Millenarianism

MILLENARIANISM

AND MODERN DAY FUNDAMENTALISM

Richard O. Govier

Copyright © 2019 by Jeff Govier

Bible quotations unless otherwise identified are taken from

the King James Version with emendations by the author.

Scripture taken from the New American Standard Bible®,

Copyright © 1960,1962,1963,1968,1971,1972,1973,1975,1977,1995

by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

Scripture quotations taken from the Amplified® Bible

Copyright © 2015 by The Lockman Foundation

Used by permission. www.Lockman.org

Scripture quotations marked RSV are taken from The Holy Bible : Revised Standard Version

Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America.

Nashville : Thomas Nelson Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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Contents

Introduction

I. Apocalyptic Trends In The Ancient World

II. The Post-Nebuchadnezzar Era

III. The Accession Of John Hyrcanus

IV. Did Jesus Teach A Millennium?

V. Satan Cast Out Of Heaven

VI. Satan Bound A Thousand Years

VII. The Loosing Of Satan

VIII. The Reformation

IX. The Saints Reign A Thousand Years

X. The Continuing Deception of Satan

XI. The Geopolitics of Roman Catholicism

XII The Capitalist West

XIII. The Muslim Threat

XIV. The Millennial Hope

About the Author

Introduction

Millenarianism: the belief in a future millennium following the Second Coming of Christ during which he will reign on earth in peace: based on Revelation 20:1–5.

It has been commonly believed that millenarianism is a universal phenomenon found amongst most of the peoples of the earth, while others argue that millenarianism is purely a western Judeo-Christian phenomenon. It turns out that millenarianism is a very ancient phenomenon, but a very rare one, as a study of ancient cosmology will demonstrate. But unlike the pagan cosmology of ancient times that saw a cosmic battle between good and evil, order and chaos that had no victor, there developed an ancient belief in the triumph of good over evil and the ultimate transformation of the earth. This view probably preceded that of the pagan societies whose victory, at most, consisted in the continued balance of forces. If chaos could be held at bay the Nile would continue to rise and fall, the sun would proceed in its circuit, and the kingdoms of men would endure. If not, human civilization, always fragile, would cease to exist. There was no sense that time was moving toward a universal consummation. The created world of the living would never be transformed, not in one thousand or any other number of years.

The seeds of millenarianism can be traced back to an ancient statement in the book of Genesis in which Satan (the serpent in the garden) would be bruised, or defeated, by a descendant of the women (Genesis 3:15). It was an indication that evil would be ultimately overcome. The book of Genesis is reputed to have been written by Moses, who either received the information by direct revelation from God, or had access to the writings or traditions of the pre-flood fathers. The latter seems to be the most likely. Enoch the prophet had given many prophecies concerning the pre-flood era and the coming flood. Writing by Enoch existed and Jude, the brother of Jesus, quoted it in his Epistle. There is evidence that this book may have helped influence apostolic doctrine, especially Peter's statement about the angels who had left their former estate. This is alluded to in the book of Genesis. Moses may also have gotten this information from pre-flood fathers such as Noah or Enoch. At any rate there existed, since ancient times, a belief in the ultimate triumph of good over evil in which righteousness would cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. This idea has set the stage for the present day eschatology of Messianic Christianity as well as some non-Messianic religions of the world.

The big issue facing the present advocates of this view is how this will come about, whether through the spread of a revitalized gospel which earmarked the early Christian Church or through some future eschaton such as the second coming of Christ and a direct intervention by God.

I. APOCALYPTIC TRENDS IN THE ANCIENT WORLD

The lineage of Adam through Seth continued to maintain the dynamics of a spiritual heritage while the line of Cain slipped into a humanistic way of life that eventually brought on their destruction and the Great Flood. This event left an indelible mark on the memories of those few who had escaped. When the descendants of Noah began to multiply on the plains of Mesopotamia they carried with them the memory of this destruction in their literature. The story of Gilgamesh is a prime example. The city of Urak (Erech), from which Iraq derived its name, was the home of Gilgamesh, the king of Urak. The story has been preserved on clay tablets. Not only do we have the record of the Flood written by Gilgamesh, we have the record preserved by the Hebrews who are direct descendants of Shem, one of the three children of Noah. Since Shem lived until the time of Abraham, it is not hard to see how the pre-flood story of Adam and his descendants was passed down to Moses.

