Eschatology

No one understands all of Revelation's numbers and symbols. Still, almost all interpreters have come to a common assessment of several keys: the Lamb, the Beast, the Great Prostitute, the Other Beast and the New Jerusalem.

Around 1830 John Nelson Darby, having selected scripture passages from Daniel, Revelation, 1 and 2 Thessalonians and elsewhere, pasted them together, called them a whole, and invented the Rapture, a word not found in the Bible.

Predictions of the Apocalypse or its personal equivalent of a direct path to heaven have been a common theme throughout human history. We seem determined to keep ourselves in a constant state of preparation for the end of time.

We could see in the coming years the emergence of a new kind of eschatology -- fresh, different, wiser biblically, more mature theologically, and more responsible ethically.