum that is under God’s control and leads in
sequence from the prophet’s time to the End.
General prophecies, which are
written to affect human response, tend to be conditional
upon the reactions of peoples and
nations.
On the other hand, apocalyptic prophecies, particularly
those of Daniel and Revelation, tend to be unconditional, reflecting God’s
foreknowledge of His ultimate victory and the establishment of His eternal
kingdom.
Apocalyptic prophecy portrays the inevitability of God’s
sovereign purpose. No matter what the evil powers do, God will accomplish His
purpose in history.
The above distinctions are summarized in the box
below:
Characteristics of General and Apocalyptic
Prophecy
Apocalyptic Prophecy
Series of Historical
Events
Long-range View
Single
Fulfillment
End-Time Focus
Whole Span of
History
Unconditional
I believe that insights from
both general and SDA scholarship can be combined in a useful way. When dealing
with Daniel and Revelation, therefore, it is vital to determine the genre of a
given passage before deciding how that passage should be interpreted. SDAs have
had a tendency to see historical sequences in nearly every part of Daniel and
Revelation, even in the epistolary
and narrative
portions at times. I believe that Adventist interpreters
need to pay much closer attention to the genre of a given text before making
judgments regarding how to interpret the passage. A historicist approach is
appropriate wherever the genre of a passage is clearly historical apocalyptic.
Other genres call for other approaches. When the genre has been determined, the
appropriate approach can be taken.
While the distinction between
general prophecy and apocalyptic is helpful, apocalyptic as a genre is not
limited to the historical variety, as the Adventist discussion seems to
assume.
It may be more helpful to think of a prophetic
continuum
with general prophecy and historical apocalyptic at the
two ends (characterized in the above box), and a variety of apocalyptic
expressions in between including mystical apocalyptic and types that focus on
personal eschatology or include elements of both historical and mystical
apocalyptic.
The Distinctiveness of
Biblical Apocalyptic
While there is much common
ground in the above developments, Adventists tend to differ from most
scholarship on apocalyptic on account of their view of predictive prophecy.
Biblical scholarship today generally approaches the books of Daniel and
Revelation with the assumption that they are similar in character to the
non-biblical apocalypses.
Adventists, on the other hand, see a distinction between
canonical and non-canonical apocalyptic. For them, canonical apocalyptic (mainly
Daniel and Revelation) is inspired, non-canonical apocalyptic is not. For
Adventists Daniel and Revelation offer windows into the mind of God and His
ability to “know the end from the beginning” and announce ahead of time “what is
yet to come” (Isa 46:10; John 16:13). While acknowledging the existence of
pseudo-authorship and ex eventu prophecy in non-biblical
apocalyptic,
Adventists have understood the inspired apocalyptic of
the Bible to be substantively different.
In light of this, the date of
Daniel becomes a crucial issue of interpretation for Adventists. The book of
Daniel’s stated setting is in the courts of Babylon and Persia in the
6th Century BC. During that period of history the gift of prophecy
was exhibited in the work of Jeremiah, Ezekiel and perhaps others. Thus Daniel
would be counted among the inspired works of Scripture written around that time.
On the other hand, few scholars of Daniel would question that chapter 11
includes a remarkably accurate portrayal of certain events in the fourth, third
and second centuries before Christ.
Most scholars would argue that a second-century BC date
makes the most sense of that reality.
If one places Daniel in the
second century BC, it would clearly speak to a time when people believed that
the prophetic spirit had been silenced (Ps 74:9; 1 Macc 4:44-46; 14:41, cf.
mAboth 1:1).
Without the gift of prophecy it would be impossible for
anyone to write history in advance. Having said this, however, the historical
time periods of ex eventu prophecy reflected the conviction that a true
prophet such as Enoch, Moses, or Ezra would be capable of outlining history in
advance.
So if Daniel was actually written in the sixth century,
it stands as a remarkable evidence of predictive
prophecy.
Since evidence for a sixth-century date for Daniel has
been given elsewhere, that issue will not be taken up
here.
