John C. Reeves
John C. Reeves
Blumenthal Professor of Judaic Studies and Professor of Religious Studies, Department of Religious Studies

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  • Course Materials
    • LBST 2212 Literature and Culture
      • Course Syllabus
    • RELS 1120: Bible and its Interpreters
      • Course Syllabus
    • RELS 2000: Topics Courses in Religious Studies
      • Bible and Qur’an
        • Course Syllabus: Bible and Qur’an
      • Building Bible
        • Course Syllabus for Building Bible
      • Course Syllabus: Elementary Biblical Hebrew I (Fall 2019)
      • Course Syllabus: Elementary Biblical Hebrew II (Spring 2019)
      • Out of This World
        • Course Syllabus: Out of This World
      • The Biblical Dark Arts
        • Biblical Dark Arts Course Syllabus
    • RELS 2104: Hebrew Scriptures/Old Testament
      • General Principles For Interpretation Of The Tanakh
      • RELS 2104: Syllabus
      • Sennacherib’s Third Campaign: The Siege of Jerusalem
      • Translation Of 1Q Genesis Apocryphon II-XXII
      • Bereshit Rabbati on Shemhazai & Azael
      • Eutychius (Sa’id b. al-Bitriq) on Genesis 6:1-4
      • Moabite Stone (KAI 181)
    • RELS 2600 Orientation to the Study of Religion
      • Course syllabus for RELS 2600
    • RELS 3000: Special Topics Courses
      • Angels and Demons in Biblical Folklore
        • Course Syllabus
        • Some Adam/Satan/Iblīs materials
      • Bible and Its Monsters
        • Course syllabus
      • Bible to Qur’ān
        • Course Syllabus: Bible to Qur’an
      • Pentateuch/Torah
        • Course Syllabus: Pentateuch/Torah
      • Rewriting the Book of Genesis
        • Course Syllabus: Rewriting the Book of Genesis
      • The Biblical Black Arts
        • Course Syllabus
    • RELS 3090: Readings in Primary Texts
      • After One Year of Classical Hebrew …
      • Course Syllabi: Advanced Biblical Hebrew I
        • Syllabus Fall 2006
        • Syllabus Fall 2008
        • Syllabus Fall 2010
      • Course Syllabi: Advanced Biblical Hebrew II
        • Syllabus Spring 2007
        • Syllabus Spring 2009
        • Syllabus Spring 2011
      • Course Syllabus: Elementary Biblical Hebrew I
      • Course Syllabus: Elementary Biblical Hebrew II
    • RELS 3104: Prophecy and Prophetic Literature in Ancient Israel
      • RELS 3104: Course Syllabus
    • RELS 3107: Psalms and Wisdom Literature of Israel
      • RELS 3107: Course Syllabus
    • RELS 3122 Esoteric Traditions: Gnosis and Gnosticism
      • Course Syllabus for Gnosis and Gnosticism
    • RELS 3122 Esoteric Traditions: Thinking About Angels and Demons
      • Course syllabus for Thinking About Angels and Demons
    • RELS 4000/5000 Advanced Biblical Hebrew
    • RELS 4000/5000 Contextualizing the Qur’an
      • Course Syllabus
    • RELS 4000/5000 Early Mythologies of Evil
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    • RELS 4000/5000 Jewish Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha
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    • RELS 4000/5000 Jewish Fantasy Literature
      • Course syllabus for Jewish Fantasy
    • RELS 4000/5000 Jewish Mystical Literature
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    • RELS 4010/5010: James G. Frazer and William Robertson Smith
    • RELS 4107: Early Judaism
      • A Brief Introduction to Rabbinic Exegesis of the Bible
      • Bavli Menahot 109b
      • Midrash Tanhuma, Noah §3
      • RELS 4107: Course Syllabus
      • The Essene Hypothesis
      • Types of Midrashic Texts
      • Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls?
    • RELS 4108: Medieval Judaism
      • RELS 4108: Course Syllabus
    • RELS 6000: Pluriform Multilingual Zechariah
      • Various Zechariah Legends
        • Bordeaux Pilgrim (333 CE) on the Temple Mount
        • Cave of Treasures 47.12-17
        • Mas’udi, Muruj al-dhahab
        • Protevangelium Jacobi (Syriac) 22-24
    • RELS 6000: Readings in Jewish Aramaic
      • Course syllabus for Jewish Aramaic
    • RELS 6000: Readings in Rabbinic Hebrew
      • Course Syllabus (2006-07)
      • Course Syllabus (2009-10)
    • RELS 6000: Readings in Syriac
    • RELS 6000: Readings in Ugaritic
    • RELS 6602: Seminar in the Religion of Ancient Israel
      • Course Syllabus (Spring 2009)
    • RELS 6603 Seminar in Early Judaism
      • Course Syllabus (Fall 2005)
      • Course Syllabus (Spring 2006)
      • Course Syllabus (Spring 2008)
    • RELS 6611: Qumran and its Literature
    • RELS 6615: Seminar in the Religions of Late Antiquity
      • Course Syllabus (2008)
      • Course syllabus (Spring 2015)
    • RELS 6631: Seminar in Islamic Studies
    • RELS 6651: Seminar in the History of Religions
  • Publications
    • Books
    • Articles
    • Book Reviews
    • Unpublished Lectures and Fragmenta
      • Assorted Near Eastern Apocalypses
      • Shahrastānī on Mani and Manichaeism
      • Theodore bar Konai on Mani and Manichaeism
      • Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls?
      • Ya`qūbī, Ta’rīkh
  • Research Projects
    • Cave of Treasures: A New Translation and Commentary
    • Enoch from Antiquity to the Middle Ages
    • Illuminating the Afterlife of Ancient Apocryphal Jewish Literature
    • Medieval Jewish Pseudepigrapha
      • Jellinek’s Sefer Noah
      • Son of Samael
      • The Chronicles of Moses Our Teacher
    • Sefer ‘Uzza wa-‘Aza(z)el: Exploring Early Jewish Mythologies of Evil
    • Shades of Light and Darkness: Chaldean Dualism, Gnosis, and the Islamicate Milieu
    • Shahrastani’s Kitab al-Milal wa’l-Nihal On the Dualists
    • Trajectories in Near Eastern Apocalyptic
      • ’Otot ha-Mašiah (Signs of the Messiah)
      • ’Otot of R. Shimon b. Yohai
      • Aggadat ha-Mašiah
      • Aggadat R. Ishmael
      • Eldad ha-Dani beney Mosheh texts
      • Midrash Wa-yosha` (end)
      • Nistarot (Secrets of) R. Shimon b. Yohai
      • Pirqe de-R. Eliezer §30 (end)
      • Pirqe Mašiah
      • Prophecy of Zardusht
      • Pseudo-Ephrem (Syriac)
      • Responsum of Hai Gaon on Redemption
      • Sefer Elijah
      • Sefer Zerubbabel
      • Tefillat (Prayer of) R. Shimon b. Yohai
      • Ten Further Things About the Messianic Days
      • Ten Signs
      • Testament of Adam
  • Links
  • Cuneiform Studies Laboratory
    • Law Code for the Scribal Archive
Research Projects » Trajectories in Near Eastern Apocalyptic

