To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Newsweek: The Way the World Ends
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Mon, 25 Oct 1999 05:13:13 -0500

From: owner-bpr@philologos.org

The Way the World Ends

The third millennium approaches, bringing with it visions of
peace, apocalyptic terror and a stream of new books about the
last days. What the Bible says about the end of time, and how
prophecy has shaped our world.

By Kenneth L. Woodward
Newsweek, November 1, 1999

The Christian Bible begins with the creation of the world,
before time itself began. It closes with a harrowing vision of
the world's end, when time will be no more. For most of Western
history, when the world began has been a matter of curiosity.
But predicting when the world will end has been an all-consuming
passion.

Of all the books of the Bible, none has fired the imagination
of the West more than the last: the mysterious Apocalypse. The
four horsemen of the apocalypse, the heavenly book with seven
seals, the beast with the mark of 666, the Whore of Babylon, the
deceitful Antichrist—these are just a few of the powerful and
troubling images that Revelation injected into Western art and
consciousness. Its prophecies have been of even greater
consequence: the return of the Jews to the Holy Land, the
millennial kingdom of Christ on earth, the Battle of Armageddon
and the promise of a new heaven and earth have justified
numerous wars and revolutions and inspired utopias and religious
sects of every sort.

Millennial dreams and apocalyptic nightmares are never far
below the surface of the American psyche—especially now, as the
third millennium approaches. Of course, few people seriously
think the apocalypse will come at 12:01 on New Year's Eve; some
of those who do will descend on Jerusalem at the year-end with
millennial expectations, putting Israeli police on high alert
(following story). The deeper and more interesting phenomenon is
the enormous role prophecy has played in Western religious and
popular culture. A NEWSWEEK Poll found that 40 percent of
American adults do believe that the world will one day end, as
Revelation describes, in the Battle of Armageddon. Every choir
that sings "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" or the Salvation
Army's "Onward, Christian Soldiers" resurrects martial images
and themes from Christian prophecy. In the 1970s, the best-
selling book of the decade was Hal Lindsey's apocalyptic "The
Late Great Planet Earth," with 28 million copies sold by 1990.
More recently, a series of "Left Behind" novels by Tim LaHaye
and Jerry Jenkins based on Christian prophecies, including two
published this year, have sold more than 9 million copies. Among
academics, studies of the apocalyptic tradition have produced
dozens of new books. "Over the past 30 years," says Bernard
McGinn, a medieval specialist at the University of Chicago
Divinity School, "more scholarship has been devoted to
apocalypticism than in the last 300."

Like Christians and Jews, Muslims also see an apocalyptic end
to the world: there will be natural calamities, followed by the
war of Armageddon led by the "hidden" imam, a descendant of
Muhammad, and Jesus against the forces of evil, led by Dajjal,
an Antichrist figure. After a millennium of peace, both Jesus
and the imam will die and the final judgment will take place.
For Hindus and Buddhists, time is cyclical, and so the world
renews itself after each cycle but never ends.

Christian apocalypticism—the vision of the endtimes—comes from
a mysterious book written by John, a Christian prophet living in
exile on the island of Patmos toward the end of the first
century. His intention was to warn the fledgling Christian
communities of Asia Minor against compromising with the Roman
Empire and its cult of the divine emperor. His message, though,
took the form of a personal revelation from Christ filled with
mythic beasts, avenging angels and terrifying tribulations for
humankind amid clashing cosmic forces. Much suffering would come
to the world, John prophesied, before Christ himself would
return to defeat his human adversary, the Antichrist, in the
Battle of Armageddon. Christ would then establish a millennial
kingdom on earth for the just. Then, after a final clash with
Satan, Christ would pass judgment on all the living and the
dead. For the just, there would be a heavenly Jerusalem—a new
heaven and a new earth. But the precise meaning of John's
figurative revelation was hidden in strange and forbidding
symbols that Christians have tried to decipher ever since.

"The whole of Western history can be read through the prism of
John's Apocalypse," says historian McGinn, coeditor of a recent
three-volume Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism. In the 12th
century, for example, the Crusaders saw the recapture of
Jerusalem from the Muslims as a defeat of the Antichrist.
Christopher Columbus set sail thinking his voyage to India would
hasten the return of Christ to earth. For the same reason,
Oliver Cromwell readmitted Jews to England after the English
civil war, thinking his victory would establish the New
Jerusalem on British soil. Isaac Newton wrote a book on the
Biblical prophecy, hoping to prove that "the world is governed
by providence." In Puritan New England, America's greatest
theologian, Jonathan Edwards, studied John's Apocalypse and
calculated that the millennium of Christ's kingdom on earth
would begin in the year 2000.