A New Approach to
Apocalyptic Genre
Revisiting the Genre of
Daniel
While Daniel and Revelation are
often thought of as quintessential apocalyptic books,
neither is a consistent example of the genre definition
offered above. Daniel has a number of characteristics that do not fit the
definition of apocalypse cited above. With the exception of Nebuchadnezzar’s
dream/vision in 2:31-45, the first six chapters of Daniel are of a largely
narrative character. While a “narrative framework” is a defining characteristic
of apocalyptic, the stories of Daniel 1-6 have few of the other characteristics
of apocalyptic. Within the larger genre of narrative, these stories instead fall
into a category often called “court tales,” which is fairly rare in the extant
literature of the ancient world.
Furthermore, at significant
points in the book (Dan 2:20-23; 9:4-19), prayers occur. The first of these is
in poetry, the second in prose! Other elements of Daniel are also written in
verse, prominent among these is the heavenly judgment scene of Dan 7:9-10,
13-14.
There are aspects of the book that also fit very well
into the Old Testament wisdom tradition.
Even the visions of Daniel don’t always precisely fit
the definition of apocalyptic. The closest fit is in chapters 11 and 12, which
are clearly historical apocalyptic.
Questions have been raised, on the other hand, whether
the visions of Daniel 7 and 8 truly fit the genre.
It is probably not helpful,
therefore, to state that Daniel as a whole is historical apocalyptic without a
certain amount of qualification. With careful attention to markers in the text,
however, it is not difficult to determine what parts of the book do exhibit the
historical brand of apocalyptic. In a future article I will argue from the text
that the visions of Daniel 2 and 7, for example, are rightly understood in terms
of historical apocalyptic.
While assessing the genre of
whole apocalyptic books is a most interesting pursuit, therefore, it may not be
as helpful to the interpretation of Daniel as a more nuanced approach. Daniel
clearly exhibits a mixed genre, with elements of narrative, poetry and prayers
sprinkled among the apocalyptic visions. Whether one wishes to describe these
elements as “genres,” “sub-genres” or “forms,” careful attention to needs to be
given on a text by text basis before it can be determined that a given passage
should or should not be interpreted as historical
apocalyptic.
The importance of careful
attention to genre is powerfully argued by Lucas, in his recent commentary on
Daniel.
Lucas points out that all readers have some sense of the
different genres of literature that exist in their culture. Because of this,
readers approach a given text with certain expectations based on the kind of
literature they perceive it to be. If an author wishes to connect with an
implied audience that author needs to adopt a genre that will communicate to
readers within that audience’s culture. Not to do so would be to risk great
misunderstanding.
Later readers who wish to
understand a text, therefore, need to identify the place any given text has
within the generic options available to the original audience. While the
original audience will make such identifications unconsciously, the later
interpreter will need to carefully observe the text under review, noting
literary markers that indicate genre within the culture and world view of the
original audience. There is great potential for misunderstanding, of course,
when later generations read a text. To treat a court tale or a classical
prophecy as if it were historical apocalyptic would be to draw false
conclusions. On the other hand, to treat historical apocalyptic as if it were
something else would also lead to inappropriate and misleading acts of
interpretation.
Seventh-day Adventist
interpreters have had the tendency to treat most or all of Daniel and Revelation
as historical apocalyptic, without specific attention to the textual markers
that would indicate such interpretation. As a result texts like the seven
letters of Revelation 2 and 3 or the “seven times” of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream
were interpreted in a historicist fashion even though there was no specific
textual evidence for doing so.
This approach was plausible when Daniel and Revelation
were thought of as completely apocalyptic. But a more nuanced approach is now
called for by the evidence.
When it comes to Daniel,
the interpreter must decide whether the genre of a given passage is narrative
(court tales), poetry, prayer, or apocalyptic. If the passage is apocalyptic it
needs to be determined whether the evidence of the passage points to mystical or
historical apocalyptic.
In a forthcoming article I will argue that the visions
and explanations of Daniel 2 and 7 exhibit the marks of historical apocalyptic.
