In discussing the potential for apocalyptic literature being the result of actual visionary experiences, Christopher Rowland writes:
The significance of these occasional references to the experience of the apocalyptic seers, like the references to fasting, have implications for our understanding of the apocalypses as a whole. If it is thought that the apocalypses are merely repositories of a particular message, with no evidence of religious experience at all, why should these brief comments find any place within them? They seem to be completely superfluous to the needs of an author who was wanting to communicate only a particular message by means of the apocalyptic framework. It is hard to believe that they are deliberate attempts to add a touch of realism to the account, especially when several of the elements actually do coincide with the way in which mystical experiences were described in later mystical writings. But even if the supposition that the apocalypses contain relics of mystical experience is rejected, such touches as these probably give evidence of the physical effects which were believed to accompany the heavenly ascent or the experience of the divine. The likelihood is, however, that we have indications here of the experiences of early Jewish visionaries[1]
This insight, as well as the rest of this section of Christopher Rowland’s book, was a good reminder to me that ancient religious texts, including apocalyptic texts, have as much non-textual context as textual context, and some of that context could be things which we not only have no historical access to now, but which we could not have access to at all, namely, private experience. Of course, we all know this, but in the process of studying ancient texts, finding parallels, reconstructing sources both literary and oral, political and socio-economic conditions and conflicts, etc. etc., one can very quickly forget that the writers texts we receive may have had experiences that prompted the shaping of their writings.
In the case of apocalyptic literature, those experiences could very well be actual extraordinary visions, to be fair this is generally understood in scholarship, for example one of the most recent historical Jesus works I’ve read has been Maurice Casey’s “Jesus of Nazareth”, where Casey argues that Jesus likely had an intense mystical experience at his baptism that formed much of his later ministry. However, in understanding apocalyptic literature, one should always leave the possibility open that the writer actually experienced visions that prompted his writing. As Rowland also points out that pseudonymity shouldn’t rule out a genuine visionary origin to a text, since taking on the role of a more ancient and important figure who the writer feels he embodies; which as Rowland points out, was not an unheard of practice, and which one can find in various visionary mystical practices.
This does not mean that one cannot use the tools of exegesis and historical tools to interpret apocalyptic texts based on genuine visions. Genuine visions, if they have content that has some meaning to the visionary, must be able to be made sense of to the visionary given his historical context. So any vision that an ancient person had will be interpreted based on what he has available around him, be it his religious background, his access to texts, oral tradition, and even the political and socio-economic dynamics going on around him; these things are accessible through the normal tools of exegesis and history.
What I think it does mean is that we ought to always remember that there are genuine anomalies in history that may not, even in principle, be able to be fully accounted for, because part of the accounting may have been a mystical experience which is unique and unreconstructible. Whether or not the vision has a supernatural origin or a natural origin, also has interpretive significance, although many historians may not like that idea—since it would make one’s interpretation of a text and historical reconstruction contingent on one’s metaphysical beliefs—but it is, in my mind, inescapable. If one believes a vision can have a supernatural origin, then when interpreting an apocalyptic text there is an option that one is reading a transmission of a tradition: a tradition from a divine source to a human source to a written text. If one does not believe a supernatural origin is possible, the options are limited; if one suspects a genuine vision, then the vision must be explained purely in the context of the contents of the visionary’s mind, including the visionary’s cultural, political, social, religions, and historical context, and the traditions he or she had access too.
Either way, this section of Christopher Rowland’s The Open Heaven was fascinating. Something that this section was also extremely helpful in was that it provides tools for finding sighs of a genuine vision. For example signs of physical states in the visionary, physical changes, preparatory rituals or practices, uninterpreted details, signs of sensations and feelings of motions, fasting, meditation, and so on. These things may provide evidence that one is dealing with a genuine vision, and not simply a vision used as a literary tool. Rowland quotes J. Lindblom who listed 8 of these tools:
- spontaneity;
- concise visions which are only expanded later;
- dreamlike character of the experience: the vision may be clear in its detail but as a whole has an unreal and fantastic quality;
- the vision is entirely fresh and unsophisticated in its form and content;
- the vision concerns things on an other-worldly plane;
- there are difficulties in expressing the experience in words;
- the experience has emotional side-effects, and
- mention is made of the date and place of the vision.
These, along with other signs, are great things to look out for in reading apocalyptic texts.
[1] Christopher Rowland, The Open Heaven, 234.
Musing on Theology 