Volume 41, Number 21 · December 22, 1994
New Heaven, New Earth
By Jasper Griffin
Cosmos, Chaos and the World to Come: The Ancient Roots of Apocalyptic Faith
by Norman Cohn
Yale University Press, 271 pp., $30.00
We live in an apocalyptic age. All around us, and not only in the West, groups of people are huddling together, rejecting the outside world, and awaiting an imminent Last Day, when the elect (themselves) shall be justified, rewarded, and avenged on their enemies and on unbelievers. A time of tribulation, usually imagined with a good deal of gusto—a time of wars and rumors of wars, false prophets, allegorical beasts, pestilences, and every form of nastiness—will be followed by the coming of a new heaven and new earth, the direct rule of God, and endless bliss for the devout minority (with tremendous sufferings for their enemies) in a world freed of all evil. Those who believe in such promises rarely make much study of earlier apocalyptic movements. Thus it is that each succeeding congregation of the elect is unfazed by their melancholy record of 100 percent failure to come true.
Review, 6191 words
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