I believe that most scholars would agree with me in that designation. As we have
seen, the primary point of difference between Adventist understanding of Daniel
and the scholarly majority has to do with the date of the book, whether the
visions are predictive or interpretations of history after the
fact.
Revisiting the Genre of
Revelation
A problem that previous
Adventist discussions have not adequately addressed is the relationship of
Revelation to the larger genre of apocalyptic prophecy. It has been largely
assumed that Revelation is of the same character as Daniel (which Adventists
generally treat as an apocalyptic prophecy).
Its visions, therefore, are usually interpreted as
unconditional prophetic portrayals of the sequence of both Christian and general
history from the time of Jesus to the end of the world.
This assumption, as we have seen, has not been found
compelling by specialists in the field.
Rather than exhibiting a
consistent use of historical apocalyptic, as many Adventists assume, Revelation
seems to smoothly blend characteristics of general
prophecy,
mystical apocalyptic
and historical apocalyptic,
not to mention the genres of
epistle,
and perhaps even narrative.
Like general prophecy, it is written to a specific time
and place and the audience is local and contemporary (Rev 1:1-4, 10-11, 2:1 -
3:22).
Its message was intended to be understood by the
original audience (Rev 1:3).
It describes its author as a prophet and his work as a
prophecy (1:3,10-11; 10:8-11; 19:10; 22:6-10, 16, 18-19). It is not, therefore,
simply a replay of the visions of Daniel.
At the same time, much of the
language and style of Revelation is clearly apocalyptic. Unlike classical
prophecy, Revelation exhibits a radical and complete break between the old order
and the new, just like Second Temple apocalyptic.
Like mystical apocalyptic, Revelation includes reports
of the writers forays into heavenly places (Rev 4-5; 7:9-17; 12:1-4; 14:1-5;
19:1-10). Like historical apocalyptic, there are clear traces of historical
sequence in Revelation (Rev 12:1-17 and 17:10).
So the genre of Revelation as a whole seems
mixed.
The early scholarly consensus
was that the book of Revelation as a whole was primarily
apocalyptic.
But that early consensus has needed qualification. The
similarity between portions of Revelation and other apocalyptic writings does
not negate the prophetic character of the book.
Not only so, some scholars feel the difference between
prophetic and apocalyptic genre is not always clear
cut.
The apocalyptic War Scroll found at Qumran, for example,
is saturated with Old Testament prophetic language.
On the other hand, the prophetic books of the Old
Testament, even the “classical” ones, contain many features common to
apocalyptic, such as the eschatological upheavals preceding the End (Joel
2:30-31; Isa 24:3),
and the inbreaking of the End-time itself (Amos 8:8-9;
9:5-6).
So to completely distinguish between prophetic and
apocalyptic books is extremely difficult if not
impossible.
It is perhaps safest to say
that the Apocalypse is a unique literary work, one that utilizes the expressions
of apocalyptic literature, but also reflects the conviction that the spirit of
prophecy had been revived (Rev 19:10).
George Eldon Ladd, therefore, proposed a hybrid
categorization.
In between prophetic literature and apocalyptic
literature
Ladd places a new category which he calls
“prophetic-apocalyptic.” Here he would place literature such as
Revelation.
Some would go a step further
than Ladd. They would argue that while there are elements of Revelation that
hark back to both OT prophecy and Jewish apocalyptic, the entire book is
portrayed as a letter to the seven churches of Asia Minor (Rev
22:16).
Ulrich B. Müller points out that although there is a
definite tension in character between the seven letters and the apocalyptic
portions of Revelation,
the fundamental prophetic content is the
same.
The apocalyptic war is not only played out in heaven, it
is also played out in the everyday life of the churches. While the epistolary
character of the seven letters is clear, categorizing the whole book of
Revelation as an “epistle” does not seem to make sense.
Ladd’s designation “Prophetic-Apocalyptic” or the
Adventist phrase “Apocalyptic Prophecy” seem more appropriate designations for
the genre of Revelation as a whole.
