The meaning of Apocalypse

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/apocalypse

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/harvard-theological-review/article/gilayon-and-apocalypse-reconsidering-an-early-jewish-concept-and-genre/DACB90C388C2CD98E768379BFED593FA

noun
a prophecy or revelation, especially regarding a final cataclysmic battle between good and evil.

the apocalypse, in some belief systems, a final cataclysmic battle of this kind, in which evil is defeated and the present age brought to a close:
According to traditional evangelical teaching, the apocalypse will begin with a time of persecution.

the apocalypse, the end of civilization; the complete destruction or collapse of the world as we know it (sometimes used facetiously):
On both ends of the political spectrum, visions of the apocalypse and predictions of doom abound.
We thought this recession might be the apocalypse, and sales would go down to 1 percent.

Apocalypse is the ancient title for the final book of the New Testament usually translated into English as The Book of Revelation. The word evokes moral chaos, the breakdown of civilization, the wrath of the Almighty, vast destruction, a moment of transcendence from a final historical epoch to eternal bliss or damnation. These powerful Judaeo-Christian biblical associations – Armageddon, the End of Time, and a Final Judgment upon worldly life – survive with uncanny appeal in the modern secular vocabulary of metaphors for upheaval and disaster.

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9780230597310_6

The disclosure of secrets may go as far as the occurrence or even prescription of wide dissemination (sometimes even among Gentiles and the wicked), as in 1 En. 82:1–2; 104:11–13; 2 En. 33:9–10; 35:2–3; 48:5–8; 54:1 (“the books which I have given to you, do not hide them”); Rev 1:11. Footnote40 Given this task of dissemination, the role of writing becomes central as the most efficient tool for the preservation and dissemination of knowledge (even if still relatively young and controversial at the time; see on this below). The development therefore entails an image of the revealed written text—that is to say, gilayon.

This new term might serve, inter alia, to distinguish later, and more logocentric, apocalyptic experiences or literary genres from biblical prophetic encounters entitled “visions” (חזון,חזיון,מחזה), Footnote41 “oracles,” or “utterances” (משא). Footnote42 Thus, Paul distinguishes between ὀπτασίαι (“visions”) and ἀποκαλύψεις (“revelations”) in 2 Cor 12:1.

This emphasis on scribal rather than oral prophetic practices must reflect a change in intellectual practices and in the Zeitgeist in general. It finds parallels in many apocalyptic contexts, which refer to celestial scribal activity (1 En. 74:2; Jub. 4:17; 2 En. 22; 23:4–6; 4Q203 8; b. Ḥag. 15a) Footnote43 as well as to the scribal activity of apocalyptic seers (1 En. 12:4; 15:1; 82:1: 92:1; 4 Ezra 12:36–38; T. Mos. 1:16; Rev 1:11; etc.). Footnote44 More generally, we can observe a dichotomy of biblical prophets replaced by apocalyptic sages or scribes, such as Enoch, Baruch, and Ezra or the visionary sages of later Hekhalot literature. Footnote45

[αποκαλυπτω | αποκαλυψισ]
The Meaning of Apocalypse
Paul Corcoran

Apocalypse is the ancient title for the final book of the New Testament usually translated into English as The Book of Revelation. The word evokes moral chaos, the breakdown of civilization, the wrath of the Almighty, vast destruction, a moment of transcendence from a final historical epoch to eternal bliss or damnation. These powerful Judaeo-Christian biblical associations – Armageddon, the End of Time, and a Final Judgment upon worldly life – survive with uncanny appeal in the modern secular vocabulary of metaphors for upheaval and disaster.

Extra-canonical Footnote16 apocalyptic writings are the best candidates for this category for at least four reasons: 1) the semantics of the term gilayon, which could be seen as derived not only from the Hebrew root gll “roll, fold, unfold” but also from gly/glh (or the Aramaic gl’) meaning “open, reveal,” and whose verbal form was often translated by the Greek ἀποκαλύπτειν; 2) the Syriac equivalent for Hebrew gilayon, gelyānā’/gelyōnā’ (ܓܠܝܢܐ/ܓܠܝܘܢܐ), often means “revelation, apocalypse”)including in the titles of apocalyptic writings); 3) this highly specialized Syriac term was most probably a Hebraism borrowed from the Jewish definition of some corpus of revealed literature (because its only meaning attested in Christian Syriac is “apocalypse,” and the form could hardly have been created in Syriac just for such a narrow usage); and finally, 4) the combination of the meanings “book” and “revelation” in one term made it a perfect expression for the title “book of revelation” and also for the concept of an otherworldly revealed book, central to many apocalyptic writings.