"Apocalypticism"-- the belief that God will shortly intervene in
history, destroy the wicked and initiate his own kingdom on
earth -- did not begin with John of Patmos. Jesus himself was a
Jewish prophet "who taught and expected the end of the world as
he knew it," argues New Testament scholar Bart D. Ehrman in his
new book, "Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium."
The apostle Paul, writing two decades after the death of Jesus,
expected to witness Christ's return to earth. But the Gospel of
Matthew, reflecting views of Christians some 60 years later, has
Jesus warning his disciples to look out for signs of the
endtimes -- among them, wars and famines and earthquakes. But he
also warned that "the end is not yet."

Whether John's Apocalypse (the word means "unveiling") is a
foretelling of the future or a symbolic interpretation of the
then current situation of Christians has long vexed church
theologians. Early Christianity had revived the long-dormant
spirit of Hebrew prophecy, and in doing so relied on Jewish
precedents. Much of John's arcane imagery is borrowed from
Ezekiel, Zachariah and especially the dreams of Daniel. He also
uses numbers as a code for letters. Thus the beast whose number
is 666 translates to Nero, the mad emperor who had persecuted
Christians; his seven heads refer to the first seven Roman
emperors. Similarly, the number 1,000 does not denote a period
of 10 centuries but symbolizes an indefinite period of long
duration.

In short, most contemporary Biblical scholars now believe that
John was not predicting a distant future. Rather, he was
locating the trials of the first-century churches within a wider
cosmic battle between Christ and Satan. Like the earlier
prophets, he wanted Christians to know that the faithful would
be rewarded and their oppressors punished.

For as long as the early church suffered persecution, John's
vision of a divine rescue was both compelling and consoling. By
the third century, however, John's Apocalypse was widely
considered unworthy of being included among the canonical books
of the Bible. Jerome and other church fathers thought that
John's endtimes vision encouraged religious fanaticism (reading
it, one bishop led his flock out to the desert to await the end)
and that his anti-Roman polemics provoked unnecessary civil
discord. Augustine defined what soon became the official
Catholic position: John's Revelation should not be interpreted
literally or as future-telling, but as an allegory of the
everyday struggle between good and evil, the church and the
world. On that basis, the Apocalypse was officially accepted as
Scripture.

Even so, medieval Christians wanted to know where they stood on
God's timetable. They had no clocks or watches, no universal
calendar to record the passing of the centuries, much less mark
the end of the first millennium. But they did have an abundance
of wars, famines and natural calamities -- precisely the signs that
Jesus said would signal the endtime. Medieval society lived in
the shadow of imminent apocalypse, but this apprehension often
spurred missionary action. Convinced that Christ's return was
near, Pope Gregory I (590-604) sent a group of monks north to
convert England where its leader, Augustine, became both the
first Archbishop of Canterbury and a saint.

The Middle Ages were rich in speculations by learned monks
about where their own age stood in relation to the endtimes.
Chief among these was Joachim of Fiore, who claimed that a
personal revelation had unlocked the secret of John's Apocalypse
as the key to the whole Bible. In essence, Joachim found that
all of history was divided into three progressively more
spiritual epochs: the age of the Father (the period of the Old
Testament), the age of the Son (the period since Christ) and a
soon-to-come age of the Holy Spirit, in which new religious
orders would renew the church and through it purify the entire
human race. His own age, he saw, was one of transition and
crisis: the Antichrist, he believed, was already alive in Rome
and his defeat would bring about the end of the present era in
1260.

Joachim's scheme of progressively purer ages influenced
millenarian movements for the next 700 years. Never mind that
he -- and others -- miscalculated specific dates. What mattered was
his vision of a purified world, which appealed to spiritual
reformers of every stripe. Radical followers of Saint Francis
(whom some saw as the sixth angel of John's Apocalypse) proposed
the abolition of property and other institutions in favor of a
pure communist society. In the 16th century a group of
Anabaptists, convinced the millennium was near, took over the
town of Leiden. John, their leader, proclaimed himself king and
messiah. Through terror, he abolished private ownership of
money, instituted polygamy and banned all books but the Bible.
In the late 19th century, early Marxists could claim this
radical tradition as a precursor of true communism.

