YBGud? - ESCHATOLOGY: The end of it all

ESCHATOLOGY: The end of it all

”Systematic thinking about what lies ahead for humanity in Christian perspective: ‘the doctrine of the End”. Both meanings of the word end – in the sense of time (‘chronos’) and of purpose (‘telos’) feature. Speaking chronologically, we die. What lies beyond is the subject of speculation. It is a fundamental Christian conviction that death is not the last word about each person. It is not simply that they survive their deaths in the memories of others, but that in some sense, not fully expressible because beyond our present experience, individually and communally we have a lasting identity (resurrection of the body’, ‘communion of saints’, ‘eternal life’). In this condition our humanity is both refined and fulfilled (‘the judgement of the quick and the dead’, ‘heaven and hell’), as we are brought to Light in God (‘thus God will be all in all’). Teleologically speaking, everyone has the living invitation to direction themselves towards truth and beauty, justice and generosity in all they do. In so doing they will enjoy a richer life now and have foretaste of the greater light ahead, which is their source even in the present.”

Daffodils in decay

Above: speaking chronologically all life on earth must die

Illustrative Stories

Moral purpose in life?

Whatever life threw at her, Sheena was quietly confident. She had a sense of being able to rely on her family and friends, and that they in turn could rely on her. Behind that trust lay her experience of being held safe throughout her childhood by all who cared for her. And behind that an even deeper sense that she, like everyone else in the world, is secure in the loving source of all being, of everything that is. We come from God - the creative source and originating energy. We are journeying with God - the animating resource and inspiration in the midst of daily living and dying. We are heading towards God - the prospect of transformation and completeness within and beyond the whole universe.

From time to time this trust was called in question, on no occasion more so than now. Her mother had died two years ago of cancer and her father was now aggressive with alzheimer’s. Her children were now grown and both working abroad. Her job was becoming more demanding in its paperwork and more difficult to experience as rewarding. There were the horrors of Aids and starvation in Africa. There was the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, and the signs of large-scale war. There was even murderous abuse of children in her own home town. Could it really be that the deep sense of purpose and direction in life is as reliable as she had always believed?

Might it not be that she was deceiving herself? If so, perhaps after all morality has no more point than a private day dream.

question: do we have to have some belief in long term purpose and meaning in life to provide justification for being good?

’Reward in heaven’ as ulterior motive for morality

Deep down Steve was irked. His workmates knew him as someone unnusual in that, unlike the rest of them, he goes to church. He’d become used to the occasional joke about this, but just now two of them had set upon him in quite a ferocious way, or that’s how it felt. One of them had accused him of selfishness, and the other of allowing his life to be motivated by fear.

How did they justify these accusations? The charge of fear motivation was based on claiming that he was scared of some kind of hellish punishment after death, if he did anything wrong, or against the teaching of the church. This was naive and cowardly; he should just face up to the fact that when we die we die, and that’s the end of it. The charge of being deep-down selfish arose from their impression that Christians expect to be rewarded for doing good. What is actually his investing in a lottery jackpot, that pays out after death, masquerades as a lifestyle of helping others. What a pathetic creep!

Steve’s irk was that he’d already been over this ground with himself before, and he knew it just wasn’t true. There may be some individual Christians for whom fear does play a part, but in his own experience love is the real motivation. That’s true both before death and afterwards. That’s what takes him into the future; it’s what Jesus is all about. Fear has no place in the love equation. And as for selfishness, he knows that bargaining and bribery are dud currency where love is concerned. True, he can’t really visualise what might be there after death. But he’s very clear that it will be God’s affection at the heart of everything that will be there for him and for everyone, just as it is now. Whatever he does between now and whenever he dies won’t earn him a lucky ticket into God’s affection! The gift is already there.

question: Was Steve right to feel irked? What place does the ’stick and carrot’ of Judgement Day have in Christian ethics?

Extracts from influential writings

Poetic wish fulfilment?

