Texts in Conversation
Pseudo-Philo and 2 Peter describe a future when time will speed up and cosmic signals depict the coming of divine renewal. In each, the speeding up of events is connected to human behavior, suggesting people can help bring the end sooner.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Pseudo Philo Biblical Antiquities 19:13
Classical
12 “I will take you from here and lay you down to sleep with your fathers, and I will give you rest in your resting place and bury you in peace. All the angels will mourn over you, and the heavenly hosts will grieve. But no angel or mortal will know the place where you are buried, until I visit the world. I will raise up you and your fathers from the earth in which you sleep, and you will come together and dwell in the immortal dwelling place that is not subject to time. 13 “This heaven will be in my sight like a fleeting cloud, like yesterday when it is past. When I draw near to visit the world, I will command the years and order the times, and they will be shortened. The stars will hasten, the light of the sun will hurry to set, and the light of the moon will not endure, because I will hasten to raise up you who sleep, so that all who are able to live may dwell in the place of holiness that I showed you.”
2 Peter 3:12
New Testament
11 Since all these things are to melt away in this manner, what sort of people must you be, conducting your lives in holiness and godliness, 12 while waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God? Because of this day, the heavens will be burned up and dissolve, and the celestial bodies will melt away in a blaze! 13 But, according to his promise, we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness truly resides.
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Notes and References
"... Rabbi Joshua maintains the traditional apocalyptic appeal to the sovereignty of God, who has determined the time of the End. When the appointed time arrives, the eschatological redemption will come as God’s sovereign grace to Israel, in no way dependent on Israel’s preparation. Rabbi Eliezer, on the other hand, makes the coming of redemption conditional on Israel’s repentance. The idea of Israel’s repentance before the End was not new, but the view that it is a condition for the arrival of redemption is at least rare in the earlier literature, though it subsequently became a common rabbinic view. It seems probable that Eliezer’s saying represents a reaction to the disaster of AD 70, when hopes of redemption were dashed and Israel experienced instead a catastrophe which could only be interpreted as divine punishment. The conclusion must be that Israel was unworthy of redemption. Only when Israel repented would redemption come ... * Midrash Tanhuma Behuqutai 5. The use of Isaiah 60:22 with reference to this issue is well attested for this period: 2 Baruch 20:1; 54:1; 83:1; Epistle of Barnabas 4:3; compare also Pseudo-Philo Biblical Antiquities 19:13; 2 Peter 3:12 ..."
Bauckham, Richard
The Jewish World around the New Testament: Collected Essays
(pp. 72-73) Mohr Siebeck, 2008
* 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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