1 Nietzsche, F., Human, All Too Human (trans. Hollingdale, R. J.; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996) 12 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. I am indebted to Linebaugh, J. A., God, Grace, and Righteousness in Wisdom of Solomon and Paul's Letter to the Romans: Texts in Conversation (NovTSup 152; Leiden: Brill, 2013) 133 CrossRefGoogle Scholar for this quote.

2 For instance, Martinus de Boer states that ‘the revelation of Jesus Christ’ in Gal 1.12 ‘was experienced and interpreted by Paul as an “apocalyptic” event whereby God … put an end to his old way of life in order to give him a new one in its stead’ ( de Boer, M. C., Galatians: A Commentary (New Testament Library; Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2011) 78–9)Google Scholar; Paul envisages salvation as a divine ‘invasion’ which involves ‘God's apocalyptic action in sending forth his son into the human world to liberate human beings from suprahuman enslaving powers’ (de Boer, Galatians, 34 (emphasis original)); and ‘[t]he word “apocalyptic” properly evokes this idea of God's own eschatological and sovereign action of putting an end to this world age and replacing it with the new world-age’ ( de Boer, M. C., ‘Paul and Apocalyptic Eschatology’, The Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism, vol. i: The Origins of Apocalypticism in Judaism and Christianity (ed. Collins, J. J.; London: Continuum, 2000) 345–83Google Scholar, at 354). Though de Boer does not use the phrase creatio e contrario, in these examples he labels e contrario disjunctive movements as apocalyptic.

3 Scholars still debate which texts should be considered apocalypses. See the discussion in Fletcher-Louis, C. H. T., ‘Jewish Apocalyptic and Apocalypticism’, Handbook for the Study of the Historical Jesus (ed. Porter, S. E. and Holmén;, T. Leiden: Brill, 2011) 1569–1607 Google Scholar.

4 Thus John Collins asserts that ‘[s]ince the adjective “apocalyptic” and the noun “apocalypticism” are derived from “apocalypse,” it is only reasonable to expect that they indicate some analogy with the apocalypses’ ( Collins, J. J., The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to Jewish Apocalyptic Literature (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2016 ³) 16)Google Scholar.

5 In contrast to this criterion, de Boer identifies ‘two tracks’ within apocalypticism which he calls ‘cosmological apocalyptic eschatology’ and ‘forensic apocalyptic eschatology’, stating that ‘[t]he metaphor of the two “tracks” thus is used to denote two internally consistent or coherent configurations of motifs that, like railway tracks, may be parallel, crisscross, or overlap, even within a single work’ ( de Boer, M. C., The Defeat of Death: Apocalyptic Eschatology in 1 Corinthians 15 and Romans 5 (JSNTSup 22; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1988), 84–5Google Scholar. De Boer's admission that these two tracks can be mixed puts into serious question the basic heuristic value which he ascribes to this taxonomy. It appears rather to reflect a conceptual and theological distinction that de Boer sees but many Jewish authors did not, given that they freely mixed these supposed two tracks. Such a taxonomy could obfuscate the internal theological logic and coherence of certain texts. Pace de Boer, the term ‘apocalyptic’ should be reserved for aspects common to all apocalypses. See the critique of de Boer's ‘two tracks’ in Frey, J., ‘Demythologizing Apocalyptic? On N.T. Wright's Paul, Apocalyptic Interpretation, and the Constraints of Construction’, God and the Faithfulness of Paul: A Critical Examination of the Pauline Theology of N.T. Wright (ed. Heilig, C. et al. ; WUNT ii/413; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016) 489–531 Google Scholar, at 508–9.

6 Galatians has been a central text in the debate concerning Paul and apocalyptic (see e.g. Dunne, J. A., ‘Suffering and Covenantal Hope in Galatians: A Critique of the “Apocalyptic Reading” and its Proponents’, SJT 68 (2015) 1–15)CrossRefGoogle Scholar since J. Louis Martyn's influential apocalyptic interpretation of Galatians ( Galatians: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 33A; New Haven: Doubleday, 1997)Google Scholar).

