The Apocalypse of the Birds

This book identifies a new apocalyptic work—the Apocalypse of the Birds—contained in the Animal Apocalypse (1 Enoch 85-90), and argues that it is born of the chaotic Jewish-Christian world of the first-century CE. Through close analysis of texts and manuscripts in Ge’ez, Greek, Aramaic, and Hebrew, alongside historical and numismatic evidence, the book situates the Apocalypse of the Birds alongside literature and historiography of the first-century CE. It argues that the Apocalypse of the Birds belongs to the heady early days of the First Jewish Revolt, and represents crucial evidence for the early optimism of the revolutionaries, the dynamic and progressive evolution of the Animal Apocalyptic tradition, and the blurred and porous boundaries between Jew and Jesus-follower in the first-century CE.