In an Apocalyptic moment, as it is generally conceived, the future seems to be closed, inevitable and inescapable. Since the future can't be averted, apocalyptic can only call people to personal repentance, so that after the catastrophe they might survive to enjoy heaven or a transfigured earth.
Eschatology, by contrast, regards the future as open, undetermined and capable of being changed if people alter their behaviour in time. The urgency of the great prophets of the Old Testament came from their conviction that catastrophe need not happen, that even a small deviation from the course toward doom might avert it.
Eschatology is concerned about the goal of humanity and the world; apocalyptic is consumed with the actual end of the planet earth as it is presently constituted. Prophetic eschatology is ruthlessly realistic, yet incurably hopeful. Apocalyptic has abandoned hope, and looks for divine, miraculous intervention. . . .
