This accessible and enlightening history provides insights into the fascinating genre of apocalyptic literature, showing how the apocalypse encompasses far more than popular views of the last judgment and violent end of the world might suggest.
An accessible and enlightening history of the "apocalypses"--ancient Jewish and Christian works -- providing fresh insights into the fascinating genre of literature
Shows how the apocalypses were concerned not only with popular views of the last judgment and violent end of the world, but with reward and punishment after death, the heavenly temple, and the revelation of astronomical phenomena and other secrets of nature
Traces the tradition of apocalyptic writing through the Middle Ages, through to the modern era, when social movements still prophesise the world’s imminent demise
About the Author
Martha Himmelfarb is the William H. Danforth Professor of Religion at Princeton University. Her work has focused on Judaism of the Second Temple period and apocalyptic literature in particular. She is the author of Tours of Hell: An Apocalyptic Form in Jewish and Christian Literature (1985), Ascent to Heaven in Jewish and Christian Apocalypses (1993), and A Kingdom of Priests: Ancestry and Merit in Ancient Judaism (2006).
Features
An accessible and enlightening history of the "apocalypses"--ancient Jewish and Christian works -- providing fresh insights into the fascinating genre of literature
Shows how the apocalypses were concerned not only with popular views of the last judgment and violent end of the world, but with reward and punishment after death, the heavenly temple, and the revelation of astronomical phenomena and other secrets of nature
Traces the tradition of apocalyptic writing through the Middle Ages, through to the modern era, when social movements still prophesise the world’s imminent demise