Adventists and the Genre
Debate
What is clear from the
scholarly debate is that the genre of Revelation as a whole is a mixed one whose
character cannot be determined with exactness.
The appropriateness of historicist method for
Revelation, therefore, is much less obvious than is the case with the visions of
Daniel. Most Seventh-day Adventists have not yet felt the force of this
difficulty. Having inherited the historicist approach from Protestant forebears
in the middle of the 19th Century,
Adventist interpreters have assumed that approach to be
the correct one for Revelation, but have never demonstrated it from the
text.
It should be evident for our
purpose that there are significant differences in the conclusions of scholarly
research with regard to Daniel and Revelation. While, for example, the visions
and explanations of Daniel are generally understood to bear the marks of
historical apocalyptic, as most Adventists have thought, there is disagreement
regarding the time of the visions and the genuineness of the book’s stated
historical context.
Unlike Daniel, there is little
dispute over the date of Revelation. Nearly all scholars would agree that the
book was written somewhere within a 30-year span.
But also in contrast with Daniel, it is far less obvious
whether any given passage of Revelation should be interpreted as historical
apocalyptic. But if a historicist approach to Revelation is to have any
validity, it must be demonstrated from the text, not assumed from long
tradition.
While the focus of scholarship
until now has been on classifying Revelation as a whole, there is increasing
interest in the genre of its parts.
I sense that precision regarding the genre of Revelation
as a whole has not made a huge difference in the interpretation of the book’s
parts.
I therefore agree with J. Ramsey Michaels that for
Revelation it will be more useful to pay attention to the genre of the parts
than of the whole.
One could say that Michaels and I are thinking of
“genre” more in the expanded German sense of Gattung, which can be used
for smaller literary units within a work as well as for the work as a
whole.
One would call work in the smaller literary units an
analysis of “forms,” but this might result in confusion with the methods of Form
Criticism as applied to the gospels.
So for now I will speak of the respective genres of the
various parts of Daniel and Revelation.
If Adventists wish to revive
the historicist approach to Revelation, therefore, they will need to pursue a
thorough-going examination of the genre of Revelation’s visionary passages on a
case by case basis.
One way to do this is to demonstrate that portions of
Revelation fit the genre of historical apocalyptic better than other options. I
attempt such an evaluation of Revelation 12 in a future article. If there is
historical apocalyptic in the Book of Revelation, it will be discerned in the
genre of the particular text, as is the case with Daniel.
Historical Apocalyptic
in Revelation
Unlike the case with Daniel,
few scholars argue that the Book of Revelation is
pseudonymous.
Most understand that John is the name of the actual
author, and that his prophecies are genuine attempts to outline future
events.
My question is, what is the nature of that outline? Is
it the more general and immediate perspective of a classical prophet, or does it
project a historical sequence like the apocalyptic visions of Daniel? While the
time frame of John’s understanding is certainly short (Rev 1:1, 3; 22:10), the
latter option needs to be considered possible. Why?
The historical time periods of
ex eventu prophecy (in Jewish apocalyptic) reflected the conviction that
a genuine prophet such as Enoch, Moses, or Ezra would be capable of outlining
history in advance.
In other words, the literary strategy of ex
eventu prophecy would have no credibility with its audience unless that
audience believed in the general concept of sequential predictive prophecy. Note
the language of D. S. Russell:
“The
predictive element in prophecy had a fascination for the apocalyptists and it is
to this aspect of the prophetic message that they devote so much of their
interest and ingenuity. . . . The predictive element in prophecy is not simply
accidental, as Charles would have us believe. It belongs to the very nature of
prophecy itself.”
Since
John, the author of Revelation, believed that the prophetic spirit had returned
(Rev 1:3; 19:9-10; 22:6-10),
he would have every reason to believe that the cosmic
Christ could reveal to him the general outline of events between his day and the
consummation. The return of genuine prophets would signal the return of
predictive prophecy.
