The spatial setting of the text

The importance of the temporal dimension of apocalyptic thought has long been recognized, given the central role which eschatology often plays in apocalypses. However, recent analyses of apocalypses have sought to underline the importance of the spatial dimension of the genre alongside the temporal dimension. This is reflected in the important definition of the genre of apocalypse, put forward in 1979 as a result of work in the SBL Apocalypse Group: ‘“Apocalypse” is a genre of revelatory literature with a narrative framework, in which a revelation is mediated by an otherworldly being to a human recipient, disclosing a transcendent reality which is both temporal, insofar as it envisages eschatological salvation, and spatial insofar as it involves another, supernatural world.’ It is the idea that the Book of Revelation seeks to disclose a transcendent spatial reality which underlies my treatment of the spatial dimension of the text in this chapter.

In an influential reassessment of apocalyptic thought Rowland has laid particular emphasis on the importance of the spatial dimension of this literature, in the sense of the revelation of heavenly secrets. It is this feature of apocalyptic which is for Rowland its most distinctive characteristic – more distinctive even than the eschatological interest which is usually held to be central to the genre. Rowland's suggestion that eschatology should not be regarded as the central feature of the apocalyptic genre has been criticized.