This paper examines various ways in which apocalyptic studies can benefit from the introduction of the term and concept of gilayon, a reconstructed Hebrew counterpart of the Judeo-Greek apocalypse. The term gilayon, which combines the meanings of “revealed book” and “book of revelation,” refers to a central image of early Jewish revealed literature and could serve to define an important corpus, the boundaries of which might well overlap with (but still differ from) what is understood by the “genre apocalypse” in modern research. Moreover, this reconstructed concept uncovers additional meanings and associations, which shed light on texts known as “apocalyptic,” and has explanatory power for many phenomena associated with them. The introduction of gilayon may modify the entire paradigm of our understanding of early Jewish mysticism and help to divert the discussion of textual genres associated with it from a phenomenological to a historical route.

The connection between the meaning of the word gilayon and the content regularly found in the corpus of Jewish revealed literature seems so obvious that it is unclear how it could have been overlooked until now. This connection cannot but cause a noticeable shift in the system of our perception of apocalyptic motifs. Below I will dwell on the following implications of this reconstruction. The first and foremost is 1) actualization of the motif of the revealed book. This in turn would demand reevaluation of some other adjacent motifs, such as 2) open versus sealed books, 3) revealed versus secret books, 4) written versus oral teachings, 5) the place of the revealed book among other apocalyptic media, and finally, the connection between gilayon imagery and 6) messianic teachings, 7) terminology applied to and in early Christian writings, and 8) theologies of salvation.

The demonstrating and unrolling or unsealing of the scroll occupy a central place in some prophetic and many apocalyptic narratives. In Isa 29:11–12 “the whole [prophetic] vision” (חזות הכל) is compared to “the words of the sealed book [scroll]” (דברי הספר החתום). In Ezek 2:9–3:3, revelation is accompanied by eating, “filling the belly” with the “sweet” celestial scroll (Heb. מגילה or מגילת ספר; Ezek 3:1–3); we find the same motif in Rev 10:9–10. In the Parables of Enoch, while receiving a revelation, the seer actually “received books of zeal and wrath as well as the books of haste and whirlwind” (1 En. 39:2).

Isa 34:4 even uses the verb from the same root as gilayon: ונמקו כל־צבא השמים ונגלו כספר השמים וכל־צבאם יבול כנבל עלה מגפן וכנבלת מתאנה: “All the host of heaven [= stars] will be dissolved and the heavens will be rolled up like a book [= scroll]. All their host will fall like withered leaves from the vine, like shriveled fruit from the fig tree.” In other words, here we find the idea that in the astrological world the very heavens are themselves a book, recording the human state and enabling him who “reads” them to reveal hidden knowledge. Footnote

The meanings of “reveal, discover” Footnote22 and “uncover, open” are equally expressed by the Semitic root gly/glh. This fact may be connected to a widely developed motif of opening (and unsealing) the celestial book.

There may also be a general semiotic/infralinguistic basis for the metaphor of the book as revelation. The book—and more especially the scroll, before the widespread introduction of codices—is by definition an object that must be uncovered and unrolled (or opened) in order to reveal its contents.

The opened celestial book (an unsealed and/or unrolled scroll) is a leitmotif of Revelation (see chapters 5–6; 10; 20; etc.) and is widely found applied to celestial books in other apocalyptic writings as well: “The [celestial] court sat in judgment, and books were opened” (וספרין פתיחו; Dan 7:10); “and the Lord of the sheep sat on it, and they took all the sealed books and opened those books before the Lord of the sheep” (Animal Apocalypse 90:20); “And in those days I saw the Head of Days sit down on the throne of his glory, and the books of the living (maṣāḥefta ḥeyāwān) were opened before him” (Parables of Enoch 47:3); “And the judge told one of the angels who served him, ‘Open this book for me and find for me the sins of this soul.’ And when he opened the book he found its sins and righteous deeds to be equally balanced” (T. Ab. A 12:17–18); “And that man opened one of the books which the cherubim had and sought out the sin of the woman’s soul, and he found (it). And the judge said, ‘Exhibit the sin of this soul.’ And, opening one of the books which were with the cherubim, he looked for the sin of the woman and found (it)” (T. Ab. B 10); “When the seal is placed upon the age that is about to pass away, then I will show these signs: the books shall be opened before the face of the firmament, and all shall see my judgment together” (4 Ezra 6:20); “For behold, the days are coming, and the books will be opened in which are written the sins of all those who have sinned” (2 Bar. 24:1); “one of the angels who was standing by, more glorious than that angel who had brought me up from the world, showed me (some) books [or “book” in Slavonic and Latin], but not like the books of this world; and he opened them, and the books had writing in them, but not like the books of this world” (Mart. Ascen. Isa. 9:20–21). Compare also “the books of the living ones were open before him” (Parables of Enoch 47:3, cited above) and “[The angels] read, they choose, they love … their codex is never closed, nor is their book ever folded shut. For you yourself are a book to them and you are ‘for eternity’ ” (legunt, eligunt, et diligent … non clauditur codex eorum nec plicatur liber eorum, quia tu ipse illis hoc es et es in aeternum; Augustine, Confessions 13.151).

