A History of the End of the World

“Religion,” in Merrill D. Peterson, ed., Thomas Jefferson, 287 (“merely the ravings”).

10. Rev. 1:3 (RSV; adapted).

11. Schussler Fiorenza, Apocalypse, 20.

12. Schussler Fiorenza, Book of Revelation, 85.

13. Farrar, Rebirth of Images, 98.

14. Rev. 1:10, 11 (KJV; adapted).

15. Quoted in Bernard McGinn, “Revelation,” in Alter and Kermode, Literary Guide, 529.

16. Quoted in Bernard McGinn, “Revelation,” in Alter and Kermode, Literary Guide, 523.

17. From C. G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, quoted in Barnwell, Meditations on the Apocalypse, 1.

18. Barclay, Letters, 11.

19. Barclay, Letters, 11 (adapted).

20. Rev. 3:16 (RSV; adapted).

21. Rev. 22:7 (RSV; adapted).

22. Rev. 1:8, 21:6 (KJV). See also John Spencer Hill, “Themes and Images,” in Drane, Revelation, 18 (“Scriptural reference to alpha and omega, the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, is confined to Revelation….”).

23. Rev. 1:18 (NKJ).

24. Rev. 1:13–16 (KJV).

25. Rev. 5:6 (RSV).

26. Rev. 19:16 (RSV).

27. Rev. 12:3, 12:9 (RSV).

28. Rev. 13:11 (RSV).

29. Rev. 17:2, 17:3, 17:4, 17:6 (RSV).

30. Rev. 12:3–9 (KJV).

31. Rev. 6:8, 6:12–13 (RSV; adapted).

32. Rev. 9:6 (RSV).

33. Rev. 19:18 (RSV).

34. Rev. 20:10 (RSV; adapted).

35. Rev. 21:1, 14:12, 21:8 (RSV; adapted).

36. Rev. 14:20 (KJV), 7:14 (NKJ).

37. Rev. 21:4 (RSV).

38. Rev. 21:14 (KJV).

39. Rev. 6:10–11, 3:11 (RSV).

40. Rev. 1:1 (KJV).

41. Paula Fredriksen, “Tyconius and Augustine on the Apocalypse,” in Emmerson and McGinn, Apocalypse, 20–21.

42. Mark 13:7 (RSV).

43. Rev. 2:24 (RSV).

44. Lev. 19:18 (KJV), Matt. 5:44 (RSV; adapted).

45. Lawrence, Apocalypse, 9, 33.

46. Rev. 18:8, 18:20, 19:2 (KJV).

47. Rev. 18:6, 18:7 (NLT).

48. Paul D. Hanson, “Introductory Overview,” in “Apocalypses and Apocalypticism,” in Freedman, Anchor Bible Dictionary, 1:282.

49. Schussler Fiorenza, Book of Revelation, 8 (adapted).

50. Quoted in Cohn-Sherbok and Cohn-Sherbok, Jewish and Christian Mysticism, 145.

51. James H. Moorhead, “Apocalypticism in Mainstream Protestantism, 1800 to the Present,” in Stein, Apocalypticism, 103.

52. Weber, Living in the Shadow, 239.

53. Janice Rogers Brown, quoted in Wallstein, “Faith ‘War’ Rages,” A-10.

54. Quoted in Boyer, When Time Shall Be, 142.

55. Schussler Fiorenza, Book of Revelation, 135.

CHAPTER 2: SPOOKY KNOWLEDGE AND LAST THINGS

1. Watts, Nature of Consciousness, Tape 2.

2. Exod. 33:20 (JPS).

3. Num. 12:6 (JPS).

4. Deut. 29:29 (JPS).

5. 2 Cor. 12:1–2, 1 Cor. 13:12 (KJV).

6. 2 Cor. 12:1–2, 12:4 (KJV).

7. John J. Collins, “From Prophecy to Apocalypticism: The Expectation of the End,” in Collins, Origins of Apocalypticism, 138, describing the Book of Enoch.

8. Schussler Fiorenza, Book of Revelation, 40–41.

9. Quoted in Hubert Cancik, “The End of the World, of History, and of the Individual in Greek and Roman Antiquity,” in Collins, Origins of Apocalypticism, 89 (“The eternal return…”).

10. Rennie B. Schoepflin, “Apocalypse in an Age of Science,” in Stein, Apocalypticism, 428–29.

11. Yarbro Collins, Crisis and Catharsis, 90, citing Suetonius.

12. Anders Hultgard, “Persian Apocalypticism,” in Collins, Origins of Apocalypticism, 39. Hultgard insists that “an apocalyptic eschatology is firmly attested in Zoroastrianism already in the sixth century B.C.E.,” but concedes that the dating of some Persian texts is subject to scholarly debate (79).

13. James C. VanderKam, “Messianism and Apocalyticism,” in Collins, Origins of Apocalypticism, 196, 197.

14. 1 Sam. 29:4 (JPS).

15. Rowley, Relevance of Apocalyptic, 53 (adapted).

16. Job 2:6 (JPS).

17. Ezek. 38: 2 (JPS). (Elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible, both Gog and Magog are the names of individuals rather than nations. Magog is identified as one of the grandsons of Noah in Gen. 10:9 and 1 Chron. 1:5. Gog is one of the sons of an Israelite man named Joel in 1 Chron. 5:4. These individuals are apparently unrelated to the nations identified as Gog and Magog in Revelation, or to the monarch called “Gog of the land of Magog” in Ezekiel).

18. Ezek. 38:23 (TNK).

19. Ezek. 39:26 (TNK).

20. Ezek. 39:28 (TNK).

21. Amos 8:2, 9 (TNK; adapted).

22. Amos 9:14–15 (TNK).

23. Ezek. 1:5–10 (TNK).

24. Ezek. 1:19 (KJV).

25. Rowley, Relevance of Apocalyptic, 13.

26. Bernard McGinn, “Introduction: John’s Apocalypse and the Apocalyptic Mentality,” in Emmerson and