Apocalypticism is in the air again, thick and vaporous. One might have thought that the run-up to the year 2000, with all the Y2K associated expectations, would have settled things down for a bit, but such is not the case. Back in 1999 Hershel Shanks asked me to do a “Millennium piece” for the magazine Bible Review to be published in December, 1999, just weeks before January 1, 2000 ticked in. Given my specialization in the ancient apocalyptic speculations within the varieties of late 2nd Temple Judaism (Dead Sea Scrolls, New Testament writings, Pseudepigrapha), and my involvement in Waco back in 1993, he apparently though I was just the person to offer some perspective on the present, based on the past. The results are on-line in my article “Why 2K: The Biblical Roots of Millennialism,” that is still worth reading–more so than ever in our current climate.

In our post 9-11 world, with wars in the Middle East, the dire rhetoric of Islamicist fundamentalists, the looming environmental crisis, and the unprecedented current economic meltdown, evoking haunting memories of 1929–or worse–this comes as no surprise. Anyone familiar with “Bible prophecy,” particularly the mysterious books of Daniel, Revelation, and the so-called “Synoptic Apocalypse,” of Mark 13 (with parallel edited versions in Matthew 24 and Luke 21), can try a hand at armchair interpretation. There we read about wars and rumors of wars, famines, earthquakes and tsunamis, with war in the Middle East, and a “battle for Jerusalem” drawing the focus of “all nations.” Indeed, the funeral dirge over the fall of the mercantile empire of ancient Rome (symbolized by “Babylon”), as described in Revelation 18, reads like today’s headlines applied to New York, London, Berlin, or Paris.

I often tell my students that the 40 years from the death of Jesus in 30 AD until the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 CE were the absolute “heyday” of apocalypticism. If ever the “end of the age” was to arrive, based on the scenario summarized in Mark 13, and elaborated in the book of Revelation, it should have been in the waning decades of the 1st century (from Nero to Domitian). Of course there are many rival periods of crisis in the West, from the late 5th century AD down through the troubled 11th through 13th centuries (Crusades, Black Plague, 100 Years War). And our parents or grandparents remember well the surge in apocalypticism connected to the dark days of the previous century (1929-1945).

We do indeed seem to be living through another such period of history, where uncertainty abounds and the undetermined future hangs in the balance. Just in the past few weeks a half dozen current examples have crossed my computer desktop, and I know these are just a tiny tip of the iceberg. Here are a couple of examples:

• The evangelist Harold Camping, who made hay back in 1994 with his predictions of the End, is at it again. In his latest book, Time Has An End, he settles on the revised date of 2011. Stephen Meyers offers a good summary analysis on his very fine Web site, Institute for Biblical and Scientific Studies here. For readers who have not “taken the cure” yet, for a case of biblical fundamentalism, Stephen offers a wealth of materials on a variety of subjects, expressed with sensitivity and uncommon honestly.

• Among the many offshoots of Herbert W. Armstrong’s Worldwide Church of God, one of the most fascinating is the group led by Ronald Weinland, who confidently claims to be one of the “Two Witnesses” of Revelation 11, with the countdown of 1335, 1290, and 1260 days–found in Daniel 12, and echoed through the book of Revelation, taking us to the precise day of Pentecost, 2012. His two books, 2008-God’s Final Witness and The Prophesied End-Time, are distributed free, either in hard copy or via an Internet download. His Web site, appropriately domain-ed: www.the-end.com, offers this and much more. Apparently Mr. Weinland is stirring up lots of interest and controversy among the “144,000″ or so former WCG members. Bob Thiel, of the Living Church of God, one of the more prominent successor groups to Armstrong, led by Rod Meredith, provides an blow-by-blow analysis of the Weinland phenomenon on his site, before offering his own brand of post-Armstrong apocalypticism, stretching things out to the year 2018.

One particularly fascinating aspect of the broader phenomenon of current apocalypticism is the way in which non-biblical oriented schemes are being postulated in parallel thereto–particularly the craze over the Mayan Calendar, set to terminate its “Great Year” on December 21, 2012. Type in the search: “mayan calender end of the world” on Google and you can spend the next month browsing the nearly 500,000 references on the Web, and if you vary your search words a bit, the references grow into the millions. Wikipedia has a nice summary article of the amazing scope of the 2012 phenomenon. As of this writing that leaves us only 1437 days, 16 hours, and nine minutes–see the countdown clock at Thiel’s site, where he offers his own biblical perspective on the phenomenon. A new co-authored book (“25 renowned experts”) titled The Mystery of 2012: Predictions, Prophecies, and Possibilities is selling briskly on at amazon.com, which lists a dozen other books with 2012 in their titles. There is even a new 200 million film called 2012 set for release on July 10, 2009 through Columbia pictures, directed by Robert Emmerich (“Independence Day” and “The Day after Tomorrow), with actors John Cusack and Amanda Peet, to mention a few.

Next week’s inauguration of Barack Obama has actually fueled and fanned many versions of the current apocalyptic bent to a fever pitch–whether he is viewed as messiah, or more commonly among those expecting the End–the Antichrist. The Google search string: “obama antichrist” yields over one million hits, including entire blogs, such as BarackObamaAntichrist.blogspot.com devoted thereto (loads slow but worth the wait).

I am neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet but I think I can safely predict that we are in the “apocalyptic ride” of our lives in the next five years. Stay tuned…

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 13th, 2009 at 8:11 am and is filed under Apocalypticism, Christian Origins. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.