When it comes to eschatology, rather than studying to arrive at an interpretive understanding of Bible passages according to context in light of the full counsel of Scripture, one extreme school of thought automatically relegates all “coming” passages to a preterist (fulfilled in our past) interpretation. At the other extreme, another school of thought presupposes “coming” passages to have a futurist (still in our future) interpretation. The all-preterist system can be called pantelism; the hyper-futurist hermeneutic is adhered to in the system commonly known as dispensationalism.

Eschatology represents the climax of a rich narrative of creation and redemption in which God as supreme agent preserves and restores the world from its collapse into sin and death. Eschatological claims have been deeply contested in Christian theology and philosophy in the recent past. In part, the worries about eschatology have often been driven by epistemological concerns that have deep roots in the beginning of modern philosophy. Some leading theologians have made eschatology the heartbeat of their theology, as in the case of Jürgen Moltmann. Wolfhart Pannenberg went further and made it central to his epistemology of theology. Epistemology is generally understood as the critical investigation of rationality, justification, and knowledge. While the intellectual omnicompetence of natural science has always been challenged, eschatology in the modern period has lived under the shadow of forms of positivism that have materially and formally cast doubt on its intrinsic credibility. The retrieval of a robust vision of eschatology goes hand in hand with the retrieval of a substantial vision of divine revelation.

These are papers written for a class on eschatology.

In this paper, I attempt to read the doctrine of eschatology from both a liberationist and a psychoanalytic lens.

Erfurt (DE), 13th-14th May 2020, Bildungshaus "St. Ursula", in collaboration with Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Bonn) and Max-Weber-Kolleg für kultur- und sozialwissenschaftliche Studien (Erfurt)

2013

Babylonian "Combat myth" (Gattung), 2 whose themes included "primal time" (Urzeit), "end-time" (Endzeit), creation and new creation (Clifford 2003:3). 3 These dramatic narratives were ancient Near Eastern way of thinking "philosophically" about the world. Clifford notes, Retelling one basic narrative in slightly different versions enabled ancients to reflect about the governance of the world and explain the course of history, especially the history of their own nation. Their era took for granted the existence and power of the gods and factored them into their reflection, as our era takes for granted and reckons with a different (and less ultimate) range of forces, for example, the power of ideas, of free trade, of energy resources. To do philosophy, theology, and political theory, modern thinkers employ the genre of the discursive essay rather than the narrative of the combat myth. Despite the differences, one should not forget that ancients and moderns share an interest in ultimate causes and both are intent on explaining the cosmos, the nature of evil, and the validity and the functions of basic institutions. Apocalyptic literature at bottom is not bizarre and opaque, but is rather a narrative way of reflecting about theology, philosophy, and history, and of inculcating a way of life. (2003:26) Central to ancient Mesopotamian eschatological understanding was the interpretation of the movements of the astrological constellations. The practice of astrology in ancient Babylon goes back to 3000 BCE. The Babylonian "Dominion of the Zodiac" consisted of the number twelve, which represented their gods. Twelve divisions were assigned time values of one-thousand years each to form the Dominion of the 2 See Hermann Gunkel, Schöpfung und Chaos in Urzeit and Endzeit: Eine religiongeschichtliche Untersuchung über Gen 1 Ap Joh 12 where he argues that Genesis 1 and Revelation 12 are adaptations of traditions ultimately from Babylon. Gunkel argued that apocalyptic literature was rooted in The Combat Myth was the normal way of thinking about the world. Examples of Mesopotamian myths include Lugal-e, Anzu, and Enuma elish. Later discoveries (from 1929) of Ugartic, Sumerian and Akkadian texts have demonstrate a link, according to Clifford, to the Biblical apocalyptic literature. "Creation" accounts were not typically of the physical order, but what emerged from the victory of a successful God was a populated universe of organized human society in service to the gods and king. 3 "Prophetic" texts from Mesopotamia typically begin with the phrase "a prince shall arise" which are prophecies after the fact (vaticinia ex eventu). Clifford notes that passages from Daniel, I Enoch, and the Sibylline Oracles follow this style. The prophecies show that "the apocalypticists were anthologists, borrowing genres such as the post-factum prediction to demonstrate that the course of history was under God's control and that in their day history as they knew it had come to an end and a new ages was about to dawn." The most relevant themes from these early works which influence the later apocalyptic literature are cosmic threat and new creation.

Religious Studies Review, 2009

The Edinburgh Critical History of Christian Theology (vol. 6: The Twentieth Century), 2021

This chapter re-evaluates the sources and directions of twentieth-century eschatological thought, that is, of reflections on the Christian hope for 'the last things'. The chapter opens with a sketch of the sources of 20 th-century developments in the 19 th century. Although 19 th-century eschatology was dominated by assimilation to the age's general meliorism, the roots of early 20th-century eschatologies of crisis are found here, for example in the work of Franz Overbeck. A second section examines in depth the eschatological responses of theologians to the crisis of the First World War, both existential (Barth, Bultmann, Gogarten) and political (Peterson). A third section details the dominant eschatologies of the postwar years, particularly Moltmann's and Pannenberg's, which rethink the eschatological future as retroactive. A fourth and final section examines the shift of eschatological discourse from a speculative to a pragmatic register in confrontation with the 'eschatological' ambitions of biological and digital technology.

Trinity Theological Seminary, 2023

Holding that Scripture is the inspired, inerrant, sufficient, necessary, and clear Word of God, this paper documents the history of eschatological positions held by the church, and when those varying eschatological positions came to be.