Indeed, millenarian dreams were a constant problem for Europe's
established churches. When a visionary friar informed Pope
Benedict XIV that the Antichrist had arrived and was already 3
years of age, the pope was visibly relieved. "Then I shall leave
the problem to my successor," he said. What made the Apocalypse
of John so enduring is that any hated or revered figure could be
identified as one of the mythic players in his symbolic endtimes
scenario. For some in the late Middle Ages, it was Emperor
Frederick II; for Frederick's supporters it was Pope Innocent
IV, whose name could be translated into the dread mark of the
beast -- 666. For many Christians it was Muhammad or the Turks in
general, whose armies threatened to devour Europe. Eventually,
Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin and even Mikhail Gorbachev (who seemed
to have the "mark of the beast on his forehead") entered the
list of Antichrists.

Martin Luther was the first to identify the papacy as such with
the Antichrist. At first he discounted the value of John's
Apocalypse. But then he saw in it a revelation of the Church of
Rome as the deceiving Antichrist who secretly served Satan. For
him, the papacy was the "synagogue of Satan" and "the kingdom of
Babylon and of the true Antichrist" -- a view that was to become
dogma for all Protestant churches. "By 1641," writes historian
Eugen Weber in his brilliant new book, "Apocalypses," "a
clergyman could be denounced to [the English] Parliament for
declaring that the pope was not Antichrist."

The Puritans who settled Massachusetts were driven by prophecy
as well. Having endured a transatlantic exodus, they began to
see their theocratic colony as a real, if as yet imperfect,
model of the New Jerusalem prophesied by John. They were, it
seemed to many of them, participants with God in creating a
millennial kingdom of God on earth. Eventually, many of their
descendants came to believe in a revised endtimes script: Christ
would return after -- not before, as John wrote -- his American saints
had established a millennial society. This optimistic vision was
well expressed in 1832 by revivalist Charles Grandison Finney, a
president of Oberlin College. He thought that if the church
helped converts to be educated, given just wages and thus
regenerated in body as well as in soul, then "the millennium may
come in this country in three years."

Others were more pessimistic. In 19th-century America, as in
14th-century Europe, the country was overrun with visionaries,
reformers and prophets. Among the most creative was Joseph
Smith, who concluded at an early age that the entire Christian
enterprise was a corruption of what used to be. In 1823, he
reported angelic revelations, telling him to gather a group of
latter-day saints in preparation for Christ's return to earth.
(Mormons believe he will appear in Independence, Mo., as well as
in Jerusalem.) Twenty years later, Baptist convert William
Miller concluded, after extensive study of Biblical prophecy,
that Christ would return in 1843, then changed it to Oct. 22,
1844. Thousands of believers withdrew from their churches in
anticipation. When Christ failed to appear, Miller's movement
was shattered. But a remnant under Ellen White reinterpreted the
spiritual meaning of the prophesied date and formed the Seventh-
day Adventists.

Catholics, too, received prophecies and warnings of the
endtimes in the 19th century. They came in a series of
apparitions of the Virgin Mary at Lourdes and other European
sites. After her appearance to Catherine Laboure in Paris in
1830, the church struck a "miraculous" medal for distribution
among the faithful. On it was an image of the Virgin appearing
as "the woman clothed with the sun," a figure straight out of
John's Apocalypse.

Although John's prophecies were aimed at Christians, they have
also had enormous significance for Jews. According to one
ancient tradition, the Antichrist will be Jewish, but the
predominant emphasis in Christian prophecy is on the return of
the Jews to the Holy Land and the rebuilding of the Jerusalem
temple as a prelude to the Jews' conversion to Christ. This view
made Christian fundamentalists, for whom prophecy fulfilled is
proof of the Bible's literal truth, one of Zionism's strongest
supporters over the last century. It also explains why the
creation of the state of Israel in 1948 excited fresh
expectations that the countdown to Armageddon had surely begun.

Jews, of course, have their own apocalyptic traditions built
around the coming of the messiah. One view, espoused by the
great medieval philosopher Maimonides, is that the messiah will
be an exceptional but human being who will preside as king over
a free Israel for a thousand peaceful years, according to God's
covenant with his people. The other, more mystical view, says
philosopher Shaul Magid, of the Jewish Theological Seminary in
New York, is that "flesh will no longer exist and there will be
pure spiritual reality." Talmudic tradition divides history into
three ages of 2,000 years each: an age of confusion (from
creation to Abraham), the age of Torah (from Abraham on) and the
age of redemption (approaching the coming of the messiah). This
year on the Jewish calendar is 5760, leaving 240 years in which
the messiah could come.

