History Gives Muslims a Boost

A recent study found the Muslims were more serious about their religious beliefs than members of other religions.  In the study, Muslims “are much more likely than Christians and Hindus to say that their own faith is the only true path to paradise, and they are more inclined to say their religion is an important part of their daily lives,” CNN reported.

The researchers just couldn’t agree why.

One scholar suggested that Muslims look at what they perceive as the immorality in the Western world and conclude their culture is more divinely inspired.  Others pointed to the intense religious indoctrination Islamic children undergo and no history of enlightenment, which helped divorce religion from the state in the West.

There may be one other option that the researchers overlooked: regardless of belief, Islam actually has a supportable history.  Other religions do not.

No one argues that Muhammad lived.  His likeness was sketched; his strengths and weaknesses discussed.  Details of his life were written during his lifetime and augmented by followers who knew him well. 

An historian can quibble over whether or not he had revelations and how much his interaction with traveling Christians and Jews influenced his thinking.  There’s some discussion how much of the Islamic holy book, the Koran, is based on what the Prophet actually said and how much was added by later Islamic leaders.  However, there’s no debate over his life.

That’s not true with any other major religion.  The biography of Buddha was written long after he died and clearly contains vast legendary material.  The well-known story that he was a prince who developed his philosophy in an effort to end suffering may be pure nonsense.  No one knows.  It’s even impossible to prove he actually lived.

That’s true with Moses, too.  The Bible insists his name is Hebrew, but it’s not; it’s Egyptian.  Historians know nothing of his life.  The Biblical accounts are completely unreliable historically.  The tales of him being rescued from a river reflect the tales told about Sargon, a legendary Babylonian king of an earlier era and Osiris, a legendary Egyptian god.  In addition, Moses’ life as described in the Bible is largely the retelling of a far older Egyptian tale about a man named Sinuhe. 

The first five books of the Bible are credited to Moses, but are reliably dated to hundreds of years after he must have died.  There is no historical evidence for the Exodus he supposedly led in either Egyptian records or archaeology.  No Mt. Sinai exists that resembles the biblical account, and tales of him hiding in a cleft so he is unharmed when God walks by are clearly legendary.

We know even less about Abraham, considered the founder of Judaism.  All tales in the Bible are legendary.  As a result, Abraham and Moses are merely names on a page.

Even a more recent religious figure like Jesus remains only a cipher.  The Gospels tell four different stories about him, with varying birth accounts, genealogies and reported events.  Attempts to reconcile the diverse details have proven futile.  Many of the so-called facts, such as the account of Jesus’ trial, have turned out to be completely inaccurate accounts when compared to known Roman trials.

No one described Jesus.  Paul, who wrote the earliest known documents about Jesus, didn’t even quote him despite the wealth of comments now recorded in the New Testament.  Many of those quotes, however, are now known to have been derived from earlier sources. 

Attempts to locate earliest texts turned into an embarrassment when the earliest known Mark was found not to include a resurrection story.  Instead, the account in Mark that was used as a source for Matthew and Luke turned out to be appended by a later writer.

Some historians don’t believe Jesus ever lived.  Others place him in the uncertain past as a divine figure like a mythological Greek god.

In reality, Jesus’ existence can only be “verified” through inference.  For example, Paul kowtowed to Jesus’ earlier followers, something he definitely would not have done if he thought Jesus was an imaginary person.  Jesus is also mentioned in the Talmud, the collection of sayings by Jewish sages disinclined to comment on imaginary people.  And, of course, there was a small sect that believed Jesus was a great prophet, but which was overwhelmed by later Pauline views that Jesus was a divinely sent messiah.

That’s not much historical base to build an entire faith on.

With the advent of the internet and the rapid spread of knowledge, the limitations of religions with little historical support have become glaringly apparent.  That, in turn, has led many people to question their faith and seek one with morals and ethics they want, but with a history they can believe in.

As a result, the survey repeatedly found that Islamic believers look to Muhammad as their role model.  Other religions may give lip service to that ideal, but Muslims, at least, know they are the only ones emulating a real person.

That does not necessarily validate their faith in God or that Muhammad was His messenger.  It only provides support for that belief.

