Texts in Conversation
Matthew 24 and the Apocalypse of Abraham 31 both reflect Jewish tradition that describes the final moment when the sound of a trumpet calls the scattered of Israel from all directions, imagery tied to the permanent end of exile.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Matthew 24:31
New Testament
29 “Immediately after the suffering of those days, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of heaven will be shaken. 30 Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and all the tribes of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man arriving on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. 31 And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet blast, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. 32 “Learn this parable from the fig tree: Whenever its branch becomes tender and puts out its leaves, you know that summer is near. 33 So also you, when you see all these things, know that he is near, right at the door.
Date: 70–90 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
Apocalypse of Abraham 31:1
Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses
1 "And then I will sound the trumpet from the air, and will send my Chosen One, with one measure of all my power in him; and he will summon my despised people from the nations, 2 and I will burn with fire those who have insulted them and who have ruled among them in (this) Age. And I will hand those who have mocked me over to the scorn of the coming Age; 3 and I have prepared them to be food for the fire of Hades and for endless flight back and forth through the air in the underworld beneath the earth [the body filled with worms.
Date: 70–150 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... while features of the two messianic figures often appear intertwined and sometimes confused, their respective eschatological functions are nevertheless clearly delineated in the program outlined by the authors. Thus, the first, mistreated messiah appears to be endowed with a rather misleading, yet purifying function, and, as the scapegoat of the atoning rite, can be understood as a gatherer and remover of the impurity associated with the Gentiles and idolatrous Hebrews. In contrast, the second messianic character appears to be playing the more traditional messianic role, the role reiterated in Apocalypse of Abraham 31:1, which depicts the parousia of the victorious messiah who will come with the sound of the trumpet and power in order to gather the elect ..."
Andrei A. Orlov, Divine Scapegoats: Demonic Mimesis in Early Jewish Mysticism (Albany, NY: State University of New York, 2015), 123–124.
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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