Category Archives: September

Does the End of the World Have a History?

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The initial reading of Jonathan Kirsch’s A Hisotry of the End of the World introduces many apocalyptic notions that have grown amidst the culture and spirit of our society since antiquity. This reading paints an interesting picture of the different social practices and how various groups have responded and continue to react to the end of the world phenomenon.

In many ways, Kirsch regards the Book of Revelation and its contents as both the source and supplement to the human fear and anticipation of the end of the world. After all, anything that counters established religious ideology or proposes an interdisciplinary end to theology and universe alike is destined to have some type of grand effect on the public. While Kirsch defines the controversy over the Book of Revelation in a religious scope, he broadens his explanation for our apocalyptic hype with social and cultural realms. He renders this text as a “petri dish for the breeding of dangerous religious eccentricity”; this argument has certainly been validated by the ways in which the Book of Revelation has resonated throughout history. I myself marvel at how events and figures in history gained such prominence using the end of the world as an element of justification. Its interesting and simultaneously, unsettling, how entities such as The New World , the AIDS epidemic, and even UFO invasion can be explained by the Book of Revelation. One can certainly argue that these connections are the natural ways by which the human race deals with such an abstract and intangible issue. Rather than fearing the unimaginable, we look for past instances that fit John’s apocalyptic scenario and then use these past occurrences to gage our anticipation of the future (or lack there of, in this case). This is also seen with historical figures such as Hitler, and even more recently, Osama Bin Ladin, who have been coined the Antichrist in their period of time. Are we to believe that any cultural manifestations of opposing force represent the Antichrist and signify our impending doom? If so, then the line between imagination and reality becomes completely obliterated when culture and politics collide.

Despite my skepticism towards this historical resonance, Kirsch does present a reasonable explanation for our cultural belief in the Book of Revelation. We are the descendants of a time when only the “hearers” of the Revelation were blessed and all who undermined John’s beliefs were “corrupted by Satan” . While these notions are not as prevalent in contemporary society as they were amongst fundamentalist Christians and Jews hundreds of years back, the aftermath of these beliefs still reign among us. Certainly, belief in John’s apocalyptic revelation provided a means of survival for the religious and outlandish zealots of that era.

Perhaps when the day of judgement would come, God may have more mercy on the “hearers” and believers of this revelation. This supports Kirsch’s idea of “morale boosting propaganda” that arises from the Book of Revelation. If we were to live according to this propaganda, its almost as though we’d be in limbo forever, waiting for God’s judgement and hoping that he finds a place for us in his New Heaven and Earth. As we can see here, Dante’s Inferno and John’s Book of Revelation have overlapping elements. Both most definitely possess the same nightmarish, strange, and out of reach elements. Ironically enough, Dante was excommunicated for his ideas, while John’s were added to the holy scripture. Such a discrepancy further debunks this proposed apocalypse.

Its obvious that our society feeds off of cultural pastimes and beliefs. However, we must not forget that even traditional beliefs have been distorted over the years, and we have lost sight of true reasoning. Many do not know why they fear the end of the world, which weakens apocalyptic arguments altogether. In fact, proponents of the Book of Revelation rarely understand the imagery and symbolism of John’s vision. Here, history does not provide any meaningful groundwork since all historical examples have been proposed as theories and have no real connection to the actual scripture. One could argue that Kirsch’s History of the End of the World is really an account of religious, cultural, and political conflict than a true explanation for doomsday.

What Makes a Text “Count”?

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As I read through the first portion of Kirsch’s A History of the End of the World, I found myself incredibly frustrated with the controversy over authorship and authenticity. The message of religious texts is generally valued more by those who practice the corresponding religion, but it seems like people are so focused on pulling out what they want to hear, or what they need to hear as the case may be, that they fail to consider where the text they put so much faith in is coming from. I have a background in Catholicism, and in general, the Book of Revelation was avoided, but it does have a place in the Bible, which means that as unsettling as it may be, it cannot just be omitted from the religion. I suppose the biggest question that this controversy raises for me is; if religious texts are considered sacred, but religions and religious practitioners pick and choose what is “most” holy, how is the value and credibility of a religious text maintained?

Kirsch explains in his text that Revelation is theorized to potentially have multiple authors from different periods of time, coming from different backgrounds. For the sake of his own argument, Kirsch goes with one popular theory about the identity of the author, John. I understand that for the sake of any argument one must select a school of thought to work from, but it is still frustrating because there is immediate conflict in terms of understanding the source of Revelation, not to mention the proceeding conflict about understanding the author’s credibility.

I think that my own religious skepticism has created more difficulty in my reading of Kirsch, but some significant claims are made in Revelation, and major movements continue to form because of John’s words; it’s important to think about why so many people willingly accept, fear and live by hand picked selections of a text, rather than the text in it’s entirety.

In my opinion, the authority of the Church has a lot to do with people’s sometimes blind trust in the message of scripture. I am certainly not a religious scholar, but I know that in a religious service, people avidly listen to the words of their religious leader, because there is an understood trust between leader and attendee. In general, I would argue that people who attend religious services enter their place of worship with a certain need. Whether it’s the need for a sign from God, or something smaller like a need for the sense of support and community that comes from attending a religious meeting. The presence of that need makes it difficult, I think, for people to question what they are hearing and what they are agreeing with. In general, the leader’s reading of scripture is not nearly as revered as the leader’s interpretation of the verses he or she recites. The cynic in me can’t help but think about how a person in power uses their position to influence those following them.

The author or authors of Revelation obviously had their own motivation in spreading the prophecy they were sent so vehemently. Their decision to commit to spreading the word suggests some motivation beyond faith, especially when one considers what might have been at risk when the prophets spoke their prophecy. For example, Kirsch explains that their was some degree of competition among prophets claiming that his or her message was the one to listen to, the authentic word of God. He explains that John was adamant about discrediting the prophetess Jezebel. Unless God himself really did despise the acts of this individual woman to the point that he mentioned her in his declaration to John, it seems that John may have tweaked prophecy to serve his own desire to beat the competition. Instances like this, immediately make the scripture less credible for me, because I recognize that it was altered to serve the needs of an individual. It’s not a pure message from some higher power; it is the self-serving “prophecy” of a man who needed to wipe out the competition in order to gain the biggest following.

This seemingly obvious moment of failed credibility is apparently not enough to dissuade the masses that follow John’s words to this day. Kirsch mentions that modern follower’s of John’s message and strong believers in the impending apocalypse are often mentally unstable individuals who have strong persuasive skills. To me, it seems like madness to think that there are people who will follow selections of a message without even knowing where the message is coming from or without making their own interpretations and decisions about the words that they are told.

In John’s time, Christians were persecuted for their religion, so a text that promised to avenge their suffering, obviously spoke to a cultural need, which makes the massive following more understandable. Today’s world has its fair share of problems, but the intrinsic message of Revelation has been skewed and no one seems to really consider it. This constant shifting of meaning and context is frustrating and leaves me asking my initial question. Credibility and source, in the case of religious text (Revelation in particular), don’t seem to be nearly as important as the interpretation and recitation (performance) of the words.