Pre-Christian Sources for Contemporary Beliefs About the End of the World and Judgement Day

Apocalypticism is the revelation of the secret of the coming end of time, the violent end of the world, and the establishment of God’s kingdom. Apocalypses are often pseudepigraphical, meaning that they are fictitiously ascribed to an earlier hero or patriarch. Many, including Daniel and Revelation, feature arcane symbolism, dualistic struggles between good and evil, and visions that are difficult to interpret based on a first reading. It is possible that the creation of apocalyptic First Enoch predates the Book of Daniel, but such speculations are hard to prove. The best that scholarship can hope to accomplish is to distinguish apocalyptic literature from apocalyptic movements while remaining aware that they are codependent. Apocalypticism is one of many possible responses to persecution on a personal level, and in a larger sense a response to colonial domination. Daniel’s statements on astral immortality which promise an exalted position in the afterlife for those who turn many to righteousness and resurrection for some good people was such an innovation in Hebrew thought it is necessary to examine the circumstances that surrounded its creation.

The Book of Daniel is written in Hebrew and Aramaic, but its content does not vary according to which language is being used. Its present form is believed to be composed of fragments from two different copies written in two different languages. The author believes that this book became canonical because the greater part of it is in Hebrew rather than Greek, the preferred language for most apocalypses.

Daniel’s long tenure in Babylon spanned the reigns of Nebuchadnezzar, Darius the Mede, and Cyrus the Great. The content of the first portions of the book advocates constancy to the Mosaic law, even if obedience can lead to death. Unlike the stories of the Book of Enoch, the potential martyrs in Daniel are miraculously rescued from martyrdom by God. Some scholars question that these tales actually date from the Babylonian (587-539 BCE) or Persian (539-333 BCE) periods but agree that they predate the visions of Daniel that begin with the 7th chapter. These same scholars believe that the visions were written down during the Maccabean period, roughly 168-165 BCE. Whether or not one accepts that the book was composed by Daniel himself or believes that it was created several centuries later, the value of the concrete and beatific descriptions of the afterlife contained in the last seven chapters of the book cannot be underestimated. The visions of the last seven chapters gain credibility by being linked to the stories of the rescue of righteous individuals contained in the preceding five chapters. Martyrs perish without hope of rescue, but they are promised that they will be restored to life. This two-part division of the Book of Daniel is bridged by the overarching theme of the preservation of the saints.

The author directly relates many of the prophecies of Daniel to historical events that had already occurred in the Maccabean era. Like others before him, he identifies the little horn with a “mouth speaking great things” of Daniel 7:8 as Antiochus IV Epiphanes, Seleucid King of Syria and ruler of Judea during the first half of the second century BCE, a man who perpetrated much evil among Judaeans. The prophecy later states that the little horn would die in Egypt, a fate that Antiochus IV escaped. This inconformity is used to advance the argument that the accurate, fulfilled prophecies were written in retrospect, and inaccurate prophecies represented bad guesswork about forthcoming events. Traditionalists believe, however, that many, if not most of the prophecies of Daniel describe events that have not yet occurred (including the tyranny of the “little horn”). Rather than limit the prophetic timeframe to the relatively brief ascendency of the Maccabees, it is expanded to include the entire course of human history, from the era of Daniel’s Babylonian captivity all the way up to the end of the world.

In contrast to other Old Testament prophesies that promise deliverance from threatened calamities should a people repent of their misdeeds, the apocalypticism described by the Book of Daniel maintains that a trouble-plagued, cataclysmic end of the world is inevitable. Revenge will be taken upon hated oppressors, and injustice will be redressed. Daniel 7:9 describes a divine figure called the “ancient of days” who presides over a divine council at the last judgement which sentences the fourth, and final world empire to destruction. Daniel 7:13 discloses that “one like a Son of Man” (an Aramaic expression that simply means “like a human being”) will appear in the clouds. In Daniel 7:27, an angel reveals that this apparition symbolizes “the holy community, the saints of the most high.” The author identifies these as members of an apocalyptic sect who will be saved. The threat of possible annihilation caused many Israelites to join, either enthusiastically or out of necessity, sects that promised shelter from the coming storm.