7 This is not to suggest that the Apocalypse is somehow representative of every apocalypse. It is simply used as an example to show that creatio e contrario is not common to the apocalypses, and, thus, according to my methodological criterion, there is nothing uniquely or distinctively apocalyptic about it.

8 For the purposes of this article the Aramaic fragments, Coptic manuscript and various Ethiopic manuscripts of the Apocalypse will be treated as a heterogeneous yet coherent unity.

9 On how pseudepigraphy establishes authority, see Portier-Young, A., Apocalypse against Empire: Theologies of Resistance in Early Judaism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011) 41–3Google Scholar; cf. Najman, H., Seconding Sinai: The Development of Mosaic Discourse in Second Temple Judaism (JSJSup 77; Leiden: Brill, 2003) 40 Google Scholar.

10 Translation from Nickelsburg, G. W. E. and VanderKam, J., 1 Enoch: The Hermeneia Translation (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 In 1 Enoch and the surrounding traditions Enoch's scribal activity invests the text with authority. See VanderKam, J., Enoch and the Growth of an Apocalyptic Tradition (CBQMS 16; Washington, DC: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1984) 150–3Google Scholar; Orlov, A. A., The Enoch-Metatron Tradition (TSAJ 107; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005) 36–7Google Scholar, 50–9; Stuckenbruck, L. T., 1 Enoch 91–108 (Commentaries on Early Jewish Literature; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2007) 83–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar; cf. Lambert, W. G., ‘Enmeduranki and Related Matters’, JCS 21 (1967) 126–38Google Scholar.

12 Enoch is often associated with angels in 1 Enoch and the surrounding traditions. See Davidson, M. J., Angels at Qumran: A Comparative Study of 1 Enoch 1–36, 72–108 and Sectarian Writings from Qumran (JSPSup 11; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1992)Google Scholar. Enoch's association with angels may be derived from an interpretation of האלהים in Gen 5.22, on which see Vanderkam, Enoch and the Growth, 30–1.

13 On the genitive phrase ‘vision of heaven’, see Stuckenbruck, 1 Enoch, 81.

14 The phrase ‘heavenly etiology’ is taken from Reed, A. Y., ‘Heavenly Ascent, Angelic Descent, and the Transmission of Knowledge in 1 Enoch 6–16’, Heavenly Realms and Earthly Realities in Late Antique Religions (ed. Boustan, R. S. and Reed, A.; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004) 47–66 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 49; cf. Stone, M. E., ‘Pseudepigraphy Reconsidered’, Review of Rabbinic Judaism 9 (2006) 1–15 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 On the scriptural status of 1 Enoch, see Nickelsburg, G. W. E., ‘Scripture in 1 Enoch and 1 Enoch as Scripture’, Texts and Contexts: Biblical Texts in their Textual and Situational Contexts, Essays in Honor of Lars Hartman (ed. Fornberg, T. and Hellholm, D.; Oslo: Scandinavian University Press, 1995) 333–54Google Scholar; cf. Reed, A. Y., ‘Pseudepigraphy and/as Prophecy: Continuity and Transformation in the Formation and Reception of Early Enochic Writings’, Revelation, Literature, and Community in Late Antiquity (ed. Townsend, P. and Vidas, M.; TSAJ 146; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011) 25–42 Google Scholar.

16 Translation from Stuckenbruck, 1 Enoch, 86–7. For an overview of the possible temporal values of סבוע (‘week’), see Dexinger, F., Henochs Zehnwochenapokalypse und offene Probleme der Apokalyptikforschung (Studia Post-Biblica 29; Leiden: Brill, 1977) 118–20Google Scholar. I interpret סבוע as a seven-generation period, following Bauckham, R., The Jewish World around the New Testament: Collected Essays i (WUNT i/233; Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck, 2008) 155–8Google Scholar. Pace Klaus Koch, who interprets each week as a 490-year period (‘Sabbatstruktur der Geschichte: Die Zehn-Wochen-Apokalypse (1 Hen 93:1-10; 91:11-17) und das Ringen um die alttestamentlichen Chronologien im späten Israelitentum’, ZAW 95 (1983) 403–30Google Scholar).