Fish (fly-replete, in depth of June,
Dawdling away their wat’ry noon)
Ponder deep wisdom, dark or clear,
Each secret fishy hope or fear.
Fish say, they have their Stream and Pond;
But is there anything Beyond?
This life cannot be All, they swear,
For how unpleasant, if it were!
One may not doubt that, somehow, Good
Shall come of Water and of Mud;
And, sure, the reverent eye must see
A Purpose in Liquidity.
We darkly know, by Faith we cry,
The future is not Wholly Dry.
Mud unto mud! -- - Death eddies near -- -
Not here the appointed End, not here!
But somewhere, beyond Space and Time.
Is wetter water, slimier slime!
And there (they trust) there swimmeth One
Who swam ere rivers were begun,
Immense, of fishy form and mind,
Squamous, omnipotent, and kind;
And under that Almighty Fin,
The littlest fish may enter in.
Oh! never fly conceals a hook,
Fish say, in the Eternal Brook,
But more than mundane weeds are there,
And mud, celestially fair;
Fat caterpillars drift around,
And Paradisal grubs are found;
Unfading moths, immortal flies,
And the worm that never dies.
And in that Heaven of all their wish,
There shall be no more land, say fish.

Rupert Brooke ‘Heaven’(1916)

question: though the appetite for ‘more’ has in itself no guarantee that such will follow, what qualities in life beyond death are most humanly desirable?

‘Closure’ may be necessary for moral meaning

“A friend of mine once remarked that from what he’d heard of Paradise he wasn’t much interested. The prospect of living forever in a state of sublime equilibrium he found utterly unappealing. Better to die quickly and have it all over with than face the boredom of eternal life. If immortality is limited to having the same thoughts and experiences over and over again forever, it does seem pointless. However, if immortality is combined with progress, then we can imagine living in a state of perpetual novelty, always learning or doing something new and exciting. The trouble is, what for? When human beings embark on a project for a purpose, they have in mind a specific goal. If the goal is not achieved, the project will have failed (though the experience may not necessary be valueless). On the other hand, if the goal is attained, the project will be completed and the activity will then cease. Can there be true purpose in a project that is never completed? Can existence be meaningful if
it consists of an unending journey toward a destination that is never reached?

If there is a purpose to the universe, and it achieves that purpose, then the universe must end, for its continued existence would be gratuitous and pointless. Conversely, if the universe endures for ever, it is hard to imagine that there is any ultimate purpose to the universe at all. So cosmic death may be the price that has to be paid for cosmic success. Perhaps the most that we can hope for is that the purpose of the universe becomes known to our descendents before the end of the last three minutes.”

Paul Davies The Last Three Minutes Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1994, pp 154-5.

question: if the universe were to continue steadily for ever, would that affect the worth-whileness of behaving morally?

Virtue as a way to beat death?

Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,
The bridal of the earth and sky,
The dew shall weep thy fall tonight;
For thou must die.

Sweet rose, whose hue angry and brave
Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye,
Thy root is ever in its grave,
And thou must die.

Sweet spring, full of sweeet days and roses,
A box where sweets compacted lie,
My music shows ye have your closes,
And all must die.

Only a sweet and virtuous soul,
Like seasoned timber, never gives;
But though the whole world turn to coal,
Then chiefly lives.

George Herbert ‘Virtue’ (1633)

question: might it actually be that virtue too ends as but dust and ashes?

Damian Thompson

“The invention of the atom bomb at the end of the Second World War had a galvanising effect on End-time belief. It transformed the concept of worldwide destruction from a traditional End-time image accessible only to believers into a frightening possibility accessible to everyone. It gave birth to a new apocalypticism which was fuelled by an apparently rational fear of total catastrophe; and this offered a grim counterpoint to the optimistic themes of liberals and social democrats whose scripture-pattern was parliamentary democracy and who believed, or tried to believe, in the inevitability of victory in the war against poverty and disease. In the end, the threat of man-made global catastrophe developed a life of its own; it could no more be disinvented than the nuclear bomb. When the prospect of nuclear war faded in the late 1980s, the vacuum was immediately filled by fears of a disaster which, though more subtle and insidious, was of a similar order of magnitude. The agents of destruction this time were pollution, global warming and the hole in the ozone layer. As with nuclear weapons, the danger may have been real enough; but there were also signs that an ancient dynamic had re-established itself. The Green lobby invariably talked as if the process of decline was accelerating; it divided the world neatly into heroes and villains and effectively presented its audience with the alternatives of the destruction of mankind by an angry planet or the establishment of a post-industrial utopia.”

