ARMAGEDDON IN THE BIBLE.

Voices of doom announce the fulfillment of biblical end-of-the age prophecies on Christian fundamentalist radio and television programs. Among the numerous biblical roof texts being fulfilled are

* the formation of the present state of Israel in 1948 and 1967 (Luke 21:24)

* the increase in earthquakes (Matthew 24:7 and Luke 21:11)

* famines, violence, and wars (Matthew 24:6-8)

* explosion of travel and education (Daniel 12:4)

* decline in morality (2 Timothy 3:1-4)

* increase in cults and the occult (Matthew 24:24 and 1 Timothy 4:1)

* the new world order (Daniel 7-12, Matthew 24:14, and Revelation 13)

For each "fulfillment" humanists can provide a logical explanation.

The establishment of the state of Israel, a historical-political event that has been discussed and written about for the past 100 years, can readily be divorced from Christian prophecy. Geologists tell us there is no increase in the number of earthquakes--in other words, God is not playing with tectonic plates. Yet, the August 1999 earthquake in Turkey, for example, prompted Pat Robertson to shake his head sadly on a 700 Club television program and suggest that this is one of the signs of the end of the age. Famine, violence, and wars have always been a part of human history. And although the wars of this century have been more violent than ever before, our present efforts to contain war before it erupts are encouraging rather than discouraging signs.

There can be no denial of more travel and better education, but the "knowledge" referred to in Daniel relates to understanding the Bible's prophecies. Those who embrace divinely revealed "rule ethics" have always complained about any deviation from their codes, so that moral decline must be evaluated against freedoms that have been achieved through democracy and the separation of church and state. Cults and the occult have always been around. And the "new world order" is often linked to the United Nations, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the development of a common European currency, and anything else that smacks of international cooperation.

Depictions of the end of the age can be confusing, but sometimes new, ingenious interpretations surface. For example, supposedly the Reverend Hal Lindsey experienced a divine revelation that enabled him to understand that John, the visionary who composed the book of Revelation some 1,900 years ago, actually "saw" our modern helicopters. Because John could not understand these twentieth-century machines, he described them as giant scorpion-locusts with stings (guns) in their tails (Revelation 9). Other predictions include the rebuilding of the Jewish temple on the site of al-Aksa Mosque (whether or not Muslims like it); enemies "from the north" attacking Israel; the return of Jesus (riding on the clouds); the resurrection of dead bodies; final judgment and heaven and hell. Clearly, biblical texts can be manipulated, but let's look at the evidence. What lies behind these end-of-the-age predictions?

How It All Began

Some 3,000 years ago, after Saul and David had become the first Hebrew kings in Canaan, their successor, Solomon, built a temple next to his new palace, thereby establishing a Hebrew church-state relationship. Temples need god-stories and rituals. The Hebrew priesthood's earliest efforts are embodied in the Torah--the first five books of the Bible--which were edited and re-edited before reaching their final form in the fifth century BCE. One of the issues confronting the priesthood concerned divine justice. If the Hebrew deity was a just god and in control of his people, how did divine justice work--or, to employ a biblical query, "Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?" (Genesis 18:25).

The earliest responses to the question embodied tribal mores. Each tribe functioned as a psychic unity, a corporate personality, whereby injury to one member was injury to all; failings by one member affected the well-being of the total group. Solomon's priests employed this concept to warn that, to the degree that individuals failed to fulfill what the priests presented as divine revelations of the deity's will, evil would impact on their family. In fact, the teaching was ultimately embedded in the Decalogue where the deity threatens, "I, Yahweh, your god, am a jealous god, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me" (Exodus 20:5). In other words, if a grandfather violates the divinely revealed temple rules, he might get away with it, but his grandchildren could be punished for what he did. This is justice?

Early in the sixth century BCE the temple theology was challenged. Jewish priests and prophets, artisans, and leading citizens were taken into exile in Babylon without any regard as to whether they or their ancestors had kept the divinely established laws. Were they being punished for the sins of their forefathers? This did not make sense. Both Jeremiah and Ezekiel envisioned an end to the exile period when, in Jeremiah's teaching, a new covenant of justice would be forthcoming--one that embraced individual responsibility:

   In those days, they shall no longer say: "The fathers have eaten sour
   grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge." But every one shall die
   for his own sin; each man who eats sour grapes, his teeth shall be set on
   edge. [Jeremiah 31:29-30]

Ezekiel claimed that Yahweh revealed to him a new code of individual responsibility:

   Yet you say, "Why should not the son suffer for the iniquity of the
   father?" When the son has done what is lawful and right and has been
   careful to observe all my statutes, he shall surely live. The soul that
   sins shall die, the son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father,
   nor the father for the iniquity of the son; the righteousness of the
   righteous shall be upon himself and the wickedness of the wicked shall be
   upon himself. [Ezekiel 18:19-20]

But these new formulations didn't make sense either. Both the righteous and the sinners had been taken into exile. What merit could there be in following the Jewish codes when obedient and disobedient suffered the same fate? But new thinking, originating in Persia, was about to impact Jewish beliefs.