17 The Genesis tradition portrays him similarly. In the genealogy of Gen 5.3–31 every individual dies (מות), but Enoch ‘walked with האלהים’ and, instead of dying, he was ‘absent, for God took him’ (ואיננו כי לקח אתו אלהים, Gen 5.24). This may imply that his righteousness occasioned his avoidance of death (VanderKam, Enoch and the Growth, 30).

18 The phrase ‘authority-conferring strategy’ is taken from Najman, H., ‘Interpretation as Primordial Writing: Jubilees and its Authority Conferring Strategies’, eadem, Past Renewals: Interpretative Authority, Renewed Revelation, and the Question for Perfection in Jewish Antiquity (JSJSup 53; Leiden: Brill, 2010) 39–71 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19 Hartman, L., Asking for a Meaning: A Study of 1 Enoch 1–5 (Coniectanea Biblica, New Testament Series 12; Lund: CWK Gleerup, 1979) 126 Google Scholar.

20 So George Nickelsburg, commenting on the Book of the Watchers, writes, ‘Enoch's righteousness is relevant here because by virtue of it he was permitted to enter the divine presence’ ( Nickelsburg, G. W. E, 1 Enoch 1: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch, Chapters 1–36, 81–108 (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001) 270 Google Scholar); cf. Portier-Young, Apocalypse against Empire, 303–4; Reed, ‘Heavenly Ascent’, 48, 64, 66.

21 Translation from Nickelsburg and VanderKam, 1 Enoch.

22 Translation adapted from Stuckenbruck, 1 Enoch, 118. I interpret the passive verbs (e.g. ‘will be chosen’) in the Apocalypse as divine passives. Klaus Koch's proposal, that the Apocalypse depicts a narrative of the clash between cosmic powers (between קשטא and anything associated with חמסא or שקרא), lacks substantial evidence ( Koch, K., ‘History as a Battlefield of Two Antagonistic Powers in the Apocalypse of Weeks and in the Rule of the Community’, Enoch and Qumran Origins: New Light on a Forgotten Connection (ed. Boccaccini, G.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005) 185–99Google Scholar). His argument depends on reading קשטא as a hypostasised noun, but קשטא is unanimously used to modify other nouns, save one instance where it is depicted as ‘enduring’ (93.3), but this sentence does not constitute enough evidence for his interpretation.

23 Sanders, E. P., Paul and Palestinian Judaism: A Comparison of Patterns of Religion (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1977) 359 Google Scholar, cf. 361.

24 See Charles, R. H., The Book of Enoch or 1 Enoch: Translated from the Editor's Ethiopic Text (Oxford: Clarendon, 1912 ²) 231 Google Scholar; Sanders claims to have used this translation in Paul and Palestinian Judaism, 563. He interprets this phrase as an apposition (i.e. the chosen righteous are the eternal plant of unrighteousness), but both the Aramaic and Ethiopic texts have ablative prepositions (’em/מן) rather than genitive constructions.

25 Boccaccini, So G., Beyond the Essene Hypothesis: The Parting of the Ways between Qumran and Enochic Judaism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998) 108 Google Scholar. Unlike 4QInstruction (4Q418) 81, 13, the agricultural language refers to all of Israel, not the author's own community, following its usage in 1 Enoch 10.3, 16 and 84.6. See L. T. Stuckenbruck, ‘The Plant Metaphor in its Inner-Enochic and Early Jewish Context’, Enoch and Qumran Origins, 210–12; cf. Tiller, P., ‘The “Eternal Planting” in the Dead Sea Scrolls’, DSD 4 (1997) 312–35Google Scholar.

26 Stuckenbruck, 1 Enoch, 118.

27 Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, 362 (emphasis original).

28 Bodl 5, BM Add. 24990, BM 499, Vatican 71, Munich 30, Garrett Ms. and Westenholz ms. attest this reading. Curzon 55 has the singular yet‘assay. This list is taken from Stuckenbruck, 1 Enoch, 119.

