OK, brucie--

form criticism
NOUN: A method of textual criticism, applied especially to the Bible, for tracing the origin and history of certain passages through systematic study of the writings in terms of conventional literary forms, such as parables, proverbs, and love poems.

OTHER FORMS:
form critic —NOUN
form critical —ADJECTIVE


And...

My husband (our diocese's Scripture go-to guy) cites GB Caird's book The Revelation of John the Divine for a study of Revelation in light of apocalyptic literature.

But here's a short course from the Encyclopædia Britannica on the basics of apocalyptic literature:

apocalyptic literature
... literary genre that flourished from about 200 BC to about AD 200, especially in Judaism and Christianity. Written primarily to give hope to religious groups undergoing persecution or the stress of cultural upheavals, apocalypses (from the Greek apokalypsis: "revelation") describe in cryptic language, understood by believers, the sudden, dramatic intervention of God in history…

In the group we lead through theological reflections, after a brief study of "what is apocalyptic literature, and how is it mis-used in Bible study." Then we'd spend several weeks exploring how the relevant Scripture would relate to our lives now. We would not be looking to parse out end-times predictions-- we'd look at the cultural stresses we experience and observe in our OWN lives, in THIS time, and then look to see how God might already be acting in those things.

~Susan