THE APOCALYPSE Flashcards
What is the Book of Daniel?
Book of the Old Testament, describing the Apocalypse
Daniel receives divine visions revealing future events.
*Daniel’s specific visions include God’s plan to usher in the final kingdom and save the Jews from their oppressor (Does NOT say when)
What is the Book of Revelation?
Apocalypse of John (written by John of Patmos probably)
- Assuring Christians that at end of all things enemies are punished and you’re rewarded
- Written during Christian prosecution
Key moments from the Book of Revelation:
The opening of the Seven Seals, seven trumpets sound, seven spiritual beings (including the great Dragon and the Mark of the Beast),
Why is the Book of Revelation controversial?
This is a controversial book of the Christian Bible = some Protestant theologians think it should not be taken as prophecy, others think it should not be included in the Bibe
Four Horsemen:
Conquest
War
Famine
Death
Was plague a sign of apocolypse?
Yes,
But also Epidemic disease was a facet of pre-modern life
Three “end of the worlds” in the Americas:
- “great dying”
- Settler-colonialism is also the end of a world
*Genocide, dispossession of land, forced labour - Indigenous “survivance” = survival + resistance
How did Jewish population experience apocolypse?
Every Jewish expulsion is the end of the world for that community
- Every act of violence against a community has an Apocalyptic dimension
*Ashkenazi martyrology remembers the dead and prepares people for the reality that they too might die for their fait
What three big conflicts convince ppl the end is coming?
*Wars of Religion in France
*Thirty Years War
*English Civil War
What two “natural” events convince ppl the end is coming?
Little ice age
Return of Plague
What are consequences of apocalypse ideas in Germany?
*Gustaf II Adolf invades Germany during the Thirty Years War because he understood himself to be ushering in the endtimes as the Protector of Protestantism
What are consequences of apocalypse ideas in England?
Oliver Cromwell and his closest advisors considered re-admitting Jews to England in order to convince them to convert (as a pre-req for Apocalypse)
*This same belief encourages Christians to engage intellectually with Jews
What are consequences of apocalypse ideas in Jewish community?
Sabbatai Zevi leads a congregation of traumatized Jews into the Ottoman Empire by promising that he, the messiah, can re-take the Holy Land and usher in the final kingdom
(is later forcibly converted to Islam - which isn’t a usually practice but he was being cultish and disrespectful to Sultan = exception)
What are consequences of apocalypse ideas in Ottoman Empire? (more European Beliefs about Empire)
Figuring out who the Antichrist is deeply shapes European attitudes towards the Ottoman Empire and towards other Christian denomination
What is Apocalyptic theology?
is a lens for interpreting the world
*Both the Book of Daniel and the Book of Revelation are extremely vague and demand interpretation
*What are the Seven Seals? The Seven Trumpets? Is the Dragon a literal dragon?
Diverse area of theology
What is Seventeenth-century millenarianism?
: expectation that the endtimes were coming soon
*The world we live in is corrupt and will be swept away by a series of Apocalyptic events including (but not limited to): the Battle of Armageddon, the Conversion of the Jews, the Second Coming, and the Judgement Day
Who will be the key figures? How will we identify them?
Why believe in the apocalypse?
*Revenge on your oppressor (Jewish)
*Locating terrible events in a comforting narrative
*It’s nice to know where history is going
*Believing in the promises of the Bible means believing in the scope of Providential history, including the Apocalypse
*The Apocalypse is the point at which all will be revealed = Original Ancient Greek meaning (maybe a good thing)
Do people still expect apolcalypse? (also freebie)
Bush (weirdo)
George W. Bush famously saw God at work in his wars in the Middle East and believed himself to potentially be a prophesied figure
*2003: Told Jacques Chirac, “Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East. Biblical Prophecies are being fulfilled.”
Terrible early modern irony: (freebie)
No apocalypse
as European Christians wait for the Apocalypse, they inflict Apocalypses on others, in part as an attempt to move things along
