Book Review: The Open Heaven: A Study of Apocalyptic in Judaism and Early Christianity

THE OPEN HEAVEN: A STUDY OF APOCALYPTIC IN JUDAISM AND EARLY CHRISTIANITY. By Christopher Rowland. New York: Crossroad, 1982. Pp. xiii + 562. $27.50. This substantial book begins with an effort to determine what is distinctive in apocalyptic and thus to decide which works should be designated as apocalypses. Rowland then discusses the contents of the selected works in terms of the heavenly and the earthly, of the past and the future. The temporal range of the apocalyptic works considered runs from several centuries B.C. (1 Enoch, Daniel, Jubilees) into secondcentury Christianity and rabbinic Judaism. The definition of "apocalyptic" is notoriously difficult. Although distinctive literary features are shared by many apocalypses, they are not universally present and are increasingly recognized as secondary elements. Excluding both literary features and subject matter as definitive, R. finds the common factor in apocalyptic to be "the belief that God's will can be discerned by means of a revelation which unfolds directly the hidden things of God." This element is more important for him than eschatology, and the absence of it leads R. to exclude from his treatment the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs and the Sibylline Oracles. Although I have no substitute to propose, I find R.'s definition no less arbitrary than some of those he rejects. In the long run, he does not establish but merely affirms the defining factor. As for the range of works considered, I judge it more profitable to include Ezekiel, Trito-Isaiah, Zechariah, and Joel at the early end of the apocalyptic spectrum (thus starting the trajectory several centuries earlier than 1 Enoch or Daniel), whether or not those works meet the exact definition of an apocalypse— a definition that is always somewhat arbitrary. At the other end of the spectrum, I remain suspicious of R.'s inclusion of Slavonic Enoch because it remains uncertain how much of that work is truly of second-century A.D. provenance rather than of much later origin. The heart of R.'s book is the study of the contents of the various apocalypses he has chosen to consider. A good bibliography and nearly seventy pages of notes (unfortunately bunched at the end instead of being distributed as footnotes) are evidence of his control of the subject. The detail of the treatment, which makes the book impractical for beginners, offers more advanced readers a mine of information. (My attempts to use the subject index warned me, however, that there are many more references to some listed topics than indicated therein.) The style is somewhat rambling, but that is more than offset by solid judgment and truly perceptive observations about the remarkable variations in