Trajectories in Near Eastern Apocalyptic

Synopsis and Description

Modern study of the apocalyptic literature produced by Jewish and Christian religious communities during the Hellenistic and early Roman periods of eastern Mediterranean history oftentimes has spawned the erroneous impression that the heyday of apocalypticism was roughly 200 BCE to 200 CE. Once Judaism and Christianity achieved their respective ‘classical’ forms, interest in and production of literary apocalypses gradually declined and eventually disappeared. This common perception is in fact gravely wrong—apocalyptic ‘books’ retained their appeal and enjoyed a considerable vogue, not only among certain circles within Judaism and Christianity but also among a number of distinct biblically based Near Eastern religious traditions, throughout late antiquity and well into the medieval period. Somewhat surprisingly, these later apocalyptic works have been largely ignored both in studies of apocalypticism as a religious phenomenon and in scholarly presentations of the ideological history of apocalyptic literature.

The present project aspires to remedy this unfortunate situation. It has at least three primary foci: (1) the convenient assemblage at a single web-based locale of a representative selection of Jewish, Christian (Syriac), Muslim, and gnostic (non-Coptic) apocalyptic texts emanating from the Near East during late antiquity and the early medieval period; (2) the preparation of textual resources and new English translations, accompanied by brief introductions, scholarly annotation, and commentary; and (3) the synoptic study of these texts both within and across traditional religious boundaries in order to reconstruct plausible affinities and lines of developmental influence. Of paramount significance at this stage of the investigation will be an exploration of the interreligious history of the interpretation of seminal biblical passages which lie at the root of the apocalyptic enterprise among the various scriptural communities.

The first fruits of the project took the form of a monograph entitled Trajectories in Near Eastern Apocalyptic: A Postrabbinic Jewish Apocalypse Reader which appeared in 2005 under the joint imprint of the Society of Biblical Literature and E. J. Brill. Future volumes will explore the rich Christian and Muslim apocalyptic traditions in tandem with the Jewish texts.

A Note on the Translations

The translations posted on this web site are for the use of students in my Judaica and Bible classes. They are based upon standard accessible print and/or manuscript resources (these are always indicated); they do not pretend to supply or suggest a ‘critical edition’ for the text in question. Given the pluriform nature of the manuscript and printed evidence, I am not even sure whether the attainment of a ‘critical edition’ for most of these texts is even possible. Annotations are copiously supplied in my printed editions of these texts, but they are deliberately suppressed in these web versions in order to maximize the texts’ pedagogical utility.

Preliminary Bibliography

Jewish Texts

Aggadat ha-Mašiah
Aggadat R. Ishmael
Eldad ha-Dani beney Mosheh texts
Midrash Wa-yosha` (end)
Nistarot (Secrets of) R. Shimon b. Yohai
’Otot ha-Mašiah
’Otot of R. Shimon b. Yohai
Pirqe de-R. Eliezer §30 (end)
Pirqe Mašiah
Responsum of Hai Gaon on redemption
Saadia, Kitāb al-Amānāt wa’l-I’tiqādāt 8.5-6
Sefer Elijah
Sefer Zerubbabel
Tefillat (Prayer of) R. Shimon b. Yohai
Ten Signs
Ten Further Things About the Messianic Days
Vision of Daniel

Christian Texts (Syriac and Arabic)

Alexander Legend
Apocalypse of Daniel
Bahira Legend
Edessene Apocalypse
Gospel of the Twelve Apostles
John of Fenek, Rīš Mellē book XV
Pseudo-Ephrem (Syriac)
Pseudo-Methodius
Questions of Ezra the Scribe
Testament of Adam

Muslim Texts

Some early traditions about Yājūj wa-Mājūj
Some early traditions about the Dajjāl
Apocalypse of Jābir from Umm al-Kitāb
Kitāb al-haft wa’l-‘azilla (selections)

‘Gnostic’ Texts

Mandaean Right Ginzā Book 18
Prophecy of Zardusht
Mani’s Shābuhragān

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