Did any Man Asend to Heaven Before Jesus?

by gumby 85 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  Leolaia

  There you go, that's a much better definition than the Wikipedia one.

  It gives a pretty decent description of apocalypse that accurately lists the features that distinguish it from prophecy: the time frame (which is after the OT prophets), pseudenymity (which was not a literary device of the OT prophets), the expectation of an imminent cosmic cataclysm (which is found in much -- though not all -- of apocalypse), dualism (i.e. between God and the forces of evil), etc. The description however misses the most important feature: that apocalypse is revealed to the writer/seer and often there is an angelus interpres. One could also add that apocalypse depends more on past prophecy and traditions (i.e. in a midrashic sense) than prophecy which has fresher originality.

  And the definition of "apocrypha" gets at the main distinction I was trying to express, between a general category of "hidden" literature and a specific deuterocanonical category.
• 

  5go

  Trust me I know you no more than me. But there was a rabbi and a jewish scholar on the history channel the other day talking about Enoch and they referred to it as Apocryphal rabbinical tradition of what happened to him.

  Apocalyptic doesn't mean just prophecies of doom, and groom but tends word tends to be used in connection with prophesies not past, or hidden doings of heavenly beings unless they are involved in the fullfillment prophecy of course.

  Apocryphal tends to do with things not covered in the bible, and yes it has a negative meaning to it which it got over time do to the corniness of some of the stuff left out of the bible.
• 

  Leolaia

  But there was a rabbi and a jewish scholar on the history channel the other day talking about Enoch and they referred to it as Apocryphal rabbinical tradition of what happened to him.

  That's okay. It would have been more technically accurate to say "extracanonical" or "parabiblical" with reference to rabbinical traditions because they bear rabbinical halakhic authority and are not "spurious" like pseudonymous works, whereas when it comes to the Enochic literature, it is fair to call it "apocryphal" but a better term would have been pseudepigraphal, which is the specific term for the genre they belong to. But in a popular program on the History Channel, I don't think "pseudepigrapha" is as readily understood by the general audience as "apocrypha".

  Apocalyptic doesn't mean just prophecies of doom, and groom but tends word tends to be used in connection with prophesies not past, or hidden doings of heavenly beings unless they are involved in the fullfillment prophecy of course.

  Partially correct, but this is really overgeneralized. What does the Book of Luminaries, which circulated at Qumran as an independent book, have to do with the fulfillment of prophecy? There is also quite a LOT of the past in apocalypse, e.g. especially the apocalyptic survey of history. Within the Enochic genre, the Book of Watchers (detailing how the angels sinned and how giants came to be on the earth), the Animal Apocalypse (which relates the whole history of mankind from Adam to the Flood to the exodus to David to the Exile to the eschaton), the dream vision of the Flood in the Book of Dreams, and the "Birth of Noah" story appended to the Epistle of Enoch come to mind especially. All of this is relevant to the end times, but quite a lot of 1 Enoch is in fact devoted to "prologue".

  Apocryphal tends to do with things not covered in the bible, and yes it has a negative meaning to it which it got over time do to the corniness of some of the stuff left out of the bible.

  Extracanonical is probably a better term for what you mean. Not everything extracanonical is apocryphal. Josephus' Wars of the Jews is extracanonical, but it is hardly apocryphal.
• 

  5go

  Josephus' Wars of the Jews is extracanonical, but it is hardly apocryphal.

  Not a good example do to the fact Wars of the Jews did not claim to see into the veiled realm of god (hence not much to be unveiled). It tends to be a historical account with a god willed it overtone. Although it may fit into apocalyptic literature do to the fact it covered the fulfillment of a prophecy.

  The reason it didn't make into the cannon also has to do with it barely having only one mention of Jesus,( it was written by some who never converted ) and some scholars are starting to question that one mention. As it maybe a latter add in by a christian copyist. Also the book didn't claim divine authorship either.

  I don't doubt though there is a book that might better fit what you are trying to say.
• 

  Leolaia

  Not a good example do to the fact Wars of the Jews did not claim to see into the veiled realm of god (hence not much to be unveiled).

  No, no, you're confusing the two again, it is "apocalypse" that is unveils or reveals the unseen, not apocrypha which can be any kind of literary genre...including historiography (such as 1 and 2 Maccabees).

  It tends to be a historical account with a god willed it overtone. Although it may fit into apocalyptic literature do to the fact it covered the fulfillment of a prophecy.

  I didn't compare it with apocalyptic literature, I was citing it as an example of an extracanonical book which is not apocryphal in the usual sense. It is a relatively secular piece of writing (thought to have been written for Vespasian and other Romans), with no "scriptural" pretensions whatsoever.

  The reason it didn't make into the cannon

  It was not a "contender" for the canon to begin with. It was a contemporary piece of historical writing about recent events for a largely Gentile audience.
• 

  M.J.

  Thanks for the responses!