The imagery in this vision is borrowed from Canaanite mythology. The enthronement of the two figures closely resembles ‘El, the older father-god whose white, wooly beard is also a feature of Daniel’s “ancient of days.” The Son of Man resembles Ba’al, the son of ‘El who supersedes his father as regulator of the cosmos. The text infers that the Son of Man is divine, rather than human, despite his human appearance. The author believes he may be a specific archangel, perhaps Michael or Gabriel. This figure establishes a permanent, everlasting, and universal kingdom which brings relief from the suffering of earthy tyrants. Antiochus IV Epiphanes is again cited as being the specific object of the Son of Man’s campaign to rid the world of evil, yet evil persists to this day. The “Saints of the Most High,” alternately, the “Holy Ones of the Most High” could either be angels or sanctified martyrs.

Everyone will not be saved or resurrected into the afterlife. Daniel 11:31-34 describes those who will be saved:

And arms shall stand on his [to some, Antiochus IV Epiphanes’s, but most likely the antichrist’s] part, and they shall pollute the sanctuary of strength, and shall take away the daily sacrifice, and they shall place the abomination that maketh desolate. And such as do wickedly against the covenant shall he corrupt by flatteries: but the people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits. And they that understand among the people shall instruct many: yet they shall fall by the sword, and by flame, by captivity, and by spoil, many days. Now when they shall fall, they shall be holpen with a little help: but many shall cleave to them with flatteries. And some of them of understanding shall fall, to try them, and to purge, and to make them white, even to the time of the end: because it is yet for a time appointed.

Interpretations which tie the events described above to the Maccabean era identify violators of the covenant as Israelites who allied themselves with the Greeks, apostates and traitors. Whether or not this prophecy applies specifically to the Hellenistic era, or to any other past, present, or future age, Daniel 12 implies that some merely live and die but will not experience any resurrection. The minority who will be saved teach people the truth and fight, to the death, if need be, against oppression. Martyred truth-tellers and freedom fighters become transformed into an angelic army, a belief possibly related to the rapiuma, the royal dead war heroes of Canaan. The limited scope of salvation as described by the Book of Daniel is highly selective and sectarian. On page 19 of his book “Theocracy and Eschatology” Otto Ploger describes the group responsible for the promulgation of this vision as possessing a “conventicle-spirit of deliberate separatism in that membership of the “true” Israel is made to depend upon the acknowledgment of a certain dogma, namely the eschatological interpretation of historical events, which meant, in effect, membership in a particular group.”  On page 10, Ploger writes, “Whereas the Maccabees strengthened political Messianism, Daniel worked for a position which paved the way for the Christian attitude, embodied in Jesus, who, following Isaiah 53, interpreted the mission of the Son of Man in terms of an atoning, redemptive death.”

First Maccabees contains few instances of miraculous divine intervention, but the Book of Daniel contains many, all of which have been prophesized beforehand. The Daniel group displays features of the Hasidim (“pious ones”) described in the second chapter of First Maccabees who become martyrs because they refuse to fight on the Sabbath. As previously noted, this group separated themselves after the ambitious Maccabees assumed both political and spiritual rulership of Israel. Some speculate that Psalm 110 may be Maccabean propaganda since it institutes a new, alternate priesthood “after the order of Melchizedek.”  The Maccabees had usurped the prerogatives of the priestly line of Zadok. The author proposes that the sectarian group that produced Daniel identified the Maccabean high priest with Malkirasha, the sinful king, and that they themselves were the righteous ones.

The Dead Sea scrolls offer insight into Jewish sectarian life, not only their apocalyptic expectations, but also the nature of their community. Additional information can be obtained from descriptions of the Essenes written by Josephus and Philo. The scrolls include a series of pesherim (“solutions” or “interpretations”), commentaries on prophetic texts which connect them to events that occurred within the sect, interpretations that would not be obvious to outsiders. Scripture was used to undergird political ideology. The Qumran community, creators of the Dead Sea scrolls, were not the only dissident religious sect in Israel, but every sect held a common belief in millenarianism. The founders of Qumran were not marginalized, economically dispossessed persons seeking a better way of life, but rather disenfranchised aristocrats and priests.