Bill Lazarus regularly writes about religion and religious history.  He also speaks at various religious organizations throughout Florida.  You can reach him at www.williamplazarus.com.  His books are available on Amazon.com, Kindle, bookstores and via various publishers.  Many of his essays are posted at www.williamplazarus.blogspot.com.

Prayer Doesn't Work

A reader who has followed my blogs said she was praying for me. Apparently, my discussions doubting the existence of God concerned her.  She is worried about how God will react after I die and was trying to create some kind of a prayer shield for me.   I am always grateful for such concern, but am fearful that the reader is violating her own religious beliefs.

All monotheistic religions teach that prayer should never ask God for anything, but rather should simply praise Him.  In Conversations with God, author Neale Donald Walsch blew his cover by saying God was surprised to learn that particular aspect of prayer.  The Lord of Hosts is not alone:  in the movie Bruce Almighty , the computer overflows with prayerful requests from humans, and Bruce (Jim Carrey) cavalierly approves them all.   Naturally, hilarity ensues.

Besides, they don’t work – at least on Earth.  Prayer, after all, is a vestige from the ancient origins of religion in magic.  Say the magic word, and whatever you want will happen.   Not according to research.

One massive study of the efficacy of prayer, released in 2006, found that “having people pray for heart bypass surgery patients had no effect on their recovery.  In fact, patients who knew they were being prayed for had a slightly higher rate of complications.”

There was no explanation for the findings, which mirrored previous research.  Maybe an old adage is the best option: sometimes the answer to a prayer is “no.”

On top of that, praying for others has a long and dismal history.  Throughout much of Christian history, for example, wealthy members of society worried about their immortal souls left oodles of money to various churches and religious organizations for perpetual prayers.  As a result, such groups as Dominicans became extraordinarily wealthy.  

The Roman Catholic Church benefited greatly from such efforts and, in the 1400s, went one step further.   In Church teachings, the souls of those who die go to purgatory before being sent to heaven or hell.  The step was necessary as a way to explain where Jesus was between the time of his crucifixion on Friday and his subsequent resurrection on Sunday.

Naturally, all the extra masses paid for by believers were designed to increase chances the subject of those prayers would go to heaven.  To heighten the effect, the Church began to sell indulgences, which supposedly decreased the time a poor soul spent in purgatory, a sort of “get-out-of-purgatory” free card.   Salesmen actually wandered through towns, selling these indulgences to the naïve and the stupid.

That’s same approach works today.  People follow astrology charts, buy stars for loved ones and the like without the slightest concern for logic.

Those with an ounce of common sense back in the 1500s, however, were upset.  A German monk named Martin Luther was so incensed that he issued a direct challenge to the Church in the form of 95 Theses, which called for reform of the Church.  Instead, he launched the Protestant Revolution.

The resulting carnage had only one bright spot: colonists to the New World, determined not to transport religious wars from Europe along with their other baggage, opted for freedom of religion, a heritage that continues to make this country so special.

That’s why people like me can write columns like this.

Actually, I subscribe to several options regarding prayer.  Blaise Pascal, the French mathematician who invented odds, correctly observed that the odds that God exists are 50-50.  I’ll go with the odds.

I also figure things turn out pretty much the same, no matter what anyone does.  In that, I support John Calvin, who taught that God chooses who is saved regardless of what happened on Earth.   His philosophy spread widely and was followed by the Puritans who founded Massachusetts.

I also go along with Abbot Arnald Amalric who in 1209 reportedly said, “Kill them all, God will recognize his own” when asked what to do with the French residents of Beziers who were targeted by anti-heretic crusaders.  The folks living there were a mixture of Catholics and Christian Cathars.  An estimated 20,000 people were butchered by men led by Simon de Montford on St. Medeline’s Day, including many who sought refuge in the church dedicated to the saint.

In no way am I suggesting anything so brutal, only that God – if He exists – will recognize believers without any assistance. After all, prayer contradicts basic religious ideas.  If God is all powerful, all knowing, then prayer would be unnecessary.  He would know my feelings and, however well-meaning the prayers on my behalf, certainly should recognize their limited value.

Bill Lazarus regularly writes about religion and religious history.  He also speaks at various religious organizations throughout Florida.  You can reach him at www.williamplazarus.com.  His books are available on Amazon.com, Kindle, bookstores and via various publishers.

