St. John, The Book of Revelation, was a corollary of the Book of Daniel and is dated to approximately 95 A.D. It's layered and obscure visions have greatly influenced Western concepts of the future.
While the visions in the Book of Revelation are frightening and mysterious, they have been applied to just about every disaster and war throughout history. Revelation was originally written to exhort the Christians to bear up under the horrors that they were experiencing from the war with the Roman Empire. It was specifically a vision of the horrible suffering they were enduring at Roman hands. Only later was it embraced as a prediction of the end times of the world.
Another observation to bear in mind is that the historical tales in the Bible take place almost exclusively in the Middle East. If Revelation's predictions apply to modern day, they will mainly apply to the future of the Middle Eastern countries. It's not likely that most of the details are meant to be applied to modern America or the rest of the world.
More about the Book of Revelation International Bible Society - this site has quotations from the Book of Revelation and some intriguing images.
From a previous phillynews.com article: "Enter the Book of Revelation with due caution. Much of it is a Bible horror show of plagues and apocalyptic horsemen, lakes of fire and teeming bowls of God's wrath. A seven-headed beast arises from the sea to conquer the saints, another from the earth to enslave the gullible. Lately, a band of mild-mannered Christian teachers has arisen on the scene as well. They aim to tame the beasts - and reclaim Revelation from the "apocalyptic prophecy mongers" who stoke the popular imagination. Their rescue mission is no small task. Revelation's darkest images have been stirred, willy-nilly, into the millennial "end times" books and movies that fill the secular and Christian markets. The result, the critics say, is that the rank-and-file faithful badly misread the text or, worse, avoid it altogether out of fear, confusion or embarrassment... For every dark image in Revelation there is a bright one."
Scientists have discovered an ancient coastline 550 feet below the surface of the Black Sea, providing dramatic new evidence of a sudden, catastrophic flood around 7,500 years ago -- the possible source of the Old Testament story of Noah. The Black Sea was created when melting glaciers raised the sea level until the sea breached a natural dam at what is now the Bosporus, the strait that separates the Mediterranean Sea from the Black Sea. An apocalyptic deluge followed, inundating the freshwater lake below the dam, submerging thousands of square miles of dry land, flipping the ecosystem from fresh water to salt practically overnight, and probably killing thousands of people and billions of land and sea creatures.
Newsweek, Nov. 1 - The cover story examines how the biblical story of the Apocalypse catalyzed important historical events. The Crusades were launched to prepare for the Revelation; the Reformation was inspired by Martin Luther's identification of the papacy with the Antichrist; and Christian fundamentalists support Zionism because they believe that Christ will return to earth only when the Jews return to Israel. ... A related article reveals that 18 percent of Americans expect the world to end during their lifetime. House Majority Whip Tom DeLay has a plaque in his office that reads, "This could be the day."
Nathan Gopen is the owner of Diadem Productions, a software company that produces multimedia CD-ROMs devoted to books of the Bible—including Revelation. About a month ago, Gopen said, "The Bible does not specify anything significant about the year 2000. There is no specific time given for the second coming (in fact, Jesus specifically says it will be at a time when the unbelieving world does not expect it)," Gopen wrote. "However, we can state with certainty that Jesus will not appear in the year 2000, nor will the battle of Armageddon happen then. There is a well-documented set of events, trends and courses of prophecy that need to take place before the 'grand finale' of God's plan." "When you sit down and study [Revelation], there's a very well-laid-out sequence of events and signs," he added. "A lot of it hasn't happened yet—the temple would already be built in Jerusalem, for example. It's impossible for years' worth of stuff to happen in the next few months."
It's said that the shofar, a hollowed-out ram's horn, was sounded at Mount Sinai when God gave Moses the Ten Commandments, and that the shofar's blast -- direct, penetrating -- will announce the coming of the messiah at the End of Days.
Because Rosh Hashana is said to commemorate the divine act of creation, the blowing of the shofar is regarded as heralding God's annual coronation as king of the universe. As the shofar resounds each year, ``there's a bond, an aural bond that happens,'' says George Levenson, a Santa Cruz filmmaker who is making a documentary about the shofar. ``This sound is happening all over the world. It's a vibration, like radio waves, a very connecting kind of thing for Jews -- not only in the moment, but also across the generations. There's a wonderful mystery to it that makes us feel we're part of something that's infinite and timeless.''
There are many movies coming to television this season that deal with the life of Jesus, including:
in November 1999 - "Mary and Jesus", a two-hour movie on NBC.
on April 23, 2000, Easter evening - "The Miracle Maker", on ABC.
in May 2000 - "Jesus", a 4-hour miniseries on CBS. Debra Messing ('Will & Grace') will play Mary Magdalene.