It is uncertain that the Dead Sea scrolls were produced by Essenes, but the name of this apocalyptic sect was used by Greek writers as a generic term for describing various similar separatist groups. Their lifestyle is portrayed in Philo’s description of the therapuetai, a community that settled in Egypt which served as a model for Jewish mystics hoping to ascend to heaven and gain a vision of God. They were very ascetic in their diet, and were primarily focused on self-denial. They paid no regard to their personal appearance, but did dress only in white for their religious observances. They preferred chaste marriage over carnal marriage. They did not defecate on Sabbaths, the better to keep it holy and undefiled. They may have believed that their transformation into angels had already begun, or even been accomplished while they were still alive. Josephus describes the Essenes in Book 18 of Antiquities of the Jews:

The doctrine of the Essens is this; that all things are best ascribed to God. They teach the immortality of souls: and esteem that the rewards of righteousness are to be earnestly striven for. And when they send what they have dedicated to God into the temple, they do not offer sacrifices because they have more pure lustrations of their own. On which account they are excluded from the common court of the temple: but offer their sacrifices themselves. Yet is their course of life better than that of other men; and they entirely addict themselves to husbandry. It also deserves our admiration, how much they exceed all other men that addict themselves to virtue, and this in righteousness: and indeed to such a degree, that as it hath never appeared among any other men, neither Greeks nor Barbarians, no not for a little time: so hath it endured a long while among them. This is demonstrated by that institution of theirs, which will not suffer anything to hinder them from having all things in common: so that a rich man enjoys no more of his own wealth, than he who hath nothing at all. There are about four thousand men that live in this way: and neither marry wives, nor are desirous to keep servants: as thinking the latter tempts men to be unjust; and the former gives the handle to domestic quarrels. But as they live by themselves, they minister one to another.

Josephus’s use of the expression “immortality of the soul” is a neo-Pythagorian accommodation to his Hellenistic readership. The scrolls describe resurrection, something unknown to the Romans, rather than immortality. This resurrection was not a brand-new state of being assumed after death, but a continuation of the spiritual resurrection a believer experienced after joining the community.  Josephus’s description focuses on the nonthreatening “mystical” character of the Essenes, but their apocalyptic beliefs would ultimately require them to fight sinners, be they Jew or Gentile. In the Judean society of this era, apocalypticism and mysticism were joined at the hip. In contrast to the evil apostate High Priest of the Temple in Jerusalem, the High Priest of the Essenes was called the “Teacher of Righteousness.” No physical temple was erected in their wilderness refuge, but they instead considered their communal body as the Temple of the LORD, an idea that would reemerge in Christianity.

A recently published passage from the Dead Sea Scrolls contains a direct reference to resurrection, lines 11-12 of 4Q 521:

And the glorious things which do not exist the Lord will do just as he said. Because he will heal the slain, and the dead will be alive, and to the humble he will bring glad tidings.

The passage is a reinterpretation of Psalm 146 with an appended reference to resurrection. The original implies that people die, implying that only God lives forever. The “glorious thing” performed by the God now includes restoring life to the dead. This passage aligns the Qumran community with later first-century proponents of resurrection, including Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity.

The custodians of the Dead Sea scrolls anticipated a great war at the end of time when the angels in heaven would come down and fight against a numerically superior foe. Members of the sect could expedite this by keeping their bodies pure, an appropriate receptacle for an angelic presence. Qumaranites may have believed that the angels who would descend were their immediate forebears who had been fully transformed into angels. The community divided the inhabitants of earth into the good and the evil, and labored to conform themselves to only what is good. The Qumran community was effectively cut off from the majority of Israelites, so it could be described as antisocial. The factors of need, deprivation, anxiety, leadership, and a propensity to interpret events in a religious framework all came together in first century Judea. The result over the next two centuries was the emergence of a variety of political and religious apocalyptic cults.

The Jewish settlement of Qumran was destroyed by the Romans in 68 CE, during the First Jewish–Roman War. The community was likely abandoned around this time, two years before the collapse of Jewish self-government in Judea and the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE. Martyrs may or may not have been made in the defense of the community against the Romans, but if any defender perished in battle they died in the certainty that they would arise from the dead. The metaphor of resurrection as waking up from sleep is drawn from Isaiah 26:19:

Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead.