Apocalyptic Time (Studies in the History of Religions) (Studies in the History of Religions)

409 Pages·2000·20.95 MB·English

by  Albert I. Baumgarten

APOCALYPTIC TIME
NUMEN BOOK SERIES
STUDIES IN THE HISTORY
OF RELIGIONS
EDITED BY
WJ. HANEGRAAFF
VOLUME LXXXVI
APOCALYPTIC TIME
EDITED BY
ALBERT I. BAUMGARTEN
BRILL
LEIDEN • BOSTON • KOLN
2000
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Apocalyptic time / edited by Albert I. Baumgarten.
p. cm. — (Numen book series. Studies in the history of
religions, ISSN 0169-8834 ; vol. 86)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 9004118799 (alk. paper)
1. Eschatology—Congresses. I. Baumgarten, Albert I. II.
Studies in the history of religions ; 86.
BL500.A66 2000
291.2'3—dc21 00-029731
CIP
Die Deutsche Bibliothek - CIP-Einheitsaufiiahme
Apocalyptic time / ed. by Albert I. Baumgarten. — Leiden; Boston
Kdln : Brill, 2000
(Studies in the history of religions ; Vol. 86)
ISBN 90-04-11879-9
ISSN 0169-8834
ISBN 9004118799
© Copyright 2000 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
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CONTENTS
Introduction vii
A.I. Baumgarten
End of Time and New Time in Medieval
Chinese Buddhism 1
H. Seiwert
Apocalypticism, Symbolic Breakdown and Paranoia:
An Application of Lifton's Model to the
Death-Rebirth Fantasy 15
M. Hazani
The Apocalyptic Year 200/815-816 and the Events
Surrounding It 41
D. Cook
I am not the Mahdi, But 69
P. Heine
The Development of Essenic Eschatology 79
A. Steudel
Innere Zeit und apokalyptische Zeit 87
A. Agus
Dating the Eschaton: Jewish and Christian Apocalyptic
Calculations in Late Antiquity 113
0. Irshai
'The Time of the End:' Apocalypticism and its
Spiritualization in Abraham Abulafia's Eschatology 155
M. Idel
Breaking the Boundaries of Time and Space in
Kabbalistic Apocalypticism 187
R. Elior
Abnormal and Normal Time: After the Apocalypse 199
G. Motzkin
VI CONTENTS
Why Lubavitch Wants the Messiah Now:
Religious Immigration as a Cause of Millenarianism 215
A. Szubin
The Moral Apocalypse in Byzantium 241
J. Baun
Cognitive Dissonance and Proselytism: An Application
of Festinger's Model to Thirteenth-Century Joachites 269
E. Wardi
Awaiting the Last Days. . . . Myth and Disenchantment 283
J. Fried
Apocalyptic Space 305
M. Barasch
The Restoration of Israel as Messianic Birth Pangs 327
H. Kippenberg
When Prophecy Fails and When it Succeeds: Apocalyptic
Prediction and the Re-Entry into Ordinary Time 341
S. O'Leary
Memory and the Metamorphosis of Apocalyptic Time
in an Italian Millenarian Movement: The Case of
David Lazzaretti and his Followers 363
G. Filoramo
Index of Subjects and Names 373
Contributors 387
INTRODUCTION
I
The essays in this volume are revised versions of papers delivered
at the second international colloquium, held February 19—2,2, 1996,
under the auspices of the Taubes Minerva Center for Religious
Anthropology at Bar Ilan University.1 The ideas in this Introduction
formed the basis for a presentation I made at the 1999 meeting of
the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, in Boston, MA. The
essays here represent contributions on the topic of Apocalyptic Time
written by scholars from Germany, Israel and other parts of the
world. While there is an inevitable focus on the Abrahamic religions
and on the part millenarian movements have played in their history,
there is also a deliberate attempt to go outside those limits in at
least a few contributions. Several papers concentrate on abstract
aspects of the question and utilize concrete examples from Abrahamic
religions only as the basis for more general reflection.
The choice of the theme for the colloquium, and its extended dis-
cussion in these papers, is another indication of the commitment of
the Taubes Minerva Center to Religious Anthropology, which the
Center was created to study. The investigation of millennial move-
ments is a prime example of the benefit to be gained by focusing
on the human side of matters, on what people do and why they
behave in the ways they do, stressing the dynamics of the formation
of collective identity, as a window of insight into religious experience.
Moreover, in exploring this topic we are elaborating the intellectual
legacy of Jacob Taubes, who devoted attention to the subject, from
his earliest publications to his last.
The expression of these concerns, when approaching the topic of
millenarianism in this volume, was the decision to concentrate on
the role of time in millennial movements. On the personal and
1 Two papers delivered at that colloquium have since appeared elsewhere. They
are: A. Kosman and N. Rubin, "The Clothing of Primordial Adam as a Symbol
of Apocalyptic Time in Midrashic Sources," HTR 90 (1997) 155-174; R. Landes,
"On Owls, Roosters and Apocalyptic Time: A Historical Method for Reading a
Refractory Documentation," USQR 49 (1996) 41-65.
Vlll INTRODUCTION
collective levels, time is an essential aspect of human cosmogony,
and studies of the experience of time have provided valuable insights
into larger aspects of culture. It is this achievement which we hope
we have succeeded in adapting to the study of millennial movements,
