Texts in Conversation

The Apocalypse of Zephaniah describes pairs of people walking, grinding at a mill, or lying in bed, imagery that closely parallels Matthew’s vision of two people together with one taken and the other left. Both texts use everyday scenes of ordinary life to frame sudden judgment, reflecting a shared Jewish-Christian literary connection.
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Apocalypse of Zephaniah 2:2

Pseudepigrapha
1 Now I went with the angel of the Lord, and he took me up over all my city. There was nothing before my eyes. 2 Then I saw two men walking together on one road. I watched them as they talked. 3 And, moreover, I also saw two women grinding together at a mill. And I watched them as they talked. 4 And I also saw two upon a bed, each one of them acting for their mutual ... upon a bed.
Date: 50 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates) Source

Matthew 24:40

New Testament
38 For in those days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark. 39 And they knew nothing until the flood came and took them all away. It will be the same at the coming of the Son of Man. 40 Then there will be two men in the field; one will be taken and one left. 41 There will be two women grinding grain with a mill; one will be taken and one left. 42 “Therefore stay alert because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.
Date: 70-90 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates) Source
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Notes and References

#2965
"... Zephaniah is generally considered to be a pseudonym used by an anonymous writer who either believed that he was writing in the spirit of the biblical prophet ... it is fairly clear that the writer was a Jew. In the surviving portions of the text that deal with doctrines as basic as judgment for sin, intercessory prayer, and life after death, there is nothing distinctively Christian. The lack of Christian elements is even somewhat surprising when we remember that the manuscripts came from the library of a Christian monastery. They were preserved by monks, and in all probability copied by monks from earlier manuscripts that had been translated from Greek to Coptic within a Christian community ... however, there is no clear example of any such modification of the text. The closest point of contact with Christian writings is found in the Akhmimic text. At 2:1-4 there is a close parallel to Matthew 24:40f, and Luke 17:34-36. At 6:11-15 there is a description of the angel Eremiel that has several features in common with descriptions of angels in Revelation. At 10:9 there is a quotation containing the word katechoumenos, which is used in a sense frequent in patristic texts. Nevertheless, each of these parallels may be rather easily explained as due to a common Jewish-Christian heritage. The most important point to observe is that in the surviving fragments there is no evidence of any Christian modification of any of the major theological concerns expressed in the work ..."
Charlesworth, James H. The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (p. 501) Doubleday, 1983

* 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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