The word “apocalypse” as the designation of a mythic type comes from its appearance as the first word in Revelation, most subsequent uses of the word descending, one way or another, from this instance. John J. Collins offers a definition that addresses its original use and some subsequent applications (2000a: 146):

Most commentators would agree, however, that “apocalypse” as a mythic type, exists earlier than Revelation, and employs motifs absent from Collins' definition. With its focus on “a revelation…mediated by an otherworldly being to a human recipient,” all of which stays close to the literal meaning of the Greek word, Collins actually designates the mythic type we have earlier noted as the vision. Yet as we observed in Chapter 9, the vision need not be part of an apocalyptic scenario, as it is not in Odyssey 11, Book 7 of Plato's Republic, or Aeneid 6, all of which antedate Revelation.

Not only Collins, but other commentators typically analyze Revelation delineating motifs we have classified as constituent elements of the vision, and minimizing, if not omitting entirely, the destruction that typically results from apocalyptic myths.