Thus, in the very term gilayon we have a linguistic representation of the observation that it is the disclosure of divine secrets which is “the true theme of later Jewish apocalyptic,” Footnote28 rather than eschatology, etc.

Apocalyptic secret books, even when uncovered, may still preserve their esoteric character, since they are often revealed only to a chosen few, at a prescribed time, or only in part: for example, Dan 12:4 and 9; 1 En. 32:21–22; 107:3; 2 En. 35:2; Jub. 1:27; 32:21–22; 45:15; 4 Ezra 12:37–38; 14:6, 26 and 46; T. Mos. 1:16–18; 10:11–12; Ap. John 31 (NHL 116); Ap. Jas. 1.8–32 (NHL I. 2); CMC 43 (54.1). Footnote30 In this connection, it is also worth mentioning the secret books of Essenes and other Jewish sectarians Footnote31 and other attested forms of concealed divine knowledge.

This unity of concealment and revelation is often found in an antithetic form in the New Testament: “the revelation of the mystery [ἀποκάλυψιν μυστηρίου] hidden [σεσιγημένου] for long ages past, but now revealed [φανερωθέντος]” (Rom 16:25–26; see also Mark 4:22; cf. Luke 8:17; Col 1:26–27; 3:3–4; Eph 3:4, 9–10; etc.). Thus, terms like ἀπόκρυφος or ἀπόρρητος may refer to the same “hidden” or “secret” knowledge to which ἀποκάλυψις/גליון and its synonym φανερόν apply. Footnote35 See, for example, “For there is nothing hid [κρυπτὸν], which shall not be revealed [φανερωθῇ]; neither was anything kept secret [ἀπόκρυφον], but that it should become revealed [φανερόν]” (Mark 4:22; cf. Luke 8:17; Col 2:3).

The disclosure of secrets may go as far as the occurrence or even prescription of wide dissemination (sometimes even among Gentiles and the wicked), as in 1 En. 82:1–2; 104:11–13; 2 En. 33:9–10; 35:2–3; 48:5–8; 54:1 (“the books which I have given to you, do not hide them”); Rev 1:11. Footnote40 Given this task of dissemination, the role of writing becomes central as the most efficient tool for the preservation and dissemination of knowledge (even if still relatively young and controversial at the time; see on this below). The development therefore entails an image of the revealed written text—that is to say, gilayon.

This new term might serve, inter alia, to distinguish later, and more logocentric, apocalyptic experiences or literary genres from biblical prophetic encounters entitled “visions” (חזון,חזיון,מחזה), Footnote41 “oracles,” or “utterances” (משא). Footnote42 Thus, Paul distinguishes between ὀπτασίαι (“visions”) and ἀποκαλύψεις (“revelations”) in 2 Cor 12:1.

This emphasis on scribal rather than oral prophetic practices must reflect a change in intellectual practices and in the Zeitgeist in general. It finds parallels in many apocalyptic contexts, which refer to celestial scribal activity (1 En. 74:2; Jub. 4:17; 2 En. 22; 23:4–6; 4Q203 8; b. Ḥag. 15a) Footnote43 as well as to the scribal activity of apocalyptic seers (1 En. 12:4; 15:1; 82:1: 92:1; 4 Ezra 12:36–38; T. Mos. 1:16; Rev 1:11; etc.). Footnote44 More generally, we can observe a dichotomy of biblical prophets replaced by apocalyptic sages or scribes, such as Enoch, Baruch, and Ezra or the visionary sages of later Hekhalot literature. Footnote45

Thus, the semantic ambiguity of the word gilayon, which contains the meanings of both “book” and “revelation,” may reflect a certain development of apocalyptic concepts and practices in comparison to the earlier prophetic tradition. In particular, this implies: 1) less figurative conceptions of revelation, including the revealing of written materials—that is, revelatory reading rather than seeing; and 2) a functional form of the genre, written rather than oral.

Source:
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/harvard-theological-review/article/gilayon-and-apocalypse-reconsidering-an-early-jewish-concept-and-genre/DACB90C388C2CD98E768379BFED593FA