Judaic and Christian divergence in renewal: apocalyptic indicators from the revelation of John

Evident in the variety of Second Temple Judaisms are significant elements of renewal and diversification, emerging from the foundations of Judaic tradition and the Hebrew scriptures. Thus, continuity and renewal are features of the Judaic context from which Christianity emerged and to which it remained tethered through the first century. From such a context arise issues of Judaic-Christian divergence and modern metaphors deployed to suggest a definitive parting or partings. Such metaphors are argued to be modern theological constructs which do not portray the complexities involved in first-century issues of religious renewal and divergence. To explore issues of Judaic-Christian divergence, the motifs of the temple and the new Jerusalem, the priesthood, and the temple, expressed in the Apocalypse of John, are analysed in the context of non-binary first-century, Jewish and Jewish-Christian, apocalyptic writings. This discussion, identifying less-discussed motifs in the Apocalypse of John, constitutes in Part 2 the main focus of the thesis. The conclusion is drawn that, at the close of the first century of the Common Era, such motifs in John’s Apocalypse serve as indicators of Judaic-Christian divergence in renewal, rather than bifurcation.