Apocalyptic literature in the context of "Galut"

The Book of Revelation, also known as the Book of the Apocalypse or the Apocalypse of John, is canonically the last book of the New Testament. Written in Greek, its title is derived from the first word of the text, apocalypse (Koine Greek: ἀποκάλυψις, romanized: apokálypsis), which means "revelation" or "unveiling". The Book of Revelation is the only apocalyptic book in the New Testament canon, and occupies a central place in Christian eschatology.

The book spans three literary genres: the epistolary, the apocalyptic, and the prophetic. It begins with John, on the island of Patmos in the Aegean Sea, addressing letters to the "Seven Churches of Asia" with exhortations from Christ. He then describes a series of prophetic and symbolic visions, which would culminate in the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. These visions include figures such as a Woman clothed with the sun with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars, the Serpent, the Seven-Headed Dragon, and the Beast.

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are figures in the Book of Revelation in the New Testament of the Bible, a piece of apocalypse literature attributed to John of Patmos, and generally regarded as dating from about AD 95. Similar allusions are contained in the Old Testament books of Ezekiel and Zechariah, written centuries prior. Though the text only provides a name for the fourth horseman, subsequent commentary often identifies them as personifications of Conquest, War, Famine, and Death.

Revelation 6 tells of a book or scroll in God's right hand that is sealed with seven seals. The Lamb of God/Lion of Judah opens the first four of the seven seals, which summons four beings that ride out on white, red, black, and pale horses. All of the horsemen save for Death are portrayed as being human in appearance.

Fallen angels are angels who were expelled from Heaven. The literal term "fallen angel" does not appear in any Abrahamic religious texts, but is used to describe angels cast out of heaven. Such angels are often described as corrupting humanity by teaching forbidden knowledge or by tempting them into sin. Common motifs for their expulsion are lust, pride, envy, or an attempt to usurp divinity.

The earliest appearance of the concept of fallen angels may be found in Canaanite beliefs about the bənē hāʾĔlōhīm ('sons of God'), expelled from the divine court. Hêlêl ben Šāḥar is thrown down from heaven for claiming equality with ʻElyōn. Such stories were later collected in the Hebrew Bible (Christian Old Testament) and appear in pseudepigraphic Jewish apocalyptic literature. The concept of fallen angels derives from the assumption that the "sons of God" (בני האלוהים‎) mentioned in Genesis 6:1–4 or the Book of Enoch are angels. In the period immediately preceding the composition of the New Testament, some groups of Second Temple Judaism identified these "sons of God" as fallen angels.

The Book of Enoch (also 1 Enoch;Hebrew: סֵפֶר חֲנוֹךְ, Sēfer Ḥănōḵ; Ge'ez: መጽሐፈ ሄኖክ, Maṣḥafa Hēnok) is an ancient Jewish apocalyptic religious text, ascribed by tradition to the patriarch Enoch who was the father of Methuselah and the great-grandfather of Noah. The Book of Enoch contains unique material on the origins of demons and Nephilim, why some angels fell from heaven, an explanation of why the Genesis flood was morally necessary, and a prophetic exposition of the thousand-year reign of the Messiah. Three books are traditionally attributed to Enoch, including the distinct works 2 Enoch and 3 Enoch.

1 Enoch is not considered to be canonical scripture by most Jewish or Christian church bodies, although it is part of the biblical canon used by the Ethiopian Jewish community Beta Israel, as well as the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church.

James Louis Martyn (October 11, 1925 – June 4, 2015) was an American New Testament scholar. He taught for nearly three decades at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, where he held the Edward Robinson Professorship of Biblical Theology from 1967 until his retirement in 1987. Martyn's work reshaped Johannine studies with his two-level reading of the Fourth Gospel and his argument about the aposynagōgos passages. He was also a leading interpreter of Paul, noted for a robust apocalyptic reading that culminated in his Anchor Bible commentary on Galatians and in Theological Issues in the Letters of Paul.

The Second Book of Enoch (abbreviated as 2 Enoch and also known as Slavonic Enoch, Slavic Enoch, or the Secrets of Enoch) is a pseudepigraphic text in the apocalyptic genre. It describes the ascent of the patriarch Enoch, ancestor of Noah, through ten heavens of an Earth-centered cosmos. The Slavonic edition and translation of 2 Enoch is of Christian origin in the 8th century but is based on an earlier work. 2 Enoch is distinct from the Book of Enoch, known as 1 Enoch, and there is also an unrelated 3 Enoch, although none of the three books are considered canonical scripture by the majority of Jewish or Christian bodies. The numbering of these texts has been applied by scholars to distinguish each from the others.

The cosmology of 2 Enoch corresponds closely with beliefs of the Early Middle Ages about the metaphysical structure of the universe. It may have been influential in shaping them. The text was lost for several centuries, then recovered and published at the end of the nineteenth century. The full text is extant only in Church Slavonic, but Coptic fragments have been known since 2009. The Church Slavonic version itself represents a translation from an earlier Greek version.