“THE ALL-KNOWING GOD”. OLD TESTAMENT AND HELLENISTIC METAPHORS IN THE GENRE OF NEW TESTAMENT APOCALYPTIC AURELIAN BOTICA*

ABSTRACT. Apocalyptic literature has stood apart from other genre especially because of its emphasis on metaphors, symbolism and cryptic language. At even a cursory look, one will notice that the book of Revelation made use to the fullest of these data. What scholars would expect to see less in such genre is the imagery of God as an “all-knowing ” searcher of the hearts and thoughts. In the book of Revelation there are two major texts that employ this motif. In chapters 2 and 3 God appears as the divinity who “knows ” virtually all deeds, atti-tudes, and in particular, the thoughts of the heart of the seven churches from Asia Minor. Evi-dently, one would ask whether this language belongs to the classical apocalyptic literature, and what are the sources that inspired the author of Revelation? The Bible uses a wide spectrum of verbs and nouns to convey the idea that God has comprehensive knowledge of human thoughts and actions. These grammatical terms describe physical organs, physiological and mental or spiritual operations. In this article we will trace the terminology of the concept of “divine all-knowledge ” to three major (possible) sources: the Old Testament, Greek/Hellenistic and Jewish Hellenistic texts. In particular, we will want to know what was the original context in which these concepts were used? Second, we will want to ask to what extent the author of Revelation was influenced by these sources and what was the meaning that he gave to the notion of “divine all-knowledge”