Apocalypse Soon

WHAT is it about apocalyptic belief? Predictions of the imminent end of the world seem paradoxically long-lived. This is particularly so within Western culture, entwined as it is with Christianity. Christianity enters the public stage with the declaration that history is about to end. “The time is fulfilled,” proclaims Mark’s Jesus. “The Kingdom of God is at hand!” (Mark 1:15).

The nearness of the Kingdom and the cosmic transformation thus entailed stand as core convictions from Paul’s letters, the earliest stratum of New Testament evidence, to the closing lines of the Book of Revelation. This specifically Christian variation of the perduring Jewish myth links the coming of God’s Kingdom to the dazzling, glorious second coming of Christ. Ascended bodily at his Resurrection, Christ will return soon, Paul assures the Thessalonians mid-century, “with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and the sound of the trumpet of God” (1 Thes. 4:16). What then? The dead are raised, the living transformed, and the victorious Christ turns the Kingdom over to God the Father (1 Cor. 15).

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Paula Fredriksen

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WHAT is it about apocalyptic belief? Predictions of the imminent end of the world seem paradoxically long-lived. This is particularly so within Western culture, entwined as it is with Christianity. Christianity enters the public stage with the declaration that history is about to end. “The time is fulfilled,” proclaims Mark’s Jesus. “The Kingdom of God is at hand!” (Mark 1:15).

The nearness of the Kingdom and the cosmic transformation thus entailed stand as core convictions from Paul’s letters, the earliest stratum of New Testament evidence, to the closing lines of the Book of Revelation. This specifically Christian variation of the perduring Jewish myth links the coming of God’s Kingdom to the dazzling, glorious second coming of Christ. Ascended bodily at his Resurrection, Christ will return soon, Paul assures the Thessalonians mid-century, “with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and the sound of the trumpet of God” (1 Thes. 4:16). What then? The dead are raised, the living transformed, and the victorious Christ turns the Kingdom over to God the Father (1 Cor. 15).