Apocalyptic Spatiality in 1 Peter and Selected 1 Enoch Literature

Sofanit Tamene Abebe analyses the constructions of symbolic space in the later 1 Enoch texts and 1 Peter, and the extent to which their respective vision of reality is constructed on the basis of an axis linking heaven and earth through divine revelation. She argues that the revelatory basis on which the Enochic authors form their text gives their readers access to a new spatial reality. In 1 Peter, through recalling cultic spatial practices and significant events from Israel’s sacred past, she depicts how the addresses form the space where the divine dwells. Such a spatial construal reconstitutes them as the mobile axis linking heaven and earth. In this way, 1 Peter construes the readers’ corporate and corporeal existence in Roman Asia Minor within the Jewish matrix of exile as a mode of existence on an apocalyptic stage newly configured by Christ.