The Beginning of End-of-the-Age Theology

The exile ended in the sixth century BCE when King Cyrus of Persia conquered Babylon. In the mind of an unknown prophet (whom we now call Deutero-Isaiah because his sixth-century proclamations were appended to the words of the eighth-century BCE Isaiah of Jerusalem) Cyrus was Yahweh's messiah:

   Thus says Yahweh to his anointed one [that is, his messiah], to Cyrus,
   whose right hand I have grasped, to subdue nations before him.... For the
   sake of my servant Jacob, and Israel my chosen, I call you by your name, I
   surname you, though you do not know me. [Isaiah 45:1, 4]

In other words, whether or not Cyrus was aware, his conquest of Babylon was ordained by the Jewish god!

Along with the Persian rescue came the impact of a new religion, Zoroastrianism, which would provide another answer to the problem of divine justice. Persian religion taught that justice was meted out in an afterlife--a claim that was rejected by the Sadducees, the temple priests, but accepted by other Jewish groups.

From the beginning, temple religion had taught that Yahweh was a god of the living, not of the dead--a concept that appears often in the Psalms (30:9, 115:17) and in the words of the prophet Isaiah (38:18-19). One psalmist, in pain and fearing death, complained to his god: "For in death there is no remembrance of thee/In Sheol [the place of the dead] who can give thee praise" (Psalms 6:5). Psalms 88:3-6 echoes the concept of death as separation from the deity:

   For my being is full of troubles and my life draws near to Sheol, I am
   counted among those who descend into the Pit [place of the dead] I am a man
   devoid of strength, Like one abandoned among the dead, like the slain who
   lie in the grave Like those whom you no longer remember, for they are cut
   off from your hand.

Zoroastrian belief challenged Jewish temple theology by claiming that divine justice not apparent in this life would be realized in the afterlife.

The Theology of Zoroaster

Zoroaster (also called Zarathustra) was a sixth-century BCE Persian prophet whose teachings were ultimately accepted by the Persian court. Through a personal encounter with and revelation from Ahura Mazda, the god of light and truth, Zoroaster learned of Ahura's opposition from evil forces led by Angra Mainyu, the principle of darkness and the lie. Each human had the privilege of free choice--to follow the way of the light or to pursue the path of darkness. Judgment for those choices would be made in the afterlife. At death, the soul approached the Bridge of the Separator. The souls of the righteous went to a paradise; the souls of the wicked went to a place of darkness.

Zoroaster taught that history was in a process of decline. An initial Golden Age gave way to the Age of Silver, then the Age of Bronze, then the Age of Iron, and finally the Age of Mud--when time would come to an end and there would be a final judgment. All souls would then pass through a river of molten metal--the souls of the righteous crossing as if in a warm bath; the wicked experiencing horrible pain and suffering. In one version the evil would be exterminated, but in another, after purification, they would be permitted to enter paradise.

For some Jews, judgment in the afterlife was accepted as the answer to the problem of divine justice. The biblical book of Daniel, written about 167 BCE, embraces Persian theology. In chapter seven the process of historical decline is clearly presented as four empires described as beasts. The lion-eagle was the neo-Babylonian empire where the Jews were in exile. The second beast, the bear, represented the Medes. The third beast, the leopard, was the Persians, and the fourth beast with the iron teeth was the kingdom of Alexander the Great.

Suddenly, the symbolic image is changed and Alexander's generals, who became rulers in Alexander's fractured empire, are portrayed as horns. The small horn, which uttered blasphemy, was Antiochus Epiphanes, whose headquarters was in Syria and who controlled Palestine. The greatest opposition to Antiochus' efforts to Hellenize the Jews was centered in the Jewish temple. Religious faithful who rejected the Greek lifestyle suffered horrific punishments. Finally, in 167 BCE Antiochus befouled the Jewish altar by burning pigs' flesh on it in honor of Zeus. The act, referred to in Daniel 11:31 as "the abomination that makes desolate," made Jewish sacrificial rites impossible.

