The Point of it All: New Jerusalem and Teleology
Stream of consciousness, un-proofread update. Here we go... I've been writing up a storm in the last half year. Mainly papers for conferences in Chicago (NAPS), Leuven, Sophia (EABS), and other things I'm probably forgetting about, and then polished and expanded versions for publishing in various venues. Ending versus Meaning One of the main ideas I've been trying to develop circles around my attempt to make sense of a certain fact that is becoming more and more apparent to me as my research proceeds. And that's this: The New Jerusalem, both in John's thinking when he writes Revelation, and in the late antique reception of it, is a condensed symbol that stands not principally for the end of everything but of the point of everything--a symbol that somehow makes sense of everything. Yes, early Christian authors and intellectuals were concerned about what some modern Christians like to talk about as "the end times." But, unlike many modern Christians...