End of the World Part 2

This is part 2 of a review of annual apocalyptic predictions that the world will end.   It is excerpted from my book “The Messiah.”

As noted in Part 1, Christianity initiated apocalyptic ideas some 1900 years ago because Jesus failed to bring about change in his society.  Since, in the belief of his followers, he was the son of God, he therefore was expected to return to accomplish the messianic goals.  When he returned, of course, the world would end and be replaced by a “Kingdom of God.”

Prophets have identified multiple years for such an event to take place.

Not that long ago, the year 2000 naturally enhanced dire predictions of the immediate end of the world and the coming of the foretold messiah.  It was a nice, round number and was accompanied by tribulations – the possible undermining of computers because of the internal dating problem.  Nothing happened, of course.

 By then, some of the most ardent supporters of the Apocalypse had begun to back away from pinpointing the exact date of the end.  The Seventh Day Adventists, a branch of Christianity born from an erroneous 1800s prediction of the apocalypse, has announced that its members should no longer predict a date for the End of Days.  "While anticipating Christ's return, Adventists reject any attempt to set specific dates," the church said in a July 1995 news release issued from its 56th World Session then being held in the Netherlands.

Jehovah's Witnesses, the door-to-door salesmen of the Apocalypse, have also dropped their concerns about an immediate end after "re-examining" church literature.  The masthead of the organization's Awake! magazine once forecast the end of the world before the generation alive in 1914 passed away.  Now it merely promises a "new world that is about to replace the present wicked, lawless system of things."

Under the circumstances, it's extremely unlikely we will ever see a repeat of what happened in the year 1000 A.D. Then, relying on chiliastic predictions, so many people left home and walked to the Promised Land that they were compared to a "desolating army."  They sold their belongings to finance their wait in Jerusalem.  "Buildings of every sort were suffered to fall into ruins.  It was thought useless to repair them when the end of the world was so near.  Many noble edifices were deliberately pulled down.  Even churches, so well maintained, shared in the common neglect.  Knights, citizens and serfs traveled eastward in company, taking with them their wives and children, singing psalms as they went, and looking with fearful eyes upon the sky, which they expected each minute to open, to let the Son of God descend in his glory," one historian noted.

More recent studies of ancient records seem to indicate that such descriptions are overblown and that few people actually noted the millennial shift.  Still, the philosophical base for such ideas still exists, especially in the non-Jewish world. 

In Part I, I also explained how prediction tied to 1666 also failed.

In the 1970s, conservative author Hal Lindsey shook up readers with his prediction of a coming apocalypse in his best-selling book The Late Great Planet Earth. (Such predictions always find a market.)  In it, he said Israel would be invaded by Russia, and the world would end in the late 1970s.  He has since chastised himself for pinpointing a date, although he still claims the basic prediction is accurate.

We should not expect such forecasts to disappear.  The prediction of an apocalypse is as much Christian as the cross.  "For better or for worse, the notion of the apocalypse was part of the canon," said historian Paul Johnson, referring to Augustine's failed efforts to remedy the situation.  "The idea could be reinterpreted to fit almost any political situation, identified with kings and emperors, even popes, whether good or bad.  All the signs could be made to fit."

As such, people will not stop praying for the messiah to return and to kick off the disaster.  Something in the idea continues to retain its grip on the human mind.  “Faith was not something that could be gradually eliminated from the human scene,” noted English writer A.N. Wilson pointed out in God’s Funeral, his account of the collapse of religious belief in the 1800s.  “It was a vital component in the human make-up — personal and collective.  If it was not directed towards the true God, it would be directed towards idols.  Hence Carlyle’s view — … a fatal though perfectly accurate one — that the human race, having discarded belief in the unseen God of Israel, would look towards a… Superman as its God-substitute.”

There’s a psychological term for “persistence in a behavior or a belief even after one has discovered that it really doesn’t work — perseveration,”  according to Dr. John C. Meagher “The churches … have doggedly protected various beliefs despite their powerfully being called into question by competent and authoritative investigation.” A professor of Theology, Religious Studies and English at St. Michael’s College of the University of Toronto, Meagher was referring to Christian beliefs in general, but the comment is valid for the messianic concept.