Up to this moment, the sequential history in Daniel--even though it portrays the world in decline--is relatively accurate. In the last chapter (twelve) the writer attempts to predict the future, employing the Zoroastrian model: the world is in its final throes and the end is to come with the appearance of the Jewish angel, Michael. At the time of final judgment, graves open and the living and the dead are judged according to the names recorded in the divine diary. The wicked go to a place of shame and everlasting contempt; the righteous will shine like the brightness of the stars forever and ever.

"But," a Jew might ask, "why have we not been told all this before?" The writer of Daniel had an answer. He was told: "Go your way, Daniel, for the words are shut up and sealed until the end of time" (12:9). The fact that the book was now being read meant that end time was at hand. But when? How close? Daniel's answer:

   And from the time that the continual burnt offering was taken away, and the
   abomination that makes desolate is set up, there shall be a thousand, two
   hundred and ninety days. Blessed is he who waits and comes to the thousand
   three hundred and thirty-five days. [12:11-12]

Even with two sets of numbers, it is obvious that the end would come about three and a half years after 167--that is, in 163 or 162 BCE. Of course, the end did not come. Rome conquered the region and life went on as usual, so the end-of-the-age believers had to juggle numbers to continue to claim that the end was near.

Enter the Essenes, John the Baptist, and the Christians

From the scrolls found at Khirbet Qumran, an archaeological site in western Jordan, we have learned about a Jewish sect, believed to be Essenes, who saw its members as the "children of light" who would oppose the "children of darkness" in the end-of-time battle. When the Romans wiped out their community in 70 CE, their movement died.

From the gospel of Matthew--which the men who organized the New Testament placed as the opening book of the Christian scriptures--we are introduced to John the Baptist. His end-of-the-age cry was: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand" (3:2). When John was beheaded on the order of the tetrarch Herod Antipas, John's group of followers floundered and ultimately disappeared.

One of those baptized by John was Jesus, the son of a carpenter in Nazareth. In a sense, Jesus picked up where John left off. Jesus, too, proclaimed that the end of the world was at hand. He said that some of those who were listening to his words would experience that great terminal event in their lifetime (Matthew 16:28). Like John the Baptist, Jesus was put to death. After his death, wonder stories developed: he had walked on water; healed the sick; given sight to the blind; multiplied five loaves of bread and fish into a banquet; changed water into wine; been resurrected and had risen, physically, into the heavens. He was the messiah--the savior who would return and establish the kingdom of believers and condemn all others to eternal punishment.

According to Revelation 16:16, the battle to mark end time should take place at Har Megiddo, which means "the hill of Megiddo"--hence the battle of "Armageddon." Megiddo, a fortified city guarding an important pass from the Mediterranean Sea to the inland of Palestine, had been the site of many battles. Today, Meggido is undergoing its second archaeological excavation. Some end-of-the-age believers, who prefer to think that Har Megiddo was another way of referring to Jerusalem, demonstrate how one can make the Bible mean whatever one wants it to mean.

Apocalyptic Thinking and the Year 2000

Numbers become important symbols in the Bible; seven signifies completion (Genesis 2:2), forty can mark a generation (Judges 3:11, 5:31, 8:28), 666 is the sign of the anti-Christ (Revelation 13:18), and 1,000 is a key number in Revelation 20. Thousands of fundamentalist Christians who believe in the signs mentioned at the beginning of this article and who feel that the year 2000 is tied to the 1,000-year cycles mentioned in Revelation will be in Jerusalem, ready to meet Jesus should he return as the new year dawns.

Humanists appreciate the fact that people who lived 2,000 to 3,000 years ago accepted temple myths as they sought to come to terms with their environment and their social history. But humanists reject as non-sense any attempt to attribute validity to ancient prophecies. What we find most disturbing about apocalyptic thinking is its encouragement of passivism--a readiness to leave the future to divinely sent messiahs. Humanists are this-worldly. We accept human responsibility for the past, present, and future. We are committed to working to improve our world, morally and ethically, and to leaving the world a better place for the next generation because we have been here. We reject the "leave it to God" theology.

Today, a humanist prophet might predict with some surety that, as this year winds down, the world will not end, Jesus will not return, and the new millennium will simply mean that we change the first two numbers in our dating system from nineteen to twenty.

Gerald A. Larue is professor emeritus of biblical history and archaeology and adjunct professor of gerontology at the University of Southern California. He is a prolific writer and the 1989 Humanist of the Year All biblical translations represented here are his own.