Instead of one long (and possibly laborious) thread on my current research for my scholarly monograph on Otherworldly Journeys, I’ve decided to talk about that work sporadically, here and there on the blog, over the course of the next couple of months.   I would like to give a greater focus on the books I’m working on for a general audience.

As I have mentioned, I have two in view just now and am in the process of planning them.  I don’t have a contract for either one yet, but hope to present the possibilities to my publisher soon.   One, as I have indicated, would be on the expectation that the end is coming soon, both among many Christians but also in the secular culture at large, all based on a certain reading of the book of Revelation (the secularists usually don’t realize this!) that scholars have long found untenable.   That is the one I’ll start in on here on the blog.

My normal process for coming up with a proposal for a publisher is to 1) Get the idea; 2) Do a bunch or reading on it; 3) Draft a statement for myself about how I’m imagining it; and 4) (When I’m sure how I want to propose it) Come up with an actual Prospectus for the publisher.

I have now drafted my statement for myself and would like to share it with you.  It is longer than normal, since the whole idea is a bit involved.  It will take probably six posts or so to present it all.

My tentative title for the book (this will certainly change) (unless the End comes first) is Expecting the Apocalypse: The Book of Revelation and Imminent End of the World.   This is how I start in my self- statement (if you’ve read my book on Jesus the Apocalyptic Prophet, this part will sound familiar, though none of the rest of the book will).

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Toward the end of the 20th century the millennia-long fascination with the imminent end of the world grew to a fevered pitch in parts of American culture, not just among the many millions of conservative Christians who expected Jesus to return in judgment during their lifetime, but also in secular popular culture and its perennial obsession with apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic film and literature.

The widespread conviction that the end may indeed be coming soon is not simply a rather innocuous mental construct.  It has serious social, cultural, and political implications, as expectations of coming Armageddon have influenced American social movements (not just religious)  as well as foreign and domestic policy in such areas as military support for Israel; legislation involving conservation, environment, and fossil fuels (vis-à-vis climate change denial); and debates about the second Amendment.

Remarkably, all these features of modern American life – including the secular — are rooted in a particular interpretation of the Bible that became especially popular in the 19th century.  My proposed book, Expecting Armageddon, will explore that biblical hermeneutic, show its ancient roots, explain its modern development, discuss its religious and secular manifestations, and, ultimately, show how critical scholars of the Bible have repeatedly maintained that, as an approach to biblical interpretation, it is totally flawed.

 

The Growing Influence of Christian Fundamentalism

I first realized the wider impact of fundamentalist apocalyptic thinking when I moved to Chapel Hill in August 1988.   My ten previous years in New Jersey were happily secluded from alternative realities found in the Bible Belt.  But after just two weeks in North Carolina I started receiving bizarre phone inquiries from local newspapers.  Was it true that Jesus was returning to earth next month?

Secular newspapers?   It turns out that the expectation of Jesus’ approaching advent was a hot news item in the South.  A widely distributed booklet produced by a fundamentalist Christian named Edgar Whisenant claimed that Jesus would return during the week of the Jewish festival of Rosh Hashanah, September 11-13, 1988.

The book was called 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Occur in 1988.  Whisenant argued that a careful reading of biblical prophecies and purely logical reasoning (!) revealed the long-awaited date.  During the week of the festival Jesus would appear on the clouds of heaven to whisk his followers out of the world.  Following this “Rapture” would come the “Tribulation” – a seven year period of disaster and calamity.   The Antichrist would arise and the Soviet Union would inaugurate World War III with the invasion of Israel, leading to an all-out thermonuclear war on Oct. 4 1995 which  would devastate the United States (“you can walk from Little Rock to Dallas over ashes only” ) throwing it into nuclear winter (temperatures never rising above -150˚ F).

Many within the Christian community were completely skeptical, pointing out that, in the Bible, Jesus himself indicates no one can know when the end will come: “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only” (Matthew 24:36).  Whisenant himself, though, was unfazed by Jesus’ words.  His book, after all, had not predicted “the day and hour” of the end, just the week.

A surprising number of believers found Whisenant’s proofs altogether convincing.  Many of them involved detailed and rather convoluted interpretations of passages in the Bible, especially the book of Revelation, that most mysterious climactic account of the judgment of God to descend on planet earth at the end of days, a book that has mystified and intrigued devoted readers for two thousand years.  But Whisenant had found the key to interpreting the baffling prophecies of the book, partly in light of the sayings of Jesus himself.  For example, Jesus taught his disciples about the cosmic disasters that would happen at the end of time before the arrival of the Kingdom (Matthew 24-25).  When his disciples want to know when it will all happen, Jesus says:

From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near.  So also, when you see all these things, you know that he is near, at the very gates.  Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place (Matt 24:32-34).

What, though, does this mean?  Whisenant points out that in the Bible, the “fig tree” is often used of the nation of Israel.  The fig tree “putting forth its leaves” is obviously a reference, then, to Israel coming back to life after a long hiatus, after it had been “dead” over the winter.   And when did Israel come back to life as a sovereign state after not existing for centuries?  1948.  And how long is a generation in the Bible?  Forty years. Voila!  1948 plus 40.  1988 must be the year.

For the fundamentalist faithful inclined to believe in the first place, such proofs seemed both natural and inspired.  Whisenant’s book enjoyed a huge and devoted readership.  Within a few months of publication, two million copies of the book were in circulation.  Many believers were not only convinced, they also took appropriate measures.  I had a student in class that semester whose parents literally sold the farm.