Damian Thompson The end of Time. Faith and Fear in the Shadoww of the Millennium Sinclair-Stevenson 1996, pp 133-4.

question: how justifiable in the link between religious belief in Judgement Day and future threats from nuclear or ecological catastrophe?

Biblical References

Judgment is now and continuous

Hear this, you that trample on the needy, and bring to ruin the poor of the land, saying, "When will the new moon be over so that we may sell grain; and the sabbath, so that we may offer wheat for sale? We will make the ephah small and the shekel great, and practice deceit with false balances, buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, and selling the sweepings of the wheat." The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob: Surely I will never forget any of their deeds. Shall not the land tremble on this account, and everyone mourn who lives in it, and all of it rise like the Nile, and be tossed about and sink again, like the Nile of Egypt? On that day, says the Lord God, I will make the sun go down at noon, and darken the earth in broad daylight. I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; I will bring sackcloth on all loins, and baldness on every head; I will make it like the mourning for an only son, and the end of it like a bitter day. Amos 8: 4-10

I saw the Lord standing beside the altar, and he said: Strike the capitals until the thresholds shake, and shatter them on the heads of all the people; and those who are left I will kill with the sword; not one of them shall flee away, not one of them shall escape. Though they dig into Sheol, from there shall my hand take them; though they climb up to heaven, from there I will bring them down. Though they hide themselves on the top of Carmel, from there I will search out and take them; and though they hide from my sight at the bottom of the sea, there I will command the sea-serpent, and it shall bite them. And though they go into captivity in front of their enemies, there I will command the sword, and it shall kill them; and I will fix my eyes on them for harm and not for good. Amos 9: 1-4

question: is the message: at the end of the day, all injustice will get its

A true measure of fairness

A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.
The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him- the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of power, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD
and he will delight in the fear of the LORD. He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears;
but with righteousness he will judge the needy, with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth; with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked.
Righteousness will be his belt and faithfulness the sash around his waist.
The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them.
The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox.
The infant will play near the hole of the cobra, and the young child put his hand into the viper’s nest.
They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea. Isaiah 11: 1-9

question: is such a hope realistic? What individuals or groups could be sufficiently strong and imaginative to develop programmes involving this degree of personal and social change?

Seeds of revolution from the mother of Jesus

And Mary said: "My soul glorifies the Lord
and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour,
for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant. From now on all generations will call me blessed,
for the Mighty One has done great things for me-- holy is his name.
His mercy extends to those who fear him, from generation to generation.
He has performed mighty deeds with his arm; he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.
He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty. Luke 1:46-53

question: in this Song of Mary (the ‘Magnificat’) , the prospect of Jesus’ birth is associated with the kind of future changes declared by earlier Jewish prophets. Is this intended as moral and political judgement, and if so why is not more made of it?

What is happening?

"The time has come," Jesus said. "The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!" Mark 1:14-15

question: is this the same message? What does it mean?

The arena for avoiding goodness is both local and global

"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
"Then the King will say to those on his right, ’Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
"Then the righteous will answer him, ’Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
"The King will reply, ’I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’
"Then he will say to those on his left, ’Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
"They also will answer, ’Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
"He will reply, ’I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
"Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life." Matthew 25:31-46

question: whether or not the picture language of this story is taken literally, the message is powerfully clear: there’s nothing more important in life than caring for those in need. How might churches, or others, do more to show they’ve heard?

In the final analysis, the goodness of God will prevail

Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. 1 Corinthians 15:24-6

question: what are all these other enemy forces and how are they destroyed?

Babylon will burst!

