APOCALYPTIC LITERATURE

literary genre that flourished from about 200 BC to about AD 200, especially in Judaism and Christianity. Written primarily to give hope to religious groups undergoing persecution or the stress of cultural upheavals, apocalypses (from the Greek apokalypsis: revelation) describe in cryptic language, understood by believers, the sudden, dramatic intervention of God in history on behalf of the faithful elect. Accompanying or heralding God's dramatic intervention in human affairs will be cataclysmic events of cosmic proportions, such as a temporary rule of the world by Satan, signs in the heavens, persecutions, wars, famines, and plagues. Although apocalyptic writers do examine the present, determining whether current afflictions are fulfillments of past apocalyptic prophecies, such writers generally concentrated on the futureon the future overthrow of evil, on the coming of a messianic figure, and on the establishment of the Kingdom of God and of eternal peace and righteousness. The wicked are described as consigned to hell and the righteous or elect as reigning with God or a messiah in a renewed earth or heaven. The Book of Daniel in the Old Testament and the Revelation to John in the New Testament represent apocalyptic writing, and several intertestamental books contain apocalyptic themes. Apocalyptic themes have been revived in modern literature and frequently appear in science fiction.