If the Book of Revelation is genuine, not ex
eventu, prophecy, it needs to be addressed differently than non-canonical
apocalyptic.
The
question to examine then becomes: In his outline of future events (Rev 1:1) did
John the Revelator understand any of his visions to be in the genre of
historical apocalyptic?
Did he see himself in the heritage of Daniel and the
apocalyptic writers as a portrayer of historical sequence? And if he did, what
passages in Revelation need to be interpreted along the lines of historical
apocalyptic?
Conclusion
Since
the concept of predictive prophecy is grounded in the inspiration and authority
of the Scriptures, it should not surprise anyone that the vast majority of
Biblical interpreters throughout Christian history believed in predictive
prophecy and felt that Daniel and Revelation in some way offered an outline of
Christian history leading to the end of the world.
Most Adventists, like them, see no indication in the
text of Daniel and Revelation that the events symbolized in the visions were to
be confined to the distant past or the far future. They understand Daniel to
address the entire course of history from his time until the end. They
understand that the Book of Revelation speaks to the entire Christian era from
the cross to the second coming of Christ.
If
portions of Daniel and Revelation bear the character of historical apocalyptic,
they were intended to portray the chain of events leading from the visionary’s
time to the end of all things. Whatever time frame Daniel had in mind for this
chain of events (assuming a sixth century perspective), it involved a sequence
of kingdoms in control of God’s people before the end. While Daniel’s personal
time frame was short at first, the visions suggest that Daniel experienced a
stressful lengthening of that time perspective through the visions (7:28; 8:27;
9:24-27; 12:11-13).
In
applying a historicist approach to Revelation, on the other hand, it is not
necessary to claim that John himself, or any of the other writers of the New
Testament, foresaw the enormous length of the Christian era, the time between
the first and second advents of Jesus. If the Parousia had occurred in the first
century, no one would have been troubled on account of any statement in the New
Testament. The finality of the Christ event is such that looking beyond the
first century was not conceivable, even for the apostles.
But
regardless of the John’s own perception of time, the question here is whether or
not John saw the future in terms of a sequence of events or purely in the
immediate terms typical of the OT Day of the Lord prophecies. Time has continued
far past John’s expectation. If John’s Apocalypse is a genuine revelation the
question becomes whether or not God used the immediate intention of a human
writer, who thought he was close to the End, to say anything substantive about
the events that lay beyond his time.
Given
the immediate perspective of Revelation, historicism must draw meaning from an
extended significance (sensus plenior?) that unfolds only with the
passage of time. A valid historicism will build on the natural meaning of John’s
intention, but come to see a deeper divine purpose through the confirmation of
history and/or later revelation.
There is an analogy for this in the NT itself. The NT
writers viewed the OT with the wisdom of time passed and saw God’s hand in those
texts in ways the human authors of those texts did not fully perceive. Should we
not be prepared for a similar expansion of meaning from our own perspective of
time passed? The passage of more than 1900 years means that Revelation’s
attempts at periodization have been stretched far beyond John’s recognition. I
would argue that such a “divine reading” is valid if based on exegesis and
proper attention to genre, but invalid if it loses touch with text and
context.
As
Paul has said, “We see through a glass darkly” and “we prophesy in part” (1 Cor
13:9, 12). Only from the perspective of the Parousia will history speak with
perfect clarity. Any rebirth of historicist interpretation among scholars of
faith, therefore, will need to avoid the minute details and “newspaper” exegesis
of previous interpretation, while taking seriously the plain meaning of the
symbols in their original context.
In
a follow-up article I intend to examine two of Daniel’s visions, in chapters 2
and 7, to lay out the kinds of markers in the text that indicate the presence of
historical apocalyptic. I will then attempt to outline a strategy for detecting
similar passages in the Book of Revelation, using chapter 12 as a test case. I
believe the evidence will show that historicist interpretation should not be
a priori excluded from the study of Revelation on account of the excesses
of the past. As Arasola concluded in his seminal work, declarations of the “end
of historicism” may prove to have been premature.
|
