Persepolis and Jerusalem: Iranian Influence on the Apocalyptic Hermeneutic

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Persepolis and Jerusalem reconsiders Iranian influence upon Jewish apocalyptic, and offers grounds upon which such study may proceed. After describing the history of scholarship on the question of Iranian influence and on Jewish apocalyptic, Jason M. Silverman reformulates the methodology for understanding apocalyptic and influence. Two chapters set the discussion firmly in the Achaemenid Empire, describing the sources for Iranian religion, the issues involved in attempting a historical reconstruction, the methodology by which one can date the various texts and ideas, and the potential loci for Iranian-Judaean interaction. The historical context is expanded through media-contextualization, particularly Oral Theory, and critiques the standard text-centric method of current Biblical Scholarship. With this background, pericopes from Ezekiel, Daniel, and 1 Enoch are analyzed for Iranian influence. The study then brings together the contexts and analyses to argue for an Apocalyptic Hermeneutic' which relates the phenomena of apocalypticism, apocalypse, and millenarianismseeing the hermeneutic as a dialectical thread holding them all together as well as apart and posits this as the best place to understand Iranian influences.

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Summarized. * New Testament Abstracts *
This study proves useful to any scholar working in the field of Second Temple Judaism, and particularly in early Jewish apocalyptic. Silvermans conclusion that the Iranian tradition had a great impact on the development of the Jewish Apocalyptic Hermeneutic is reasonable and well researched. This work represents a great step toward a better understanding of the origins of Jewish apocalypticism and its subsequent development. -- Amanda M. Davis Bledsoe, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitt, Munich * Reviews in Religion and Theology *

Author Bio

Dr. Jason M. Silverman completed his doctorate at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. He has edited two collections, A Land Like Your Own (2010) and Text, Theology, and Trowel (2011).