| The dissertation falls into two parts. Part One examines the historical allegory known as the "Animal Apocalypse" (1 Enoch 85-90), written in the early years of the Maccabean revolt. The study attempts to show that the overall purpose of the allegory is to centralize and explicate the biblical promise of universal blessing through Abraham and "his seed," the latter understood as the ultimate, authentic, and ideal Jacob/Israel, who has not yet appeared. To that end, the An. Apoc. articulates an original theological interpretation of human history, setting forth an Urzeit wird Endzeit model that puts Eden-to-Isaac on one end and Jacob-to-Eden (regained) on the other, with the history of the nation of Israel taking place between the mundane Jacob of old and the heavenly Jacob yet to come. This lengthy, in-between age is not understood as the stage upon which salvation history unfolds. Rather, the allegory depicts Israel's history as a series of vignettes illustrating the dynamics of moral responsibility and the paramount necessity of an authentic encounter with the divine ("beholding the glory of God"), an experience of enlightenment not bound to any era, office, or institution. It is this experience that qualifies humans to participate in the universal blessing promised to Abraham. Since the history of Israel the nation serves no other purpose, it disappears when the "true Israel" appears, both as eponymous patriarch and as transformed and perfected humanity.;This ambitious historical-theological statement was written during the opening years of the Maccabean conflict, and it was put to practical use as propaganda for Judas Maccabee and the revolt, a role which explains various emphases in the text as well as its 490-year, four-kingdom model in order to strengthen the allegory - credentials as a reliable revelation by linking its chronological apparatus to known historical events.;Part Two is a new translation of and commentary on the An. Apoc. , taking into account the historical-theological perspectives and the practical political emphases discovered in Part One. |