That belief has survived almost 2,000 years of consistent failure and gross disappointment.  You would think such failure would dissuade people, but they continue to expect a messiah regardless of circumstances.  The Church of England, for example, still foresees a final Armageddon, but, like the Roman Catholic Church, avoids pinpointing an exact timetable.

That hasn’t deterred true believers.

In England, in the mid-1800s, Henry Drummond, a conservative member of Parliament, presided over the Aubury Conference, which was called to examine the Bible for signs that the world was about to end.  Participants founded the Catholic Apostolic Church to promote their beliefs.  Members of the group concluded that Jesus was due shortly and set out to alert the populace.  When Jesus didn’t appear and the world kept on turning, the newly found church limped on.  Leaders didn’t attempt to amend the date, but without any reason to continue, one-time parishioners typically found other homes.

A more typical example occurred around the same time in this country.  On Oct. 22, 1844, thousands of followers gathered in homes, roofs and on William Miller's farm in Hampton, New York to await the end.  Miller had been preaching about the apocalypse since 1831, initially choosing 1843.  When that year passed uneventfully, Miller said he miscalculated by following Hebrew rather than Roman chronology.  Announcement of the new date was greeted with "excitement and hope,” an historian of the event noted.  "Those were solemn hours, hours big with hope -- the last hours of time, they believed.  They were standing on the brink of eternity, and would soon see He whom, not having seen, they loved.  They were at peace with all men, with every sin confessed.  Their work was done, and they were anxiously awaiting the fulfillment of God's promise."

When the morning arose -- some overly optimistic believers actually confused the sun with the coming messiah — disappointment replaced happiness.  The movement, naturally confused and upset, fell apart.  But the faith did not vanish.  As with other failed predictions, people clung to the belief that only the date was incorrect.  They still call Miller's mistake "The Great Disappointment."  The religious organization based on Miller's predictions endures today, as do other sects with similar beliefs.

As a result, in the future, as predictions of a coming Armageddon arise anew, some people will stand on roofs, anxiously surveying the blank skies, waiting until embarrassment brings them down; some, like the handful of people I met in Connecticut in 1985 or the few who gathered at a mountain top in Colorado a year later, will simply giving up everything and get nothing in return.  Some, like those that followed self-proclaimed messianic prophets David Koresh to Waco, Texas, or Jim Jones to Guyana, will die with their beliefs intact.

And, still, the world will not end with Gideon’s trumpet and the return of anyone.  There are multiple other options, none of which are related to religion, God or messiahs.

We don’t need them for an Armageddon.  The Earth may be hit by a meteor; a new ice age may start; human-caused pollution, climate change or other ecological disaster may do the trick; a volcanic eruption, such as one building in Yellowstone National Park, would be sufficient. 

No messiah is necessary.

Bill Lazarus is a religious historian whose books are available via Amazon.com, Twitter or through his website, www.williamplazarus.com.  Comments are always welcome.

Predicting the End of the World is Nothing New

by Bill Lazarus

The cornerstone of any messianic movement contains a belief that the world will be brought to an end.  The messiah will herald that event.  The concept of a final Armageddon is so overwhelming that it needs a divine being, a messiah, to bring it about.  Eventually, he was expected to bring about a Kingdom of God.  As the kingdom took on more fantastic aspects, so did the individual who would rule it.  Designated by God, in time, he became divine in his own right.

The concepts began as separate theories, but were merged around the time of Jesus.  The Essenes, waiting for God to act, relied on the story of the Flood to explain what would happen when Yahweh tired of human iniquity.  Only those who followed God’s law, as explained in the holy texts, would survive.  Christian dogma then linked this horrific scene to Jesus.  Those that believed in him would be saved; those who did not would suffer eternal punishment.

Initially, such a claim would not have garnered much enthusiasm.  However, the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE, an event absolutely cataclysmic in the Jewish world and seemingly predicted by Jesus, seemed to presage the end of the world.  The event galvanized Christian missionaries who hurried through the Empire, trying to “save” as many people as possible before the end arrived.

The end-of-the-world concept has been part of Western civilization ever since.