Then there came flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder and a severe earthquake. No earthquake like it has ever occurred since man has been on earth, so tremendous was the quake. The great city split into three parts, and the cities of the nations collapsed. God remembered Babylon the Great and gave her the cup filled with the wine of the fury of his wrath. Every island fled away and the mountains could not be found. From the sky huge hailstones of about a hundred pounds each fell upon men. And they cursed God on account of the plague of hail, because the plague was so terrible. Revelation 16:18-21

question: this sounds like the finish of life as we know it; if it is understood as God’s judgement, what would warrant the scale of this fury?

God’s political players?

"The image of a people called to enjoy and enact another’s harvest was dominant in Jesus’ call to discipleship (see Matt 9:37-8; Luke 10:2; John 4:35-8; and Matt 20:1-16). It conveyed a sense of urgency and unexpected opportunity. That usage serves to confirm that the parable of the man, the seed, and the earth closes on an invitation actively to perform, not merely to attend. If the Kingdom can truly be performed in the sort of ordinary world portrayed in the parable, it must be perceptible in other fields. The claim of the parable is that the Kingdom is at hand; the challenge of the parable is that the Kingdom can only be perceived when it is performed. Only the harvester, who acts on what he sees, and was himself a part – if only a partially conscious part – of the sowing, can taste the harvest. The harvest is not his, he never grasped fully what led up to it, but he has taken enough part, and remained alert enough, to enjoy the result. The Kingdom in word, a parable performed and repeated, elicits and at the same time reflects the Kingdom in deed."

Bruce Chilton and J I H McDonald Jesus and the Ethics of the Kingdom SPCK 1987, p:20

question: is the Kingdom of God, as talked about in the gospels, happening then, now, or in the future? what are the features by which it can be recognised?

No amount of Chaos can survive the coming Cosmos!

"The Book of Revelation is not the only Christian apocalypse – the Apocalypse of Peter and the Shepherd of Hermas, for instance, are also Christian through and through. But it is the only full-length apocalypse to have been received into the canon, where it forms as it were a Christian counterpart to the Book of Daniel. This distinction may not be wholly due to its supposedly apostolic authorship. It is a splendidly imaginative prose-poem, full of arresting imagery, passing from songs of praise to cries of distress and back again, alternating between dazzling light and terrifying darkness. The dragon’s pursuit of ‘the woman clothed with the sun’, the reign and overthrow of the many-headed beast, the fall of ‘Babylon the Great’ – these are powerful symbols, and all the more powerful for being so enigmatic.
The specific forecasts which the seer was trying to convey to his fellow-Christians all proved mistaken: not one of the events which were supposed to happen around the year 100 came to pass. And nevertheless, the prophecies in Revelation lived on: reinterpreted again and again to fit ever changing circumstances, they were to affect the perceptions of generation after generation of Christians.
In these prophecies the ancient myth of the assault of the forces of chaos upon the divinely appointed order, and of the victory of the young divine warrior over those forces, is radically reinterpreted. No longer concerned with a regularly recurring repetition of primordial happenings, it is transformed into a prophecy of the coming kingdom – of a world transfigured, for ever immune from the threat of chaos, and inhabited by an elect community of transformed human beings, for ever immune from aging, disease and death.
Again one is reminded of Zoroaster – and again one wonders: coincidence or influence?"

Norman Cohn Cosmos, Chaos and the World to Come. The Ancient Roots of Apocalyptic Faith Yale University Press 1993, pp 218-9

question: in place of disorder and chaos there will be order and cosmos – how important is it that this is a common theme in Ancient Near Eastern mythology?

Expositions from Theologians

Dennis Nineham

“The entire life-course of the universe was believed to be under the direct providential control of God, who had distributed it in a number of discrete periods…by the tenth century it seemed reasonable to suppose that the sixth and final period had not long to run, so at various plausible dates around this time, especially just before 1000CE or 1033CE (a thousand years from the death of Christ) or in 1009CE (when the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem was totally destroyed by the Caliph Hakim), a vivid belief arose in some quarters to the effect that the end was imminent. While specific expectations such as these were never anything like universal, and never achieved the status of official belief, it was universally agreed that the end could not be far off. People’s attitude was rather like that of a very old person who knows that he or she cannot have very long to live, but has no means of knowing precisely how much time is left.”

