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An apocalypse is a revelation of heavenly mysteries and/or the eschatological future, typically involving the judgment of the dead. The genre developed in Judaism in the second century B.C.E., but there may have been earlier Persian antecedents. It was adopted by Christians, notably in the book of Revelation, and flourished down to the Middle Ages. ⸙
“Wisdom” designates a kind of instructional literature that flourished in the ancient Near East, especially in Egypt but also in Mesopotamia. It was passed on by scribes, often at the royal courts. In the Bible, wisdom is associated especially with the books of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Job. In the Hellenistic era, wisdom writings were influenced by Greek philosophy. ⸙
Few episodes in ancient history have had more profound and lasting implications than the encounter of Judaism and Hellenism. The spread of Greek culture to the east was the first great encounter of east and west, the first instance of a clash of civilizations that has been repeated in various forms down to the present. Few people in antiquity could have anticipated that the Jews would be the most enduring representatives of ancient Near Eastern culture. Alexander can scarcely have given Judea a second thought. The eventual importance of Judaism on the world stage would be due in part to the extraordinarily distinctive self-consciousness of the Jewish people, and in part to their historic link to the Christian religion, which would dominate so much of western history. But for the Christian connection, the remarkable corpus of literature produced by Greek-speaking Jews might well have been lost, like the literature of other Near Eastern peoples. Be that as it may, the Jews are the only eastern people of the Hellenistic world who have left behind a substantial literature. For surveys see J.J. Collins, Between Athens and Jerusalem (New York, 1983; revised ed., Grand Rapids, 2000); M. Goodman, “Jewish Literature Composed in Greek,” in E. Schuerer, The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ (rev. and ed., G. Vermes, F. Millar, and M. Goodman; 3 vols.; Edinburgh, 1973–1987), vol. 2, pp. 470–704; E. Gruen, Heritage and Hellenism. The Reinvention of Jewish Tradition (Berkeley, 1998). Only in the case of Judaism do we have the material to assess the response of an eastern people to Hellenism, and to see how an eastern tradition was adapted in light of the different and dominant culture of the Greeks.