Prophets of doom did not have to search for the end of the world idea; it had long been a popular motif in the culture of many cultures, including Jewish, even though it runs contrary to biblical teachings.  In the story of Noah (Gen. 6-9), God destroys the earth's inhabitants with a massive flood.  When the waters abate, God offers a rainbow as proof that such an event would never happen again: "Neither will I smite any more every living thing as I have done." (Gen. 9:12-16)

Nevertheless, Jews joined with other peoples to accept the idea of an ending to the world.  Persians, for example, predicted a battle between the "sons of light" and the "sons of darkness," a theme that foreshadows Christianity. (Shaw, pg. 4)  The Hindu view of cyclical creations may have been merged with the Persian concept to generate the basic doomsday theme in Judaism and, later, Christianity.

Floods provided the main method of destruction: In Greece, Zeus creates the high tide in which only the Titan Prometheus and his son, Deucalion, survived; in Burmese, Indian and other legends, there's always one survivor who sails to safety in some kind of vessel.

In the Gilgamesh, the oldest known epic containing this kind of apocalyptic disaster, a great hero of that name seeks out Utnapishtim, the survivor of the great flood that destroyed humanity.  In an account written more than 4,000 years ago, Gilgamesh hopes to learn the secret of immortality; he gets that along with a detailed account of a massive flood.  Utnapishtim tells of being forewarned, building a great boat and sailing for days until reaching safety while explaining how he achieved immortality.  That story is believed by some historians to be the model for the Noah account because of similarities in the description of the boat, use of birds to discover dry land and related aspects.  Jews would have heard the tale, which was well known throughout the Middle East and especially in Babylon, site of the Jewish exile after 586 B.C.

Emannuel Velikovsky, the late Russian physicist turned historian, once suggested in his controversial book, Worlds in Collision, that all the flood accounts were connected to a single event about 3,500 years ago when a comet created watery chaos. 

No evidence of such a world-wide flood has ever been found, although residue from a large flood in the Tigris-Euphrates valley uncovered by archaeologists this century is thought to be the source of the proto-Noah accounts.  Archaeological evidence, however, has demonstrated that settlements above and below the flood are identical.  Moreover, evidence of various floods are separated by centuries, indicating there was no one flood of immense portions as described in the Bible.

Fortunately for those who support the concept of total destruction, water has never been the only medium for disaster. The Romans and Greeks believed in a succession of ages, each containing men made of gold, silver, bronze or flesh.  In early Greek thinking, the end of the world was a topic for philosophical discussion, not religious debate.  Stoicism taught that the end would come with fire and would be reborn in a series of cycles.  Famed Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle thought a series of natural events would initiate a destruction-rebirth cycle.  Plato said that there were three ages; the third and present one was perfect and eternal.  Both men were idolized in the Middle Ages, so it's not surprising Joachim of Fiore, a celebrated monk asked by the Pope to create an apocalyptic calendar, picked up on that cyclical theme.  In the late 1100s, he labeled each age thought to have elapsed since Jesus with a different religious theme.  He felt the final age, Armageddon, would occur in the mid-1200s.

The Romans, who absorbed a welter of ideas from various cultures, also accepted the concept of a recycled world, with destruction and then the periodic return of the same people and the same world.  The poet Virgil, for example, predicted a second voyage of Jason and the Argonauts, a second Trojan War and a second Achilles.  Other Romans also imagined a return to the golden age when Saturn supposedly ruled.

For Jews, the Noah story failed to provide a system of revenge against those who oppressed them.  Jewish prophets still envisioned a time when they would again be a holy people following God's laws and when sinners would be eliminated.  The prophet Joel noted that on that day, the unrighteous and the gentiles would be annihilated: "... let all the inhabitants of the Land tremble: for the day of the Lord cometh, for it is nigh at hand." (Joel: 2:1)

Ezekiel, whose writings date from the time of Babylonian Exile, said that after the world was destroyed, a prince of the House of David would humble the gentiles and redeem Israel. (Ez:. 34:23)

The author of Daniel, writing hundreds of years later, decided that God delayed inaugurating his kingdom because the Jewish sins had not abated yet.  The writer then reinterpreted the prophetic writings: the 70 years promised by Jeremiah for the return to the holy state of Israel after the Babylonian conquest really meant 70 weeks of years (Dan 9:2, 24).  That works out to 490 years — or about 100 years after the lifetime of the author dating from the setting of the book in the Babylonian conquest.