Christianity Mediaeval and Modern SCM Press 1993, p.127

question: why is it that in most years/centuries there have been and are people who are fervently convinced that the world is at an end?

John A T Robinson

“…the Second Coming of Christ is not something that can be taught by radar or seen on a screen. It’s not a truth like that at all. It stands for the conviction that – however long it takes – Christ must come into everything. There’s no part of life from which he can or will be left out. And to get this truth across, the Bible draws pictures – to make it easier on the imagination…To skin your eyes watching the skies for the return of Christ is as misguided as to wait for the archaeologists to dig up evidence of the fall of Adam. For both are ways of trying to make vivid what Christians believe is true not just of one moment but of every moment. Everywhere, at any moment, Christ comes in. That’s what the doctrine of the Second Coming is concerned to assert…We can’t help using the word ‘judging’ when we speak of the coming of Christ. For the world is not at ease when he is present – and that is hardly surprising after what it has done to him. No wonder the Bible pictures men as trying to hide their faces from him… suppose he came back? Christians have no need to suppose. They know he comes back. And above all he meets them at his own board, where he promised his returning presence to his friends. It’s as though he said, ‘You may meet me anywhere; but here you will meet me and I shall meet you.’… Watching for the coming of Christ – that’s not scanning the skies..
It’s expecting Christ to come into everything.
You can’t believe that? Sometimes I wish I couldn’t. Life would be a good deal more comfortable!”

But that I can’t believe! Fontana 1967, pp 41-3

question: Does it make any more difference to how we live our lives to realise the Christian end (meaning purpose and completion) is continually now and not just ‘coming nigh’?

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

“Christ, as we know, fulfils Himself gradually, through the ages in the sum of our individual endeavours. Why should we treat this fulfilment as though it possessed none but a metaphorical significance, confining it entirely within the abstract domain of purely supernatural action? Without the process of biological evolution, which produced the human brain, there would be no sanctified souls; and similarly, without the evolution of collective thought, though which alone the plenitude of human consciousness can be attained on earth, how can there be a consummated Christ? In other words, without the constant striving of every human cell to unite with all the others, would the Parousia be physically possible? I doubt it….
In response to the cry of a world trembling with the desire for unity, and already equipped, through the workings of material progress, with the external links of this unity, Christ is already revealing himself, in the depth of men’s hearts, as the Shepherd (the Animator) of the Universe. We may indeed believe that the time is approaching when many men, old and new believers, having understood that from the depths of Matter to the highesty peaks of the spirit there is only one evolution, will seek the fullness of their strength and their peace in the assured certainty that the whole of the world’s industrial, aesthetic, scientific and moral endeavour serves physically to complete the Body of Christ, whose charity animates and recreates all things.”

‘A Note on Progress’ (1920) from The Future of Man Fontana 1969, pp 23-4.

question: Are there any signs by which evidence of global evolution can rightly be interpreted as building the Body of Christ?

Parallels in other cultures

Eschatology

Hinduism, Buddhism, and Zoroastrianism

Hinduism, Buddhism, and Zoroastrianism contain teachings that the world is going through a cosmic cycle in which morals and religion have gradually decayed and have reached a state of dire corruption in this present age, identified as the Kali Yuga or Age of Degeneration of the Dharma. This Kali age will give way to a renovation of faith as the cycle turns and the earth enters a new golden age, the Krita age. Some texts predict that this cosmic change will be initiated by the advent of the new Avatar (Hinduism), the Maitreya Buddha, or the Saoshyant (Zoroastrianism).

http://www.unification.net/ws/intch21.htm ‘Eschatology and Messianic Hope.’