A. The Descendants of Shem

Shem had five sons: Elam, Asshur, Arphaxad, Lud, and Aram. Elam was the progenitor of the Persians (today's Iranians) while Arphaxad is the progenitor of the Hebrews (today's Jews). Aram was the progenitor of the Aramaens (today's Syrians and Arabs). Assur built Nineveh the capital of the Assyrians and the first great empire of history. By association, therefore, we can see how the pre-flood literature and tradition was passed down to the Semitic races and found a way into the eschatological thinking of Jews, Christians, and Muslims.

Mesopotamia must have become the seedbed for a variety of ideas, paramount of which was the question regarding the judgment of God that still hung over them like an executioner's axe. If God had wiped out the generation before the flood, what was stopping Him from doing it again? We see this anxiety reflected in the story of Jonah going to Nineveh in which the whole city repented and lay in sack cloth at the denunciation of the prophet. The most fearless and warlike people of their day were terrified of a defenseless prophet. On the other hand, we see the earlier inhabitants of Babylonia attempting to build a tower that would reach into heaven in order to escape another catastrophe like the one that had overtaken their fathers. How quickly the descendants of Noah had forgotten the message of Enoch. Nevertheless the astro-religious system of the Babylonians, built on the periodic revolutions of the Moon, Sun, and Planets, set the stage for the chronological systems of eschatology that developed later. We will have more to say about this, but for now we turn our attention to another line of Shem, the Elamites, whose influence also played a large role in the development of Millenarianism.

1. The Elamites

Elam, 'the land of the cedar forest,' with its enchanted trees, figured largely in Babylonian mythology, and one of the adventures of the hero Gilgamesh was the destruction of the tyrant Khumbaba who dwelt in the midst of it. The earliest settlement there goes back to Neolithic times, but it was already a fortified city when Elam was conquered by Sargon of Akkad (3800 B.C.) and Susa became the seat of a Babylonian viceroy. From this time onward for many centuries it continued under Semitic suzerainty (Britannica). After the fall of the Assyrian empire Elam was occupied by the Persian Teispes, the forefather of Cyrus. Susa once more became a capital and, on the establishment of the Persian Empire, remained one of the three seats of government.

It was Cyrus (559 - 529 B.C.), called by his contemporaries, the Great, who united the Medes and the Persians against the great city of Babylon and caused it to fall. It is not often that God singles out a person and calls him by name in scripture, but that was the case with Cyrus (Isaiah 44:28). He must have had a divine purpose to fulfill not only in the return of the Jews from Babylon but in the spread of Zoroastrian monotheism throughout the Persian Empire. Like the Hebrew patriarch Abraham, Zoroaster (which is the Greek transliteration of the Iranian name Zarathushtra) came to the belief in one God above all gods and that the material universe, with its sun, moon, and stars, were not gods at all, but only the handiwork of the one and only God. Here we see the appearance of two prophets from the line of Shem, one from among the Hebrews in the person of Abraham, and the other from among the Elamites or Persians, in the person of Zoroaster.

a. Zarathushtra, the Persian prophet

The traditional Zoroastrian date for Zarathushtra's birth and ministry is around 600 B.C. This is derived from a Greek source that places him '300 years before Alexander' which would give that date; other rationales for the 600 B.C. date identify the King Vishtaspa of Zarathushtra's Gathas with the father of the Persian King Darius, who lived around that time. (Britannica) The Gathas (Hymns) of Zarathushtra is regarded as the inspired composition of a poet-prophet rather than a text dictated by a heavenly being, but as the linguists of both Europe and India worked on the Gathas it became clear that the language of the Gathas attributed to Zarathushtra was far older than the language spoken in Iran at the time of King Darius' father. The problem of Zarathushtra's time will never be solved, unless some improbable archaeological find turns up. Most scholars agree on a time-frame for Zarathushtra which could be as early as 1700 B.C. or as late as 1000 B.C.[1]

Zarathushtra, like Abraham before him, was forced to leave his home city because of his monotheistic belief, and became a wanderer. He and his followers wandered until they found a sympathetic friend in King Vishtaspa, who was not father of King Darius but an earlier ruler of the same name. He apparently spent the rest of his days in the king's court until his death at age 77. This sudden rise to preeminence goes to show how Zoroastrianism became the state religion of the Persian Empire much in the same way that Christianity became the state religion of Rome after Constantine.