Christian fundamentalism owes much of its continuing power and
appeal to the belief that the prophecies of John, Daniel and
other Biblical writers forecast a sequence of specific
historical events. But fundamentalists have also shown a
remarkable capacity to add to the stock of apocalyptic portents.
Since the Antichrist must have the means for controlling the
world, many new technological advances are now seen as ominous
signs: Social Security numbers, bar codes, ATMs, international
organizations like the United Nations and the European Common
Market, and -- most recently -- the World Wide Web. As a newly elected
president, George Bush set off alarms among many Biblical
literalists when he announced in 1990 his ambition to create a
"new world order." Could he be, some fundamentalists wondered,
the cat's-paw for the Antichrist?

Whether fundamentalists and other "prophetic" Christians will
suffer in the endtimes remains for them a matter of some
dispute. They have built an escape clause into the endtimes
scenario: "the rapture." This means that at a trumpet's blast,
all true Christians will suddenly ascend halfway to heaven the
moment Christ begins his descent. Cars will be driverless,
planes will be pilotless and children will lose parents if they
are among the secret elect. Others think that even the elect
will suffer at least part of the seven years of hell on earth
that God plans for the wicked. At least one church, in North
Hollywood, has taken steps to preserve its property should its
officers disappear during the rapture. The church's insurance
companies have agreed to delay premium payments for seven years,
when the raptured officers return.

Of those who say they believe in the Bible's endtime
prophecies, few are likely to translate those beliefs into such
direct action. Nor, with a robust economy, are there too many
signs of millenarian social unrest. Next month authors LaHaye
and Jenkins will publish yet another volume, a nonfiction title
that asks, "Are We Living in the End Times?" Clearly, the answer
is "Not yet"; the last in their fiction series is planned for
the year 2003. For most Americans, it appears, the Biblical
account of the endtimes continues to resonate because there are
few competing narratives. Even nuclear annihilation and
ecological implosion can be fit into John's Apocalypse. When
Ronald Reagan was president, recalls University of Wisconsin
historian Paul Boyer, who has studied modern apocalyptic
movements, he suggested that "we may be the generation that sees
Armageddon." But on leaving the White House in 1989, Reagan
allowed that "America's greatest moment is yet to come." He
wasn't thinking of the millennium.

Exiled on his island, John of Patmos never imagined that his
apocalyptic writing would become a handbook for interpreting
historical events. Like most first-century Christians, he
thought the end was imminent. And one can only wonder how he'd
react to those throughout history who have used his vision to
justify violence, war, paranoia and even hate.

Though widely read for the wrong reasons, John's Apocalypse
nonetheless insists on hard truths that no serious believer can
discount. One is that sinners have reason to fear a God who,
having chosen to create the world, can also choose to destroy
it. The second is that the just have reason to hope in a God who
stands by those who trust their lives to him. Thinking of the
end of the world -- like contemplating one's own end -- is a painful
process. But studying the Apocalypse presumes that even the end
of the world is within the province of God. And who's to say
that John's mythic battle between Christ and Antichrist is not a
valid insight into what the history of humankind is ultimately
all about?

With Anne Underwood

http://www.Newsweek.com/nw-srv/printed/us/so/a29843-1999oct24.htm

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To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Mothers target date with destiny for Y2K dragon babies
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Mon, 25 Oct 1999 06:11:18 -0500

From: owner-bpr@philologos.org

Monday, October 25, 1999

Mothers target date with destiny for Y2K dragon babies

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

Mainland doctors are witnessing an upswing in pregnancies as
mothers time their babies to be born in both the new millennium
and the Year of the Dragon -the most auspicious of the Chinese
zodiac.

A narrow hallway outside the obstetrics ward at Beijing's Xiehe
Hospital has been filled to capacity for months as expectant
women wait for up to four hours to see a doctor.

"It's very auspicious to have a baby born in the Year of the
Dragon because it means the child will be very powerful and
victorious," said one mother-to-be. "The fact that next year
will also be a new millennium makes it even more lucky."

While the Year of the Dragon begins on February 5, some couples
have also been excited by the idea of having a "Y2K baby" born
on January 1.