Islam

We believe that Allah, the Exalted, will revive all people after their death on a certain day which he has promised them, and that He will then reward the obedient and punish the wrong-doers. In this simple form, this is what all the Divine religions and philosophies have accepted, but Muslims must believe in it because it is contained in the Qur’an which our Prophet brought, and one who believes in Allah and Muhammad, His Messenger, must also believe in what is related in the Qur’an: resurrection on the Day of Judgement, reward and punishment, Paradise (al-jannah) and its blessings (an -na’im), the Fire (an-nar) and Hell (al-jahim). About one thousand verses in the Qur’an have mentioned the Day of Resurrection. There is no reason to doubt it, unless one doubts Allah, His Power and His Messenger. In fact this amounts to doubting all religions.

http://home.swipnet.se/islam/books/Shia-faith/06.htm ‘Part Five: Eschatology.’ From the on-line book The Faith of Shi’a Islam by Allamah Muhammad Rida Al-Muzaffar.

Islam

The Prophet of Islam held Christians in special esteem and emphasised the function of Christ within Islam by referring to Christ’ s second coming at the end of the world. Islamic eschatology, therefore, although not identical with the Christian, is related to the same central figure of Jesus. Through the eschatological role assigned to Jesus in Islam as well as the many references to him and the Virgin Mary in the Quran, Jesus plays a role in the daily religious consciousness of Muslims equal to that of Abraham and following, of course, the role of the Prophet. Moreover, in Islamic esotericism he plays a major function to which the many writings of Sufis such as Ibn ’Arabi, Rumi and Hafiz attest.

http://www.bismikaallahuma.org/archives/2005/jesus-through-the-eyes-of-islam/ ‘Jesus Through the Eyes of Islam,’ by Dr. Seyyed Hossein Nasr.

Islam

48 On the day when the earth shall be changed into a different earth, and the heavens (as well), and they shall come forth before Allah, the One, the Supreme.
49 And you will see the guilty on that day linked together in chains.
50 Their shirts made of pitch and the fire covering their faces
51 That Allah may requite each soul (according to) what it has earned; surely Allah is swift in reckoning.
52 This is a sufficient exposition for the people and that they may be warned thereby, and that they may know that He is One Allah and that those possessed of understanding may mind.

http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/quran/014.qmt.html ‘Qur’an Chapter 14: 48-52 Ibrahim (Abraham).’ M.H. Shakir translation.

Judaism

On the one hand, ironic jokes and skepticism; on the other, passionate faith: What then is the Jewish position on the Messiah?

Most significantly, Jewish tradition affirms at least five things about the Messiah. He will: be a descendant of King David, gain sovereignty over the land of Israel, gather the Jews there from the four corners of the earth, restore them to full observance of Torah law, and, as a grand finale, bring peace to the whole world. Concerning the more difficult tasks some prophets assign him, such as Isaiah’s vision of a messianic age in which the wolf shall dwell with the lamb and the calf with the young lion (Isaiah 11:6), Maimonides believes that Isaiah’s language is metaphorical (for example, only that enemies of the Jews, likened to the wolf, will no longer oppress them). A century later, Nachmanides rejected Maimonides’s rationalism and asserted that Isaiah meant precisely what he said: that in the messianic age even wild animals will become domesticated and sweettempered. A more recent Jewish "commentator," Woody Allen, has cautioned: "And the lamb and the wolf shall lie down together, but the lamb won’t get any sleep."

The Jewish belief that the Messiah’s reign lies in the future has long distinguished Jews from their Christian neighbors who believe, of course, that the Messiah came two thousand years ago in the person of Jesus. The most basic reason for the Jewish denial of the messianic claims made on Jesus’ behalf is that he did not usher in world peace, as Isaiah had prophesied: "And nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore" (Isaiah 2:4). In addition, Jesus did not help bring about Jewish political sovereignty for the Jews or protection from their enemies.

http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/Judaism/messiah.html ‘The Messiah,’ originally from Joseph Telushkin Jewish Literacy NY: William Morrow and Co., 1991.

