End-Timers: Three Thousand Years of Waiting for Judgment Day

by Martin Ballard

Overview

This fascinating history surveys apocalyptic religion through time, setting it within a political and social context.

End-Timers: Three Thousand Years of Waiting for Judgment Day examines the high and low points of millennial expectation across the centuries. It shows how and why such beliefs first developed in antiquity, and it explores how end-timers influenced events as varied as the persecutions of Hellenistic ruler Antiochus Epiphanes and Roman Emperor Nero, the Crusades, the settlement of North America, and the 20th-century debacles at Jonestown and Waco.

Suggesting that anyone who wishes to understand the Middle East today needs to penetrate the background of modern fundamentalism within the three Semitic religions, the author illuminates the part played by Christian Zionists in promoting the return of the Jews to the "promised land" and the resulting formation of the state of Israel, as well as subsequent fundamentalist reactions within both Judaism and Islam. He also follows the birth of the "Christian Right" in 19th-century Britain and its development and growing influence in the United States. Finally, the book examines how religious end-timers confront the four horsemen of the 21st-century apocalypse: world population increase, depletion of natural resources, advanced weaponry, and global warming.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798216079446
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	08/17/2011
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	264
File size:	1 MB
Age Range:	7 - 17 Years

About the Author

Martin Ballard is author of Praeger's White Men's God: The Extraordinary Story of Missionaries in Africa and other books on religion and history. He is also a novelist.
Martin Ballard is an independent scholar and writer.

Table of Contents

Preface v

Acknowledgments ix

1 Fighting the Dragon of Chaos: Beginnings 1

2 David's Righteous Branch: The Jewish End-Time 9

3 The Secret of the Kingdom: The Christian End-Time 25

4 The Book Shall Be Laid Down: The Islamic End-Time 43

5 The Day of Antichrist Approaches: Europe before 1346 61

6 Do Not Let Your Sword Cool: Plague and Reformation 81

7 Everything That Is Hidden Is Found: Mystics and Explorers 99

8 Before the End of the World Come: A Messianic Century 111

9 In the Hands of an Angry God: End-Timers in Conflict 133

10 When the Master Comes: Messiah and Mahdi 151

11 No Other Goal than Palestine: Zionists and Politicians 165

12 Signs of the Times: A Troubled World 181

Notes 207

Select Bibliography 227

Index 243