At this point it is critical to be clear how I am employing the term apocalyptic, especially because much scholarly ink has been spilled on the contentious question of categorization. I rely on David Aune’s summary in an illuminating 2005 article.
“Apocalyptic eschatology” is the narrative theology, characteristic of apocalypses, centering in the belief that (1) the present world order, regarded as both evil and oppressive, is under temporary control of Satan and his human accomplices, and (2) that the present evil world order will shortly be destroyed by God and replaced by a new and perfect order corresponding to Eden before the fall. During the present evil age, the people of God are an oppressed minority who fervently expect God, or his specially chosen agent the Messiah, to rescue them. The transition between the old and the new ages will be introduced with a final series of battles fought by the people of God against the human allies of Satan. The outcome is never in question, however, for the enemies of God are predestined for defeat and destruction. (Aune, 236)
What I find most compelling in this definition—for the purposes of this essay and for my own personal relationship to apocalypticism—are the notions of cosmological dualism (with a war of heavenly proportions affecting, and afflicting, human actors), the introduction of the messianic agent (i.e., Jesus Christ), and the sense of temporal urgency. The present world order will be destroyed soon. It is this temporal consideration that I find most compelling when looking at an apocalyptic text like the Gospel of Mark—and at the Matthean and Lukan responses to Mark’s acute temporality.