29 Stuckenbruck, 1 Enoch, 118.

30 See also Bauckham, Jewish World, 279–80.

31 Translation from Stuckenbruck, 1 Enoch, 118, 121. Nickelsburg notes the etiological relationship between righteousness and the reception of wisdom (G. W. E. Nickelsburg, ‘Revealed Wisdom as a Criterion for Inclusion and Exclusion: From Jewish Sectarianism to Early Christianity’, ‘To See Ourselves as Others See Us’: Christians, Jews, ‘Others’ in Late Antiquity (ed. J. Neusner and E. S. Frerichs; Scholars Press Studies in the Humanities; Chico: Scholars, 1985) 73–91, at 74–7). Collins suggests this is present also in 1 Enoch 1–36 ( Collins, J. J., ‘The Apocalyptic Technique: Setting and Function in the Book of Watchers’, CBQ 44 (1982) 91–111 Google Scholar, at 96).

32 The soteriological value of wisdom in the Apocalypse is noted by Macaskill, G., Revealed Wisdom and Inaugurated Eschatology in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity (JSJSup 115; Leiden: Brill, 2007) 41–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Reid, S. B., ‘The Structure of the Ten Week Apocalypse and the Book of Dream Visions’, JSJ 16 (1985) 189–201 Google Scholar, at 195. Nickelsburg also identifies this connection in the Epistle of Enoch ( Nickelsburg, G. W. E., ‘The Nature and Function of Revelation in 1 Enoch, Jubilees, and Some Qumranic Documents’, Pseudepigraphic Perspectives: The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls (ed. Chazon, E. G. and Stone, M. E.; STDJ 31; Leiden: Brill, 1999), 91–119 Google Scholar, at 94).

33 Translation from Stuckenbruck, 1 Enoch, 118, 131.

34 Translation from Stuckenbruck, 1 Enoch, 133.

35 So Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 448. On the effectual relationship between wisdom and judgement, see Argall, R. A., 1 Enoch and Sirach: A Comparative and Conceptual Analysis of the Themes of Revelation, Creation and Judgment (Early Judaism and its Literature 8; Atlanta: Scholars, 1995), 42 Google Scholar.

36 One could possibly suggest that God also gives revelation to sinners in 93.4 if it is translated as ‘a law will be given to sinners’. This would depend on a translation of la-ḫāṭe’ān that takes this phrase as the indirect object of wa-šer‘at yetgabbar (‘a law will be made’). However, it is more likely that the law is given for the restraint of sinners, referring to the laws of the Noachic covenant in Gen 9.1–6 (see Stuckenbruck, 1 Enoch, 92, 98–9; contra, Dexinger, Zehnwochenapokalypse, 124). The phrase la-ḫāṭe’ān is therefore referential and does not function as the indirect object.

37 Translation from Stuckenbruck, 1 Enoch, 131, 139, 145.

38 Translation from Nickelsburg and VanderKam, 1 Enoch.

39 After the arrival of the ‘new heaven’, time no longer follows the week-structure. So Dexinger: ‘die endzeitliche Existenz nicht mehr periodisiert wird. Es gibt zwar noch “Wochen”, aber sie sind ohne Zahl’ (Dexinger, Zehnwochenapokalypse, 144).

40 Pace Martyn, who asserts that the motif of invasion is distinctively apocalyptic (Martyn, Galatians, 99). Fletcher-Louis perceives that ‘there remain swathes of revelatory material in the apocalypses which have nothing to do with … an obviously “transcendent” [or dualistic] kind of eschatology. This suggests that a “transcendent eschatology” [or dualistic eschatology] is really only incidental to the genre and need not be present in every case’ (Fletcher-Louis, ‘Jewish Apocalyptic and Apocalypticism’, 1578–9).

