Long Count Prophecy Research Paper

The purpose of this paper is to research and analyze the preterist and futurist views of interpreting the Book of Revelation and determine which view provides the most accurate Biblical interpretation. As Richard L. Mayhue states, the "word 'preterist' comes from the Latin term praeteritus which basically means 'past' in regard to time." A preterist interpretation of the Book of Revelation, therefore, asserts that incidents described therein have already come to pass. A futurist interpretation, on the other hand, suggests the opposite namely, that Revelation is a prophecy of things to come.

The rapture, anti-chirst, marking of the beast, and the tribulations are just a few things that come to mind when I think of the book of Revelation. I have personally read the book a few times. My church has also taken an a large amount of time to break down the book for the congeration. My church also produced a movie called Defiant, which follows a character during the rapture and attempts to paint a picture for the audience to see the potential of life once the anti-christ rules. My exposure to the topic and the book has left with me with many questions. Although, the talk of Eschatolgy once made me feel worried and sick, I can say now I'm more at peace with what is to come.

It is both dangerous and discrediting to the Gospel when false dates are predicted by false teachers. If you can recall some five years ago when Harold Camping predicted his date of the end, some seven thousand followers of Camping gathered together in Vietnam on May 21, 2011. On that day these seven thousand Vietnamese followers of Camping did not experience the return of the Lord; rather, they were rounded up by the communist Vietnamese police. Only the Father knows the date of the actual end. We must reject dates and those who set

Please know it is the only book that was preserved intact for the most part.

There are 40 different authors who wrote the bible from all walks of life: shepherds, farmers, tent-makers, physicians, fishermen, priests, philosophers and kings. Many ask what the

However, Clarke challenges that idea in Childhood’s End, “All the world’s religions cannot be right, and they know it. Sooner or later man has to learn the truth.” (Clarke 16). Not every religion can be true, but talking to believers of various beliefs, they would describe theirs as being the only factual one. One day, we might come to realize that religion was a made up construct to give false hope and influence us to believe that we have something to live for. That possibility does not disqualify prophets and their tellings. These predictions could be based off of a self fulfilling prophecy; meaning that their desire had influence in the outcome. In the final pages of Childhood’s End, it describes how the end of the world was, “an end no prophet had ever foreseen.” (Clarke 198). In the book of Revelations, the Apostle John envisions a chaotic start to the returning of Jesus, but eternal peace will only be rewarded to believers. The overlord’s end to earth includes no peace, but overwhelming lunacy with suicides and natural disasters. Between those two ends, one became reality for a fictional

34. Yet in spite of all this vast diversity, the Bible reveals an amazing unity. First, it is one, continuous unfolding drama of redemption from

First, is the idealistic approach to Revelation. Revelation is a book that focuses is on good and evil until Christ returns, and it can be viewed as a “book of encouragement to suffering Christians until God conquers good and evil” (Herrick, 2004). It is the newest approach amongst the interpretation of Revelation (Herrick, 2004). Idealism does not believe in the seriousness of the prophecy, it reduces it down to an image of good and evil (Gundry, 2012, p.550). In addition, idealism does not connect any of today’s future events with the predictions in Revelation (Herrick, 2004).

The fact that there exist various narratives concerning the topic of apocalypse invites the notion that there is a great number of people desiring the end of the world. Why would somebody be desirous of terminating the world's existence? Despite the fact that the end of the world has a dark, uncanny, irredeemably, and desperate tone to it, one has to consider its consequences. Therefore, the evangelical protestantism belief in the rapture offers a solution to the otherwise unsatisfactory or even nonexistent future.

The Hebrew and Christian religious traditions have a storied history of experiencing revelations, specifically Apocalyptic writings. Some examples of these visions include, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, John’s Revelation, and Julian’s Revelations of Love. Yet, the question remains, how credible these revelations are, especially the newer ones? If the Old Testament is taken as credible, then the New Testament and any subsequent writings must align with the Old Testament.

For those of you who don't know what the rapture is, this is an event that is prophesied throughout the Bible that has not happened and will happen shortly before the horrific events that are in the Book of Revelation commence and/or unfold.

There is a recent form of prophetic interpretation known as Islamic End-Time Theory. This view was made popular from the book, Middle East Beast by Joel Richardson. The basic premise is that the last kingdom Daniel prophesied as the ten toes of the statue in chapter two and the fourth beast in chapter seven will be Islamic, and the Antichrist will be a Muslim and likely be seen by Muslims as the Mahdi.

The Apocalypse. In a religious context, the apocalypse is a disclosure of knowledge or revelation, usually of something hidden. In the New Testament’s Book of Revelation, John the Apostle, one of Jesus’ twelve disciples, receives the prophecy of the Revelation of Jesus Christ. With this Revelation John learns that Jesus, the son of God, will one day return to Earth from the Heavens, and with his return he will judge the living and the dead and usher in a new kingdom of God, a kingdom on Earth where pain or suffering cease to exist. Therefore, the apocalypse within the Bible marks the revelation of Jesus Christ’s return. In the contemporary setting however, the term ‘apocalypse’ differentiates rather drastically from that of its’ religious’

The efforts of the theological interpretation should never be overlooked. The Bible is the supreme determinant of the soul and intelligence of mankind. The value of the Bible can persist not only because of the written age, but also because it can direct the future of mankind. Traditional interpretations reflect the times. Today, Genesis must be approached in a new way and be reinterpreted for the current times.

Amillennialists generally assume that all millennium prophecies are fulfilled in between the first and the second coming of Christ (Gregg 459). The time subsequent to the first coming and prior to the second coming is known