Jewish messianism has its root in the apocalyptic literature of the 2nd century BCE to 1st century BCE, promising a future " anointed " leader or messiah to resurrect the Israelite " Kingdom of God ", in place of the foreign rulers of the time.
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These prophecies are taken together with those of the coming of the Mahdi and both the terms " Jesus Son of Mary " and " Mahdi " ( as used in Islamic apocalyptic literature ) understood synonymously as two titles for one and the same person.
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Landes has set up a web site for his Center for Millennial Studies at BU ( www . mille . org ) to study millennial fervor as it crests this time around and to " harvest " apocalyptic literature and ephemera produced over the next few years.
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Reinterpretation did not generally continue after Classical times, but the needs of the modern world have produced a new body of apocalyptic literature in which Gog and Magog are identified as the Jews and Israel, or the Ten Lost Tribes, or sometimes as Communist Russia and China.
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In Christian apocalyptic literature, Mount Megiddo, the hill overlooking the valley where the current kibbutz is located, is identified as the site of the final battle between the forces of good and evil at the end of time, known as Armageddon and mentioned in the New Testament in Revelation 16 : 16.
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The fully apocalyptic visions in Daniel 7 12, as well as those in the New Testament s Revelation, can trace their roots to the pre-exilic latter biblical prophets; the sixth century BCE prophets Ezekiel, Isaiah 40 55 and 56 66, Haggai 2, and Zechariah 1 8 show a transition phase between prophecy and apocalyptic literature.
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This tendency toward pseudepigraphy has its roots in apocalyptic literature, which claims that esoteric knowledge such as magic, divination and astrology was transmitted to humans in the mythic past by the two angels, Aza and Azaz'el ( in other places, Azaz'el and Uzaz'el ) who fell from heaven ( see Genesis 6 : 4 ).
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"Apocalypse " ( ????????? ) is a Greek word meaning " revelation ", " an unveiling or unfolding of things not previously known and which could not be known apart from the unveiling . " As a genre, apocalyptic literature details the authors'visions of the end times as revealed by an angel or other heavenly messenger.
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Three years after this vision Elijah was " translated . " Concerning the place to which Elijah was transferred, opinions differ among Jews and Christians, but the old view was that Elijah was received among the heavenly inhabitants, where he records the deeds of men, a task which according to the apocalyptic literature is entrusted to Enoch.
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But he did not give the news media very high marks for their early reporting on the assault on the Branch Davidian compound near Waco because many reporters did not understand the " historic influence apocalyptic literature and belief has been in some religious movements . . . . One reporter asked where one would find this Book of Revelations ."
