Anathea E. Porter, Apocalypse Against Empire: Theologies of Resistance in Early Judaism Apocalypse; Wm. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids, MI; ISBN 978-0-8028-7083-4 ©2014, $35 p. 462, including bibliography and indexes
By Fred Reiss, Ed.D.
WINCHESTER, California — I enjoy the amusement created by modern-day “prophets” declaring a forthcoming date to be the end of the world, the start of Armageddon, or the imminent arrival of the Rapture. Perhaps you do, too. Apocalyptic pronouncements, predictions of future events revealed by heavenly messengers, have a long history. Among the most notable is the Christian Bible’s Book of Revelations. Arguably, some elements of apocalyptic literature can be found in the biblical books of Joel, Zachariah, and Isaiah. The Book of Daniel, which is among the oldest apocalyptic books, offers a fully-developed message about future events.
The Book of Daniel, written in a combination of Hebrew and Aramaic, tells the story of a young God-fearing Judean, Daniel, and his three friends who are living in Babylonia by virtue of the defeat of the Jews by King Nebuchadnezzar in the sixth century BCE. The first half of the book describes how, as a reward for Daniel steadfastly holding on to Jewish beliefs in a pagan country, God gives Daniel the unique ability to interpret the king’s dream and saves Daniel and his friends from the king’s fiery furnace. The second half presents a series of revelatory visions in which monstrous creatures are symbolically vivified.
Anathea E. Porter-Young, an associate professor of the Old Testament at Duke University and author of Apocalypse Against Empire, offers that apocalyptic literature does not really predict and describe future events, but allegorically depicts existing oppressive conditions, surreptitiously calls for action, and then projects into the future what the author wants to see happen. Thus, biblical apocalyptic literature is often an anonymous, and sometimes pseudonymous, outcry to the populace to resist, overtly or covertly, against the repressive dominating empire.
She suggests that in the case of the Book of Daniel, written at the time of the Maccabees, the oppressors are the Seleucids, one of the two ruling dynastic successors to Alexander the Great in Judea. During the time of the Maccabees, the Seleucid ruler Antiochus IV Epiphanes allowed Hellenizing institutions, such as the gymnasium (athletic training school) and ephebate (military training school), to be erected in Jerusalem. These institutions, directly competing with the ancient traditions of Judaism and providing paths to Greek citizenship, chipped away at Jewish core principles, such as Sabbath observance, circumcision, and keeping kosher. The Book of Daniel, according to Porter-Young came about as a call for action against this empire.
Another apocalyptic book, 1 Enoch, gained appreciation during the mid-second century BCE. This work, purportedly written by Enoch, but believed by scholars to have been created by many different writers over the span of a century, from about the mid-third century BCE to the mid-second century BCE, is composed of five booklets. Apocalypse Against Empire focuses on three of those booklets: Book of the Watchers (1 Enoch 1-36), Apocalypse of Weeks (1 Enoch 91:11-17 and 93:1-10), and Book of Dreams (1 Enoch 83-90).
In the first booklet, Enoch tells the tale of the Watchers, those fallen angels who fathered the Nephilim, which are described in Genesis 6:1-2, and brought evil into the world, as well as narrates his heavenly travels. The second of the three is the rendering of a single apocalyptic vision in which Enoch figuratively describes Israel’s past, present, and future. The third is an allegorical retelling of the history of Israel in which animals represent humans and vice versa. Apocalypse Against Empire shows how these three parts of 1 Enoch and the Book of Daniel are linked together through inspiring apocalyptic tales of the faithful, destruction of evil-doers, and crushed empires.
In Part 1 Porter-Young offers the theoretic background to support her theory that apocalyptic narratives represent acts of resistance to imperial hegemony. To that end, she presents various definitions of resistance, theories of struggle, and conceptualizations of defiant actions.
In Part 2, we are treated to a finely woven history of the rule of the Seleucid Empire in Judea beginning with the Battle of Panium, in the upper Galilee, which ended the Fifth Syrian War and the defeat of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt for control of Judea in 200 BCE. She concludes about three decades later, in 167 BCE, with Antiochus’ edict against Judea. Between these two points, Porter-Young poignantly describes the interactions between the conquering empire and their Jewish subjects, showing how the relationship deteriorates from benign rule to rule-by-terror.
By the time of the Maccabean Revolt, Antiochus and his commanding general murdered more than 40,000 Jerusalemites, abducted and sold another 40,000 Judeans into slavery, pillaged the Temple, established an atmosphere of brutal suppression, revoked any remaining Judean autonomy, and forbade the practice of Judaism throughout the empire, even making it illegal to publicly declare oneself a Jew.
In this section, Porter-Young draws heavily on the contemporaneous writings of the Greek historian Polybius, 1 and 2 Maccabees, and the recently published interpretation of the Heliodorus stele, which shows a Seleucid letter informing the Judeans of the coming of Antiochus’ representative to oversee the Temple and its treasuries. She also includes the Roman historian Livy and Jewish historian Josephus, both of whom lived about a century after these events. Additionally, Porter-Young links historical events in this time period with verses from the Book of Daniel and 1 Enoch in order to stress her main points: First, these apocalyptic books were written to encourage Jewish resistance against the Seleucid Empire, and second, the revolt led by the Maccabees was not about Hellenism versus Judaism, but rather, who has true dominion over the Jewish people, provides for their care, and controls their fate, God or Antiochus and the Seleucid Empire?
In the final section, Porter-Young critically examines Daniel, the Apocalypse of Weeks, and the Book of Dreams. In Daniel she sees its author being part of a Jewish intelligencia, perhaps belonging to the scribal class, or the priesthood, whose path to resistance is “covenant faithfulness in the face of death.” The theology of the Book of Daniel wants faith in God through non-violent and passive resistance against the empire, even if it leads to martyrdom.
In contrast, Porter-Young notes that Enoch describes his vision in Apocalypse of Weeks with sentences like, “Then shall the roots of iniquity be cut off; sinners perish by the sword; and blasphemers be annihilated everywhere,” and “Those who mediate oppression, and those who blaspheme, by the sword shall perish.” She thereby concludes that the Apocalypse of Weeks calls for an armed uprising against the Seleucids. Similarly, the Book of Dreams asks its readers to open their eyes and ears to the Law of Moses so that they come to realize that only God must be obeyed. In Enoch’s second vision, the sheep grow horns, a clandestine call-to-arms, according to Porter-Young. Thus, the Book of Dreams also portrays armed revolt as the theological means to achieve the author’s ends.
Porter-Young gives the reader a splendid interpretation of early Jewish apocalyptic literature as a genre that requires the allegorical recasting of the overwhelming wickedness of its day; thereby providing hope, demanding resistance, and prophesying that the world will move into an idyllic future. Apocalypse Against Empire combines theory and scholarship on Jewish apocalyptic literature with a readable and instructive history of Judea in the three decades leading up to the victorious rebellion led by Judah Maccabee and his family.
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Dr. Fred Reiss is a retired public and Hebrew school teacher and administrator. He is the author of The Standard Guide to the Jewish and Civil Calendars; Ancient Secrets of Creation: Sepher Yetzira, the Book that Started Kabbalah, Revealed; and a fiction book, Reclaiming the Messiah. He may be reached via fred.reiss@sdjewishworld.com.