The Culture of Apocalypticism: Is the Rabbinic Work Pesiqta Rabbati Intertextually Related to the New Testament Book The Revelation to John?

In its apocalyptic rhetoric of destruction and redemption, the rabbinic homiletic work Pesiqta Rabbati draws upon multiple textual sources to map a progressive apocalypse. Previous scholarship relating to the apocalypse in Pesiqta Rabbati focused mainly on the interrelationship with the apocalypses of 2 Bar. and 4 Ez.,1 while this article argues that Pesiqta Rabbati was not only in conversation with Jewish apocalyptic texts but also with Christian visions concerning the events transpiring at the End of Days. The contribution of Christian apocalyptic rhetoric in the New Testament book The Revelation to John (= Revelation) has previously been overlooked in the analysis of the apocalyptic passages in Pesiqta Rabbati, although there are numerous suggestive parallels to Revelation, such as characteristics of apocalyptic language, the progression of the apocalypse in thirds, an apocalyptic messiah, Gog and Magog, hurling satan into a pit or Gehinnom, the Pearly Gate at the End of Time, and the New Jerusalem.