APPROACHING THE MILLENNIUM - A Mississippi preacher devotes life to birthing red heifer in Israel. The cows, the first of what Lott hopes will be 50,000 sent to the Jewish state, are part of his plan to fulfill a biblical prophecy that a red heifer be born in Israel to bring about the ``Second Coming" of Jesus.
Evangelical Christian support for Israel intensifies as the new millennium nears. The end of centuries is often fertile ground for apocalyptic movements, but as the year 2000 approaches, this is the first time that so many Christians and Jews have worked so closely together.
APOCALYPSE FEVER
The bumper stickers of some believers proclaim their faith in traffic: In case of Rapture, beware of driverless car.
For many fundamentalist Christians, the upcoming millennium won't be a time to celebrate with champagne and party favors. In fact, some don't plan to be around at all for the next century.
They look to the skies for an angelic trumpet blast that will lift both living and dead Christians into heaven. Those poor souls left behind will suffer through seven years of Tribulation, a time of war and plague under the rule of the Antichrist. At the end of seven years, Christ returns again to throw the Antichrist into hell and establish a kingdom of 1,000 years, reigning from a rebuilt temple in Jerusalem.
"Fundamentalists have a real anxiety-producing message about what's coming down the pike in the year 2000," says George Monta, a retired theologian living in Rutherfordton, N.C.
In his book "The Prophecy Handbook: A Theologian Looks at Millennial Myths and Scriptural Truths" (Weston Bible Ministries), Monta takes a critical look at these literal readings of metaphorical visions from the scriptures of Daniel and the Book of Revelation.
Monta traces the rise of these "end-time" doctrines as a relatively new phenomenon that runs counter to centuries of church tradition.
Fundamentalists may be dismayed to learn that these ideas were first advanced in 1585 by a Jesuit priest, Francisco Ribera, who wanted to defend the pope from attack as the Antichrist by Protestants.
A group named by Plymouth Brethren brought teachings of "dispensationalism" and a secret rapture to America in the mid-1800s. But the doctrines became widely accepted when a preacher named Cyrus Scofield popularized the Rapture and the Great Tribulation in his Reference Bible published in 1909.
Denominations such as the Baptists, Mormons, Seventhday Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses and others embraced these ideas, while other mainline groups such as the Presbyterian, Episcopal and Methodist look only to a Second Coming of Christ as outlined in the Nicene Creed - no Rapture, Tribulation or Millennial kingdom.
A devout Christian, Monta doesn't discount the prophecies in Daniel and Revelation or the dark warnings Jesus gave of the end times - he believes these were fulfilled in Pentecost when the Holy Spirit filled Christ's followers of a few decades later when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem in 70 A.D.
"By placing all prophetic fulfillments into the future, the lateralists insist that things are seen, or flesh, are more real than things that are unseen, or spiritual," Monta writes. "In other words, the visible is more than the invisible."
Part of the problem stems from debate whether the Kingdom of God hailed by Jesus will be a visible, physical government or is an inner, invisible state. By focusing on the future, Monta says many Christians miss out on living now within the Holy Spirit.
The soft-spoken theologian believes that preaching about Rapture and the Great Tribulation "doesn't change lives spiritually. It doesn't treat addictions or overeating. It generally scares people into conformity within a particular group with a strong leader.
Monta attributes the persistence of these doctrines to one sad fact: "Fear sells. They're using the psychology of fear on people because it works. It scares the hell out of people."
Monta has never been afraid to doubt or challenge received dogmas. Raised in a conservative independent church, Monta entered an evangelical seminary where teachers "spent much of their time turning us into scriptural mathematicians, pointing us to contemporary fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy and teaching us to count generations to set exact dates for the end times."
When Monta pointed to other contradictory scriptures, he made his teachers uncomfortable and was soon asked to leave. "We feel you belong in a university, not a Bible School," his dean told him.
Many pastors shy away from any kind of intellectual reading, Monta observes. "They are absolutely bone dry when it comes to those things that broaden the intellect and the ability to ask meaningful questions."
After a stint in the Navy, Monta went on to study at the University of Chicago under a Ford Foundation Fellowship. He received his master's from Seton Hall University and earned a doctorate of ministries from the International Seminary. He has also appeared on the 700 Club to discuss his work in counseling people with eating disorders.
An interest in prophecy runs in the family. His wife, Adaire, is the niece of the Rev. Charles Weston, an Assemblies of God minister who resigned rather than teach the prophetic theories of the Scofield Reference Bible. Weston spent his life compiling notes from his own reference bible. Monta continues that work in "The Prophecy Handbook."
Rather than looking for clues to the identity of the Antichrist or the date of the Rapture, Monta looks ahead to a Second Coming of Christ when Jesus' message of love is accepted worldwide in the hearts of all humans. "The Church has to find a way to love the Buddhists, the Hindus, the Aborigines - not to make them into Christians like themselves - but to love them as the healthy, whole human beings that they are."
Copyright 1999, The Detroit News - By DALE NEAL, The Asheville Citizen-Times