"I wanted to have my baby on New Year's Day, but the doctor
tells me it will probably be born in late December," said Li Li,
31. "These things are hard to plan," she sighed.

Dr Bian Xuming, director of Xiehe's gynaecology department,
said the number of pregnant women passing through her
examination room was up five per cent this year.

She believed the desire to have a "dragon baby" was a factor in
the sudden upswing.

Zhai Guirong, a departmental director at the Beijing Obstetrics
Hospital, also said the number of pregnancies treated each month
had risen steadily.

A spokeswoman for the State Family Planning Commission said:
"For the Chinese people, next year is quite special. It's
possible many couples will hope to have children."

But she predicted there would not be "too large" an effect on
population growth.

For Dr Bian, the rush for dragon-year births is distasteful.
"It wasn't like this five years ago, so I think mainlanders are
being influenced by Hong Kong and Taiwan," she said. "We are a
government-controlled hospital; we can't encourage this
superstition."

But Zhao Ling, expected to give birth just days into the Year
of the Dragon, recalled an ancient saying that dragon children
would be able to "swim beneath the sea and fly through the sky".
"That means these children can do anything," she said with a
confident smile.

http://www.scmp.com/

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To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Real World News Items 10/25/99
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Mon, 25 Oct 1999 14:04:41 -0500

From: <owner-bpr@philologos.org>

ISRAEL ARRESTS CHRISTIANS

Israel today detained 21 foreign Christians, mostly Americans, who
have settled in recent years near the Mount of Olives in anticipation
of Christ's return. Today's sweep marked the third time since January
that Israel has detained Christian groups. Israeli authorities suspect
so-called Christian "end-timers" will carry out violent acts to bring
about an apocalypse and hasten the return of Christ.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/19991025/aponline093913 _000. htm

40% OF AMERICANS BELIEVE THE WORLD WILL END AS THE
BIBLE PREDICTS

Forty percent of all Americans and 45 percent of Christians believe
that the world will end, as the Bible predicts, in a battle at
Armageddon between Jesus and the Antichrist, according to a new
Newsweek Poll on prophecy. Fully, 71 percent of Evangelical
Protestants, but only 28 percent of non-Evangelical Protestants and 18
percent of Catholics share that view.
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/stor y/10-24-1999/0001052001&EDATE=

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To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - China to normalize ties with Vatican by year-end
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Mon, 25 Oct 1999 17:34:45 -0400

From: "research-bpr" <research-bpr@philologos.org>

China To Normalize Ties With Vatican By Year-End

HONG KONG, Oct 25, 1999 -- (Agence France Presse) China is
expected to normalize ties with the Vatican by the end of the
year, following marathon negotiations, a report said Monday.

An announcement of formal diplomatic relations between China
and Vatican followed nearly a year of secret talks, The Sun
newspaper said citing unidentified sources.

Both sides had "gradually reached consensus" on thorny issues
relating to the Vatican breaking ties with Taiwan, which Beijing
deems a renegade province, and the appointment of a Catholic
archibishop in the mainland, the Chinese-language daily said.

The report said the Vatican has already submitted its decision
to resume ties to Beijing, and was waiting for a reply.

The sources said officials at various levels in the Chinese
Communist Party and government had been asked to "unify their
thinking" to prepare for the resumption of ties with the Vatican
ending a break of more than 40 years.

On the appointment of the Pope's envoy in China, agreement had
been reached to adopt the "Vietnamese model" in which Beijing
will name the archibishop with Rome's confirmation, the sources
said.

Following the normalization of ties, all so-called "underground
church" members in China will have to register with the
government.

The sources said the move would not affect the structure and
operation of the Catholic dominions in Hong Kong, which returned
to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, and Macau, which reverts to
Chinese rule in December.

China and the Vatican severed ties in 1957 after the Roman
Catholic church excommunicated two bishops appointed by Beijing,
and seven years after Mao Zedong announced the foundation of
communist China.

Since then relations have deteriorated due to the Vatican's
recognition of Taiwan and religious persecution in China,
leading to a split in the mainland's Catholic community.

Catholics in China include some four million faithful of the
official "patriotic" church, which is not recognized by the
Vatican, and an estimated 10 million followers of an underground
"silent church," loyal to the pope. ((c) 1999 Agence France
Presse)

http://www.insidechina.com/news.php3?id=103723&text

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