41 Fletcher-Louis, ‘Jewish Apocalyptic and Apocalypticism’, 1589.

42 The γάρ in 1.13 indicates that this story primarily substantiates the divine origin of his gospel rather than responds to counter-narratives transmitted by the agitators. See Lategan, B., ‘Is Paul Defending his Apostleship in Galatians? The Function of Galatians 1.11–12 and 2.19–20 in the Development of Paul's Argument’, NTS 34 (1988) 411–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar; cf. Schutz, J. H., Paul and the Anatomy of Apostolic Authority (SNTSMS 26; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975) 114–58Google Scholar, esp. 134; Gaventa, B., ‘Galatians 1 and 2: Autobiography as Paradigm’, NovT 28 (1986) 309–26Google Scholar; Barclay, J. M. G., ‘Paul's Story’, Narrative Dynamics in Paul: A Critical Assessment (ed. Longenecker, B. W.; London: Westminster John Knox, 2002) 133–56Google Scholar.

43 For the meaning of Ἰουδαϊσμός, see Novenson, M., ‘Paul's Former Occupation in Ioudaismos ’, Galatians and Christian Theology: Justification, the Gospel, and Ethics in Paul's Letter (ed. Elliot, M. W. et al. ; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2014) 24–39 Google Scholar.

44 Barclay, , Paul and the Gift (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015) 358 Google Scholar.

45 Martyn translates ἀποκαλύψαι in 1.16 as ‘apocalyptically reveal’ because he thinks it indicates an apocalyptic ‘invasion’ (Martyn, Galatians, 99, 158). But there is nothing apocalyptic about the notion of invasion or a cataclysmic end of history. The apocalypses, not least the Apocalypse of Weeks, often describe revelation as non-invasive.

46 Barth, K., Church Dogmatics, vol. iv/1: The Doctrine of Reconciliation (ed. Bromiley, G. W. and Torrance, T. F.; trans. Bromiley, G. W.; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1956) 11 Google Scholar.

47 Barclay, ‘Paul's Story’, 142.

48 Barclay, ‘Paul's Story’, 141; Gorman, M., ‘The Apocalyptic New Covenant and the Shape of Life in the Spirit according to Galatians’, Paul and the Apocalyptic Imagination (ed. Blackwell, B. C. et al. ; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2016) 317–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 322–4.

49 On calling into being, see de Boer, Galatians, 91.

50 Martyn labels this as a ‘disjunctive apocalypse’ (Martyn, Galatians, 99).

51 ‘Necessitates’ here does not imply the superiority of Paul's argument but rather points out the implicit logic of 1.11–16.

52 The phrase ‘biography of reversal’ is taken from Schutz, Paul and the Anatomy, 133.

53 Morales, R. J., The Spirit and the Restoration of Israel: New Exodus and New Creation Motifs in Galatians (WUNT ii/282; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010) 86–114 Google Scholar.

54 On the universal scope of the curse, see Watson, F., Paul and the Hermeneutics of Faith (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 2004) 431–4Google Scholar. I use ‘universal’ here to mean universal for the group of those from works of Torah.

55 See Barclay, Paul and the Gift, 404–7 for interpretation along these lines.

56 Barth, CD iv/1, 7.

57 Barclay, Paul and the Gift, 72–3.

58 Cf. Martin Luther, Die sieben Bußpsalmen: Erste Bearbeitung (1517; WA i/1) 183–4: ‘Gottis natur ist, das er auß nicht etwas macht … Macht nit lebend, dann die todten … Macht nit frum, dann die sunder.’

59 So also de Boer, Galatians, 401–2. Pace Moyer Hubbard, ὁ κόσμος does not merely have an anthropological referent ( Hubbard, M. V., New Creation in Paul's Letters and Thought (SNTSMS 119; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002) 188–232 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see the critique in Jackson, T. R., New Creation in Paul's Letters and Thought: A Study of the Historical and Social Setting of a Pauline Concept (WUNT ii/272; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010) 83–114 Google Scholar.

60 On antinomies in Galatians, see Martyn, J. L., ‘Apocalyptic Antinomies in Paul's Letter to the Galatians’, NTS 31 (1985) 410–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

61 Hubbard points out the death-life pattern in 6.14–15, though he views it anthropologically (Hubbard, New Creation, 227–9); cf. Gaventa, B., Our Mother Saint Paul (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2007) 68–9Google Scholar.