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Apocalypse of Zephaniah

About this book
Zephaniah's Journey Echoes the Visions of 1 Enoch Probable

Zephaniah's Journey with the Angel

Chapter 2

1 Then I went with the angel of the Lord, and he led me over my whole city. No one was in front of my eyes. 2 Then I saw two men walking together on a road, and I watched them as they talked.⁠ 3 I also saw two women grinding together at a mill, and I watched them as they talked. 4 And I saw two on their bed … 5 And I saw the whole inhabited world below, like a drop of water hanging from a bucket as it comes up from a well. 6 I said to the angel of the Lord, "Is there no darkness or night in this place?"⁠ 7 He answered me, "No. For in the place where the righteous and the holy ones are, there is no darkness; they are always in the light."⁠ 8 And I saw all the souls of people who are being punished. 9 I groaned to the Lord Almighty, "God, if you stay with the holy ones, you will also be patient with the world and with these souls who are in this punishment."

Texts in conversation

Compare Apocalypse of Zephaniah 2:2 and Matthew 24:40

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses · New Testament

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Summary

The Apocalypse of Zephaniah describes pairs of people walking, grinding at a mill, or lying in bed, similar to Matthew’s vision of two people, one taken and the other left. Both use ordinary moments to frame sudden judgment, showing a common tradition.

Passages

Apocalypse of Zephaniah 2:2

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses
1 Then I went with the angel of the Lord, and he led me over my whole city. No one was in front of my eyes. 2 Then I saw two men walking together on a road, and I watched them as they talked. 3 I also saw two women grinding together at a mill, and I watched them as they talked. 4 And I saw two on their bed …
100 BCE – 175 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in the Apocalypse of Zephaniah

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.
70–90 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Matthew

References

"... 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 ..."
James H. Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1983), 501.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Apocalypse of Zephaniah 2:2 and Matthew 24:40

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