Bookshelf: Paul Hanson

"Apocalyptic" is a scholarly category that's very interesting.  It takes its name from the Revelation of John (apocalypsis is the Greek word for "revelation"), and Revelations has heavily influenced scholarly thinking and writing about this category of books / beliefs / social groups.  I don't talk about this stuff much in class because I think we have a better way to approach the same subject -- from the practitioners' side, rather than the after the fact scholarly guesses trying to figure out what the practitioners were thinking about.  In other words, I prefer Nephi's "visionary men" to scholars' "apocalyptic conventicles."

But once you're clear on the limitations of scholarship, literature on apocalyptic can be very enlightening.  Paul Hanson's The Dawn of Apocalyptic is classic and seminal.  Hanson looks for the origin of the people writing literature like Revelations, Daniel, Ezekiel, 1 Enoch, and so on, and he finds it in Lehi's day, among disciples of the prophet Isaiah, whom he even calls "visionaries."  Pretty good, for a Gentile.

They Saw the Heavens Open

Chapter 17 begins a curious echo of the Sermon at the Temple.  The infirm and the children are brought forward (the poor in spirit, etc.).  Jesus conducts a group prayer (might these have been the words?).  Then we get a perfect vignette or summary of the Worship of the Shalems: the heavens open, angels descend in glory ("fire"), and they minister to the children by encircling them.  In particular, we know from 2 Nephi that "encircling" is an image of being clothed in heavenly garments.

I don't know why we have the apparent doubling.  Curiously, double visions are a characteristic of apocalyptic literature: the visionary has one vision, and then a second vision to explain the first.  This is exactly what we're given in 1 Nephi (8 and 11-14), and I wonder if we have the same phenomenon here.