ultimately understanding them better as a result of the effort devoted
to Apocalyptic Time.
To attain this goal, a broad degree of freedom was granted authors.
Accordingly, as the attentive reader of the essays collected here will
note, no unified theoretical perspective was imposed on the contrib-
utors. Indeed, several papers adopt methods or reach conclusions
against which others argue. All authors do not employ the terms
"messianic," "millenarian" or "apocalyptic" in exactly the same sense,2
nor would the authors of the papers in this volume necessarily agree
with the synthesis to follow, for which I alone am responsible.
II
The papers gathered here serve as a stimulus for generalization about
the nature of millennial movements, about their entry into and exit
from Apocalyptic Time.3 This general outline is not intended as a
means of overcoming the diversity of millenarian experience, as
reflected in the papers in this volume and elsewhere. Rather, to the
contrary, it is explicitly intended to embrace the diversity of that
experience. I take the acknowledgement that there is no single stand-
ard millenarian vision in Judaism, Christianity or any other major
2 Compare A.I. Baumgarten, The Flourishing of Jewish Sects in the Maccabean Era:
An Interpretation (Leiden: E.J. Brill & Co., 1997) 153-156, and R. Landes, "Lest the
Millennium be Fulfilled: Apocalyptic Expectations and the Pattern of Western
Chronography," The Use and Abuse of Eschatology in the Middle Ages (eds.: W. Verbeke,
D. Verhelst and A. Welkenhuysen; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1988) 205-208.
3 In this synthesis I focus less on how members of these groups behave in apoc-
alyptic time, as the general conclusion has been well put by others. See, e.g. K. Bur-
ridge, New Heaven, New Earth: A Study of Millenarian Activities (Oxford: B. Blackwell,
1969) 167:
Knox's remarks concerning the alterations of scandal and rigorism characteristic
of enthusiastic movements are not simply good history. The two go together, are
integral parts of a transition process in which the new rules are still experimen-
tal and uncertain ... It could be argued that orgies of sexual promiscuity . . . and
the high idealism often connoted by the release from all desire are polar oppo-
sites. But the fact remains that both meet in precisely the same condition: that
of no obligation.
INTRODUCTION IX
religious tradition as one of the hallmarks of contemporary research
on the topic.4
I suggest that we focus on four stages or phases in the life of a
typical millennial group. The first phase is one of arousal, in which
the message of the imminent end gets an audience. There are always
people claiming that the end is near, but they are often regarded with
disdain.5 When the message is dismissed its bearer usually retreats
back into his or her "normal" world, anxious to forget the whole
episode.6 What is special about the formation of a millennial move-
ment is that for a variety of reasons circumstances are such that the
millennial message attracts a responsive audience. Mutual valida-
tion—which is essential for the continuation of the process—then
takes place between the bearer of the message and a community
which accepts it as authoritative.7
While there may be many reasons for this heightened receptivity
to the millennial message, one in particular deserves special men-
tion. As Wayne Meeks has noted,8 people whose place in life has
undergone a drastic change, either a sudden rise or an acute fall, are
especially aware of a sense of a world out of joint, and hence unusu-
ally interested in a message that preaches that their situation is not
anomalous, but part of a larger pattern of imminent cosmic change,
soon to transform heaven and earth.
The second stage is the search for the "Signs of the Times." As
it were, a spiritual radar goes on to seek confirmation of the mil-
lennial message in a variety of contexts, including events of the age,
both good and bad (sometimes even good and bad at the very same
time), chronological reckonings of different sorts and Biblical inter-
pretation. This search proceeds by triangulation: as many different
independent lines of argument as possible are developed to confirm
the conclusion that the end is in fact near.
4 See the essay which turned scholarship on ancient Judaism and Christianity,
at the very least, in that direction, M. Smith, "What is Implied by the Variety of
Messianic Figures?" JBL 78 (1959) 66-72.
5 They are told to "take a Physic," and are usually regarded as medical cases.
See e.g. C. Hill, The English Bible and the Seventeenth-Century Revolution (Harmondsworth:
Penguin, 1994) 243.
6 Compare what happens to contemporary sufferers of the 'Jerusalem Syndrome."
7 R. Stark, "How Sane People Talk to the Gods: A Rational Theory of Revelation,"
Innovation in Religious Traditions—Essays in the Interpretation of Religious Change (eds.
M. Williams, C. Cox and M. Jaffee; Religion and Society 31; Berlin/New York:
De Gruyter, 1992) 19-34, esp. 28-29.
8 W. Meeks, The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1983) 172-174.