ABOUT THOSE APOCALYPSES: I said on Sunday that I would try to get back to examples of apocalypses that lack references to future eschatology. I mentioned 3 Enoch 1-15/16 (in Charlesworth's Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 1:255-68). Add to that 3 Baruch (OTP 2:653-79), the Apocalypse of Paul (Robinson, Nag Hammadi Library, 2nd ed., 256-59) and the Apocalypse of Adam (Robinson, 277-86). My point in the "Animal Apocalypse and Daniel" paper was that when you take works like these alongside Daniel and Revelation it is difficult to see how they are "apocalyptic" apart from simply embodying the genre "apocalypse." Apocalypses need not deal with future eschatology. They do always have divinely revealed secrets, but so do other genres such as pesharim, Sibylline oracles, and even incantations. There is no center to the term "apocalyptic" apart from as an adjective applied to apocalypses. It is true that there was much interest in ancient Judaism and early Christianity in revealed heavenly secrets and speculations about future eschatology but to call this apocalyptic is to use confusingly imprecise terminology.

I rest my case. Off now to the Symposium.