The End of the Ages Has Come

Dale C. Allison, Jr., is the Richard J. Dearborn Professor of New Testament, Princeton Theological Seminary. Previously he was Errett M. Grable Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity. Before then, he served on the faculties of Texas Christian University (Fort Worth, Texas) and Friends University (Wichita, Kansas). His areas of expertise include Second Temple Judaism, and he is the author of books on early Christian eschatology, the Gospel of Matthew, the so-called Sayings Source or Q, and the historical Jesus. He has also written The Luminous Dusk, a book on religious experience in the modern world, and a full-length commentary on the Testament of Abraham. His most recently published works are The Love There That's Sleeping: The Art and Spirituality of George Harrison, The Historical Christ and the Theological Jesus, and Constructing Jesus: Memory, History, and Imagination. He has recently completed a full-length commentary on the Epistle of James (to be published in 2013) and is currently working on a commentary on 4 Baruch (Paraleipomena Jeremiou) as well as on a book of reflections on death. He is married to Kristine Allison and they have three children.

How does one explain the New Testament texts that seem to announce the imminent arrival of the long-awaited Day of the Lord?In this study, Dale Allison presents a comprehensive analysis of the first-century beliefs about the period of suffering and tribulation which was to precede the general resurrection of the dead. Although such beliefs were not uncommon, they have received little attention from New Testament scholars. Dr. Allison argues that they provided the conceptual tools that allowed New Testament writers to make sense of the death and resurrection of Jesus, without abandoning altogether Jesus' own messianic expectations and belief in some imminent radical change. Dr. Allison shows that the realized eschatology of the Gospels is not, as is so often thought, the product of Jesus' own teaching and preaching. Rather, it stems from the reflection of the earliest Christian communities on the death of Jesus, in the light of his belief in a imminent End.Dr. Allison offers a stimulating and detailed account of the teaching of Jesus and of the New Testament records of the passion and resurrection of Jesus. He concludes his study with an important discussion of the way this process of reflection has continued throughout Christian history and indeed how it continues to influence Christian thinking today.