The book also introduced a theory of resurrection (12:2) — possibly also mentioned by Isaiah in a late apocalyptic addition to an earlier book (26:19) — and the only mention of the word "messiah" in the Old Testament.  Angels, too, make an appearance, possibly borrowed from the Persians.

Resurrection was important psychologically because of the circumstances.  Antiochus IV, the Syrian leader, attempted to wipe out Judaism with a series of persecutions, including the deaths of prominent, pious Jews.  Mothers who permitted circumcision were hanged with their babies dangling from their necks.  Those who refused to renounce Judaism were butchered, exiled or sold into slavery. 

Angels seemed an ideal way for God to manifest himself. After all, in the book of Exodus, an angel of death had passed over the houses of the children of Israel during the 10th plague.  Daniel supplies names for the important angels (e.g. Michael,12:1), replacing the anonymous "messengers" who in Genesis walked slowly up and down Jacob's ladder (Gen. 28:12) or visited Abraham. (Gen: 18:2)  Michael has been understood as "the one like a son of man" (Dan 7), taking the place of Baal in the Canaanite myth of a supernatural being who overcomes the beasts of the sea.

Daniel did far more than simply suggest a new date; the author supplied a name to the being who would inaugurate it — the messiah.  For the first time ever, Jews had someone to focus on, an image of a person who would quickly be incarnated.

The widespread circulation of Daniel led to a belief that the end was near.  "The whole area, from Lake of Genasseret (Sea of Galilee) down to the Dead Sea itself was alive with holy eccentrics," said historian Paul Johnson.

To augment scripture, Jewish writers also developed separate predictions.  Forged Sibylline oracles — the Sibyl supposedly foresaw the history of Rome and was consulted by Roman authorities in times of trouble — claimed that a great man would rise from the East as the world disintegrated.

Romans were aware of the predictions.  Roman historian Seutonius wrote, "There had been spread all over the Orient an old and established belief, that it was fated at that for men coming from Judea to rule the world."  The Jewish historian Josephus, writing for Roman readers, said a man from Judea would soon "become monarch of the whole world." When Augustus became Pontifex Maximus, he ordered many of the fake oracles destroyed.  Tiberius, his successor, also purified the Sybilline collection because of a popular prediction that "the end of the empire was at hand."

Those predictions, and related prophecies, were widespread.  Tacitus (55-c.117) wrote a history of Rome that included a section on the Jewish-Roman war of 66 to 70 A.D.  He said, "The majority (of Jews) were convinced that the ancient scriptures of their priests alluded to the present as the very time when the Orient would triumph and from Judea would go forth men destined to rule the world."  Tacitus was not impressed, saying that Vespasian and his son Titus were the actually prophesied individuals, "but the common people, true to the selfish ambitions of mankind, thought this exalted destiny was reserved for them, and not even their calamities opened their eyes to the truth." (The Histories: book 5, pg. 13.)

Jews believed the predictions, because a host of writers assured them the ancient prophets were right.  For example, the Psalms of Solomon, cited in Chapter 1, foresaw the coming Kingdom of God.

Ezra IV, written late in the first century A.D., asked the basic question: "If the world has been created for us, why don't we possess it as an inheritance now?"  Many other works duplicated this query and emphasized the growing sense of Jewish frustration at the long-delayed “Last Times.”

The idea was not monolithic: some writers built the End of Time around a concept of a Davidic leader who would restore the old kingdom; others preferred a "new and perfect world" that would arise after the destruction of the "present, evil world," the Anchor Bible Dictionary reported (Vol. 11, pg. 597)

The belief in the coming Kingdom of God was also widespread throughout the Roman Empire, carried by Jews and their supporters.  An estimated 10 percent of the population was Jewish or God-fearers — individuals who, as noted earlier, liked everything about Judaism, supported synagogues and holidays, but declined to be circumcised.  Other people followed Jewish rules without accepting Judaism.  Caught up in the religious enthusiasm of the era, Jewish missionaries were busy proselytizing.  Their efforts paid off.  Even emperors knew Jewish concepts.  For example, Augustus wrote his adopted son and eventual successor, "There is no Jew, my dear Tiberius, who keeps his fast on the Sabbath as I kept it today." (Seutonius, Augustus, pg. 76)

Other factors were also at work, building the momentum for a messiah to herald the end of days.

