Themes In Apocalyptic Literature

Section One: Concepts Provided by Fee and Stuart
Analyze, describe implications, identify methods, problems, types

Answer the following questions:
1. (a) Why should a reader begin with the “then and there” meaning of the Bible before looking for the “here and now” meaning? (b) What is the danger of considering one meaning without the other?

For one to understand the meaning of the Bible they must first understand the “then and there” before the “here and now.” One of the first steps in exegesis is the revealing of the author’s original intent of it. The Word of God was first given to the characters within the stories. In order for them to understand it, it had to be given to them in through events and in the languages they understood. The problems one faces today are that they are so far removed from these characters

Within apocalyptic literature there lies common theses that deal with such things as coming judgement or salvation that is given during a time of great oppression or persecution. “The apocalyptics looks exclusively forward to the time when God would bring violent, radical end to history, an end that would mean the triumph of good and the final judgement of evil” (Fee and Stuart 2014, 260). In the context of apocalyptic literature, the authors are the agents of God that are speaking about the things to come from beginning of the end. Under the great inspiration of the Holy Spirit the authors were told to speak of the things they had been told or had seen. This form of literature has been presented often times in the form of visions or dreams that were containing cryptic and symbolic messages. “The images of apocalyptic are often forms of fantasy rather than of reality” (Fee and Stuart 2014, 260). Literature most of the time is formally stylized, tending to divide by time and events, along with symbolically using numbers (Fee and Start 2014,