Additional Religions

Aztec

They say the sun that exists today was born in 13 Reed [751], and it was then that light came, and it dawned. Movement Sun, which exists today, has the day sign 4 Movement, and this sun is the fifth sun that there is. In its time there will be earthquakes, famine. ⁽¹⁾

This vision of doom belongs to the Aztec legend of the Five Suns. In the Aztec tradition, the universe was not permanent or everlasting. Like all living things it would someday have to come to an end. But the Aztec cosmos doesn’t have a single destruction. They pictured time as a cycle of births, destruction, and rebirths. But this cycle couldn’t continue for ever; there would only be five ages or "Suns." Each of these ages had its own name, sign, and ruling divinity. Much of the mythology and ritual revolving around this legend took root in Aztec society and thought.

http://www.spiritpathways.com/5suns.html ‘The Legend of the Five Suns.’

Zoroastrianism

Good Conscience, the religion of Zarathushtra, is, historically, the first and foremost monotheistic religion in the world. But like other religions, it also has continually changed from its pristine purity to the present institutionalized form of Zoroastrianism…

The eschatology [of institutionalized Zoroastrianism] is elaborate and picturesque. The soul remains for three days and nights beside the dead body on the earth and ascends on the fourth morning to reach the "Bridge of Separation," originally a Gathic allegory, now turned into a concrete construction. There, it is judged by three yazatas—Mithra, Sraosha, and Rashnu. Here one is not judged separately for each of his or her deeds, but the total of good acts are placed in one pan and all the evil actions in another pan of the balance. Those whose good deeds outweigh their evil actions, are declared righteous and go, according to merits, to one of the four categories of the Heaven and live a life of bliss, and those whose evil deeds are heavier than their good actions are wrongful and likewise go to one of the four Hells. There they are grotesquely tortured, ironically, by the Evil Spirit and his horde of demons. For those who have equal weights of good and evil, there is the purgatory (Avesta Misvâna Gâtu, "mixing place" or Pahlavi Hammistagân, "place of equal mixing") to eventually purge them of their evil. Here the souls are not tortured but made to suffer only from cold and heat. In spite of these assignments, there is also the bodily resurrection when the dead will arise. Then souls and bodies will again be judged and sentenced to bliss or a temporary punishment. All will eventually be united in the blissful existence. The Evil Spirit and his creation will be doomed for ever.

The Institutionalized Zoroastrianism has transformed the Gathic conception of the mental state of enjoying good and suffering evil and the subsequent achievement of wholeness, immortality, and the eternal divine bliss into an elaborate eschatology of death, judgement, heaven, hell, purgatory, bodily resurrection, and salvation, an eschatology which has greatly influenced other religions, including, Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

http://www.zoroastrian.org/articles/The_Good_Religion_and_Zoroastrianism.htm

‘The Good Religion and the Institutionalized Zoroastrianism,’ by Ali A. Jafarey.

Status of Authors of Above Articles

Dr. Ali Akbar Jafarey: Dr. Jafarey posseses a doctorate in Persian Literature from the University of Karachi, and has taught Avestan and Pahlavi, the languages of the Zoroastrian scriptures. Dr. Jafarey has also made Persian and English translations of the Gathas (Hymns) of Zarathustra: the English translation is entitled The Gathas, Our Guide (1989). In the United States he served for nine years as the scholar/teacher for the California Zoroastrian Centre, and is founder and director of the Zarathustrian Assembly in Los Angeles.

More about Dr Jafaray at: http://www.vohuman.org/Author/Jafarey,AliAkbar.htm

Dr. Seyyed Hossein Nasr: "Professor Seyyed Hossein Nasr was born in Tehran, Iran on April 7, 1933. He received his education in Iran and the United States and graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University. He returned to Iran in 1958 and was professor at Tehran University until 1979. In addition to teaching at Tehran University, he served as Dean of the Faculty of Letters and Vice Chancellor of the University and Chancellor of Aryamehr University. He also founded the Iranian Academy of Philosophy and served as its first president. Since 1984, Dr. Nasr has been University Professor of Islamic Studies at the George Washington University in Washington, D.C. and President of the Foundation for Traditional Studies. Professor Nasr has written over twenty-five books and five hundred articles in Persian, English, Arabic, and French. His works have been translated into many languages including German, Spanish, Bosnian, Turkish, and Urdu."

http://www.beaconofknowledge.com/bio.htm.