When Jesus started preaching, amid the cry of other prophets that the final days were upon the inhabitants, the people of his era, unlike any before this, were ready to greet a messiah.

Jews may not have accepted Jesus as the messiah, but the concept of earthly destruction never faded from Jewish thinking.  In Jewish legend, the antichrist was named Armilus and was to be countered by the messiah.  Ideas about Armageddon varied as did the years when it would occur.  In early Jewish thinking, 1096 was one of the years when the end might come, based on a numerological interpretation of Leviticus 25:24, "Ye shall grant a redemption for the land."

That year passed; eyes -- and hopes -- turned to alternatives.  Various interpreters suggested the line in Job 38:7, "when the morning stars sang together," pointed to 1492.  That year, however, Jews were expelled from Spain.  Reportedly, about one-third left in exile; one-third converted; and one-third, the ones derisively labeled marranos ("pigs"), hid their Jewish status under a Catholic cover.  Several sailed with Columbus.  Jewish settlements in the United States eventually result from the Spanish expulsion, but no messiah appeared to chastise Christians who caused it.

Also in 1492, Duke Abravanel, the leader of the Spanish Jewish community, predicted the coming of the messiah and the resulting punishment of gentiles.  He picked the early 1500s as his target date.  Abravanel had been a minister in King Ferdinand's court and claimed descent through the exilarchs of Babylon to the House of David.  Author of commentaries on the biblical books of Joshua, Judges and Chronicles, he did his own calculations to arrive at the magical date.  He hoped publishing his research would encourage disheartened Spanish Jews.  It may have.  It also helped foster the strong belief in a messiah that aided the spread of Sevi's movement.

The Last Days hope lingered on despite repeated failures. The dejected, mistreated Jews, longing for evidence that they had returned to God's good graces, never gave up the idea that one day God would redeem his people.  In one instance, Polish scholar Nathan Shapira in the early 1600s described the final scene this way: on the day the messiah comes, "the dead in Palestine will arise and the walls of fire will depart Jerusalem."

Quoting Psalm 90:15, medieval rabbis argued that the messianic era should be of equal length as the period of suffering and exile.

As earlier forecasts of a coming Armageddon faded after the 1492 expulsion from Spain, key years for the predicted end of the world grew sharper into focus: 1575, 1648 and 1666.

Under the circumstances, the old idea of two separate messiahs revived: the messiah of the House of Joseph would die battling the infidels at the gates of Jerusalem, while the messiah of the House of David would initiate the expected utopia.

Jewish speculation were based on numerological and spiritualistic interpretations of the Bible.  The Kabala, a collection of mystical ideas that existed in a Jewish undercurrent beginning in the Middle Ages, served as a guide. 

The Zohar, one of two core Kabala books, pointed to the 1300s as the time when the messiah would come.  When the century passed with the hope unfulfilled, the idea hung on until the 1500s when the basic kabalistic system, reformulated by Jewish scholar Isaac Luria in the mid-1550s, assumed that the final stage had arrived and that salvation was very close, as noted earlier in this book.  To achieve speed, the current generation had to be righteous: that matched a Talmudic saying that the son of David would appear only in a generation which was "wholly sinful or wholly righteous."

Luria aimed for the Day of the Lord in the year 1575.  His disciples claimed their master was the messiah from the House of Joseph.  Luria's unexpected death in 1572 indicated to them that the world was not "worthy" yet. They settled down to wait for the necessary purity to be achieved.

At the same time, the antichrist — who in Jewish and Christian speculation would precede the messiah — was reported on his way.  "In the year 1599, a rumor circulated with prodigious rapidity through Europe that the antichrist had been born in Babylon, and that already the Jews of that part were hurrying to receive and recognize him as their messiah,” an historian noted.

A year later, people were talking about an antichrist supposedly born near Paris to a Jewess named Blanchefleure ("white flower") and conceived by Satan.  The child was baptized.  A "witch" who was tortured to learn the truth, confessed that she had rocked the infant antichrist on her knee and that he had "claws on his feet, wore no shoes, and spoke all languages."

