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Mark: Apocalyptic • “ A genre of revelatory literature with a narrative framework, in which a revelation is mediated by an otherworldly being to a human recipient, disclosing a transcendent reality which is both temporal, insofar as it envisages eschatological salvation, and spacial insofar as it involves another, supernatural world”, Collins, Apocalypticism, 9
Mark: Apocalyptic • Writings typically interpret present and earthly in light of supernatural world and future • Influences understanding and behaviour of audience: divine authority • Associated with groups in crisis (e.g. the persecution of the church)
Mark: Apocalyptic • Within the literary genre apocalypse, we find two distinct types of material: “historical” apocalypse (e.g. Revelation), rise and fall of nations, end of history and the world; “cosmic” or “mystical” (e.g. Books of Enoch) eschatology of individual and fate of soul]. • Hellenistic Judaism and Early Christianity
Mark: Apocalyptic • Signs: Heaven torn apart during the baptism of Jesus (1:10); curtain of the Temple torn at his death (15:37-9) • Son of Man (earthly figure, a servant, a future eschatological judge) • “One like a son of man” (Dan 7:14) • 1 Enoch: passes judgement of humanity
Marcan Apocalypse: 13 • Jesus’ prophecy of Temple’s fall: War of 66-73 CE • “The desolating sacrilege”; Mark 13:14-20; cf. Dan 9:27; 11:31; 12:11. • Daniel: Syrian monarch Antiochus IV (175-63 BCE) defilement of Temple by a Gentile King • Relationship between Mark and Paul