Kindle Notes & Highlights
Apocalyptic ideas undeniably played an important role in the early stages of Christianity and, more broadly, in the Judaism of the time. Yet, as Koch demonstrated, the primary apocalyptic texts have received only sporadic attention and are often avoided or ignored by biblical scholarship.
Arguably, both the Qumran community and early Christianity are apocalyptic in this sense, quite apart from the production of apocalypses.
The identification of Jesus as the Son of Man who would come on the clouds of heaven presupposed the belief that he was risen and ascended. This belief became the cornerstone of early Christian apocalypticism.
In Daniel, the martyrs who lose their lives in this world are precisely those who shine like the stars in resurrection. The example of Jesus has evidently far greater force for Paul and becomes a normative example for Christians, so that the death and resurrection of Jesus become an allegory for the pattern of Christian life.
The primary difference between Christian and Jewish apocalypticism in the first century C.E. was that the Christians believed that the messiah had already come and that the firstfruits of the resurrection had taken place. Consequently, there is an element of realized eschatology in the Christian texts.858