When the world continued unaffected by such claims, conversation about the antichrist naturally grew muted.

In 1623, the tales started again.  This time, brothers of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, residing on Malta, claimed that their spies in Babylon had seen the infant antichrist born there on May 1.  The birth was marked by an eclipse of the sun, swarms of flying serpents and a shower of precious stones.

While all this was happening, economic and social conditions were causing increasing concern.  Jews had been prosperous in some communities, but the major had descended into abject poverty, particularly in Poland, where a large percentage of the Jewish population lived.  The kabalistic teachings, newly revived, took on added meaning among Jews, increasingly tense while struggling amidst a hostile Christian society. 

Luria's philosophical ruminations, which were predicated on a coming messiah, were first printed in 1636, some 64 years after his death.  By 1650, all of the kabalistic ideas had spread through the diaspora.  Several renowned scholars were thought of as the messiah of the House of Joseph — Samson ben Oesha of Ostropol, Poland, for one.

That selection process eventually focused specifically on one year — 1648 because the end of days is called “this,” whose numerical value is 408. The number 408 in Hebrew corresponds to 1648.  In addition, the numerical value of the Hebrew words for "the messianic woes" equals 408.  As a result, that specific year became the focus of the "most enthusiastic hopes for redemption."

Religious leaders did not hesitate to broadcast the good news.  The Bible was scoured to support that belief.  Rabbi Yehiel Michel of Nemirov (Poland), for example, said the massacres planned by Haman (in the canonical book of Esther) had been postponed to the year 1648.

Not only did Jews focus their messianic hopes on the middle of the 1600s, so did Christians.  Paul believed firmly that Jesus presaged the coming end of the world.  His epistles are filled with such claims of an immediate end.

Pauline thinking dominated early Christianity.  The Revelation of St. John, attempted to explain why there had been a delay in the Parousia and to offer a view of the Kingdom due to arrive shortly.  The text has served as a guide to the coming Kingdom of God since its writing somewhere late in the first century A.D. Several times on the verge of being left out of the New Testament, it finally won the support of bishops when the canon was codified in the fourth century A.D.  In the book, the Parousia became a final battle between the risen Christ and his heavenly hosts against Satan, who would be leading both earthly and supernatural foes.

The continued delay of the Parousia naturally heightened speculation.  Since Revelation mentioned a 1,000-year reign (20:5), chiliasts (from the Greek for "one-thousand") thought the end of the first millennium would initiate the end.

The only other year to attract widespread support was 1666.

In part of the lengthy, often confusing text, John says the mark of this demonic antichrist is 666.  "Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is six hundred threescore and six." (Rev. 13:18)

As mentioned earlier, the numbers actually refer to deposed Emperor Nero, whose name numerologically works out to 666.  While Nero had committed suicide in 68 A.D., he was rumored to be alive and to return, a non-messianic belief that survived well into the Middle Ages.  However, later readers, left in the dark about that explanation, decided it referred to the year 666 or 1666. 

The chiliastic movement, condemned by the Church in 431 A.D., continued to survive despite the official denunciations.  By the 1500s, a sect of Christians who decried baptism, called Anabaptists, seized control of Munster, Germany and declared the arrival of a new kingdom of Zion.  The residents endured a three-year siege by Papal forces before the town was captured.  The debacle, and the accompanying failure of a messiah to appear, led to a dampening of the chiliastic spirit until the 1600s.

In that century, it enjoyed a rebirth of interest beginning in England.  Quakerism, for example, owns its beginning to chiliastic thought In 1656, a peasant named James Nyler rode into Bristol, welcomed by the same cries that Luke described as greeting Jesus upon his entry into Jerusalem. 

The failure of the world to end in 1666 hardly deterred believers.  The claims of an apocalyptic event have continued into modern times. 

I’ll include a second posting later with information on more-recent claims.

Bill Lazarus is a religious historian whose books on the subject include Dummies Guide to Comparative Religion.  His books are available on line via Amazon.com, Kindle and via his website www.williamplazarus.com.  This information is excerpted from his book The Messiah.