Proefschrift--Groningen. / Bibliography: p. [122]-125.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Divinity School, June 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 278-295). Also available on the Internet.

This thesis is an exploration of the type of protagonist that tends to appear in a particular sub-genre, a scholar who behaves in the role of the hero. It tries to serve as a wide-ranging analysis of the sub-genre as a whole, including multiple mediums, but pays particular attention to the texts A Canticle for Leibowtiz and Oryx and Crake. The thesis also addresses the cultural work performed by post-apocalyptic fiction, and contends that the sub-genre serves as a way of questioning what is considered valuable within a culture, and why.

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One of the major aims of this dissertation is to demonstrate that modern apocalypticism, however rationally justified it may appear to be, is the product of desires comparable to those which prompted our forebears to espouse apocalyptic beliefs. Apocalypticism springs from a persistent desire to see the present world order replaced by a perfected world order, a desire to render sacred the profanity of existence. The modern predilection to view the world in ironic terms has, however, rendered us incapable of attaining a sacramental vision, and we are thus victims of an ironic apocalypticisrn, which deals only in terms of destruction, not of regeneration, and we look to the future with gloomy foreboding rather than millennial hope. This, then, is the death-wish of modern culture, and the major part of the dissertation is concerned to show how the sacramental vision of Romanticism, which was itself in the mainstream of the Christian apocalyptic tradition, became transformed in the nineteenth century into the ironic apocalypticism of the present day. The first chapter opens with a discussion of the nature of apocalyptic belief and traces its development up to the beginning of the nineteenth century. The central chapters examine in detail the careers of two writers--Carlyle and Tennyson--who started out from a fundamentally Romantic position, but who gradually moved towards a nihilistic vision of a world ruled by flux, which paved the way for the development of an ironic, non-sacramental vision. In the final chapter, the development of this ironic vision in the twentieth century is traced, and the dissertation concludes with an examination of current trends, and, in particular, of a nee-Romanticism, which seeks to reinstate a sacramental vision. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

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No description available.

This study fills a gap in previous research concerning the portrayal of Peter in Matthew, especially the research of narrative-critical studies. Although narrative-critical studies generally recognize that Matthew has portrayed Peter and the disciples as recipients of revelation at points, they almost entirely neglect the apocalypses or apocalyptic literature more broadly as a potentially helpful background for this motif, nor does the motif itself figure significantly into their conclusions. Therefore, Part 1 of this study examines fourteen different Jewish and Christian apocalypses in order to determine generic aspects of how the apocalypses portray their seers, and to identify specific textual features that support these generic aspects of a seer’s portrayal. These specific textual features then provide the guiding coordinates for Part 2, which assesses the influence of the generic portrayal of apocalyptic seers on the portrayal of Peter and the disciples in Matthew’s Gospel and main source, Mark’s Gospel. Like the apocalypses, both Evangelists deploy the features of exclusionary statements, narrative isolation, dissemination details, and emphasis of cognitive humanity and emotional-physical humanity to portray Peter and the disciples as the exclusive recipients of revealed mysteries, and as humans who encounter the mysteries of the divine realm. This leads to the conclusion that both Evangelists envisaged Peter and the disciples as apocalyptic seers in some sense. However, Matthew’s redaction of Markan source material, incorporation of Q source material, and his own special material yield a more fully developed, or more explicit, portrayal of Peter and the disciples as apocalyptic seers than his Markan predecessor. The study concludes by focusing directly on Peter’s significance for Matthew and his earliest audience. The research suggests that Peter’s significance was, in part, as principal apocalyptic seer, which requires revision to the predominant scholarly conclusions about Peter in Matthew.

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Scholars have long noted the number of similarities that seem to exist between Gnosticism and Jewish Apocalypticism. Numerous hypotheses have been suggested to account for them, but no one has yet attempted to examine these similarities in detail in order to define what it is that makes Apocalypticism apocalyptic and Gnosticism gnostic in spite of these similarities. The present work is an attempt to define, examine and classify these similarities by comparing the two systems. For it is our working hypothesis that such similarities can only be characterized when they are examined in terms of their function and form within their respective systems. Consequently, a number of similarities are traced through the concepts of world, God, man and salvation that exemplify both systems. First, we note, many of those similar features, i.e. motifs, mytholo-gumena and attitudes that characterize both movements such as the importance of Wisdom, the Primal Parents, and the anti-godly powers, to name but a few. Such common features, while interesting, are significant only when they are examined in terms of their function. Here we find that both systems do use many of the same features to serve the same function. Both systems are attempts to provide a soteriological theodicy, i.e. a theodicy which itself functions to bring man salvation even as it is revealed to him. But it is in terms of form that the distinction between Gnosticism and Apocalypticism is finally to be made. Both systems are dualistic in form, yet each has its own type of dualistic expression. Gnosticism is ontologically dualistic while Apocalypticism is ethically and eschatologically dualistic. As a result the common features appear in both systems in ways that are consistent with their respective forms (dualisms). The Gnostic thus rejects world understood as matter while the Apocalyptist rejects world understood as history. Thus it is in examining both systems as systems that we find that Apocalypticism and Gnosticism maintain a consistent correspondence in features, form and function. Although such a correspondence does not in itself provide proof of an historical relationship between the two systems, it does demonstrate that Apocalypticism was the Jewish counterpart of Gnosticism and so may well deserve being categorized as a Jewish Gnosis.