Ever since ancient Greek times the name Zoroaster has stood for mysterious Eastern Wisdom. In Hellenistic times many esoteric and magical texts were written using his name (though none of those texts had anything to do with the real Zarathushtra) and Zoraster was thought of as one of the greatest magicians.[2] There is no doubt that the writings of Zoroaster suffered the same fate as those of the Prophet Enoch whose writings received additions by other writers as time went on, so what we have in the later Zend Avesta is a great amount of ritual and doctrine attributed to him, whether he was their originator or not. "Once the Avesta had been brought to the West in the 18th century, his name again became famous in the West, this time not for magic but for the humanistic, monotheistic, moral philosophy found in the Gathas. Enlightenment philosophers such as Kant and Diderot mentioned him as a model. Voltaire wrote a play called Zoroaster."[3]

Zoroaster has been a major player in the history of religion and has attracted the attention of modern historians who have speculated on the connection between his teaching and that of Judaism and Christianity. Here was a philosopher from pagan antiquity who was monotheistic and moral, when the descendants of Noah had given themselves over to a grossly immoral polytheism.

b. His message

Zarathushtra spent years in the wilderness communing with God before his first vision and at age thirty he began his ministry. Unlike the Israelites who called God Yahweh, Zoroaster called Him Ahura Mazda, the Wise Lord, who appointed him to preach the truth. The Wise Lord (Ahuro Mazdao) is the primeval spiritual being, the All-father, who was existent before even the world arose. From him that world has emanated, and its course is governed by his foreseeing eye. David Nirenberg says, Zoroaster first began preaching (ca. 1500 - 1200 B.C.E.) that existence was the realization of a divine plan that would culminate in a glorious transformation and perfection of the earth. Zarathushtra underwent a series of illuminations in which he saw the god Ahura Mazda, Lord Wisdom, and from that point onward he prophesied for a new religious faith… In that he was the first to prophesy a perfection of the world and a revolutionary transformation of human experience, Zarathushtra is the first prophet we can call 'millennial.' If millennialism was born among the Zoroastrians, it came of age among Jews and early Christians.[4]

Nirenberg says that Zarathushtra was not millennial in a chronological sense. He expected the final battle to occur quickly. But Zarathushtra died, the final battle did not come, and his religion became the religion of a powerful empire. How Zoroastrians reacted to these three facts is of crucial importance to all future millennialism. Just consider how familiar their solutions now sound. Since the final battle had not come in Zarathushtra's time, he would be followed by a successor, miraculously born of his seed, who would return just when things were at their darkest at the end of time. This savior would resurrect the dead and lead the armies of Ahura Mazda against the hosts of chaos.[5]

c. The roots of dualism

In Zoroastrian cosmology we discover the roots of ethical dualism, the principle of good and evil, between which man is free to choose. Though Zoroaster taught that there was only one God Ahura Mazda - the Wise Lord has an opponent, Ahriman, who embodies the principle of evil, and whose followers, having freely chosen him, also are evil. This same dualistic principle is found in Christianity in the form of God and the devil. Monotheism, however, prevails over the cosmogonic and ethical dualism because Ahura Mazda is father of both spirits, who were divided into the two opposed principles only through their choice and decision. This agrees with the statement that God created both good and evil. (Isaiah 45:7) Yet Hebrew scripture is very emphatic that there is but one God (Deuteronomy 6:4). Dualism says that there are two gods (one good, the other evil) hence God and the devil. But this is not exactly the way that Holy Scripture portrays God. If God created both good and evil, then neither one is a god in its own right. "Corresponding to the former is a kingdom of Justice and Truth; to the latter, the kingdom of the Lie (Druj), populated by daevas, the evil spirits (originally prominent old Indo-Iranian gods)." In the Gathas the Good Spirit (which is identified as the Holy Spirit) of Mazda and the Evil Spirit (Ahiriman) are the two great opposing forces in the world and Ormazd (a later name for Ahura Mazda) himself is to a certain extent placed above them both. His monotheistic solution resolves the old strict dualism. However, a more acute form of dualism reappeared in a later period after Zoroaster.

If one can use the principle of light and darkness as an example, then darkness is merely the absence of light even as a lie is the absence of truth. In this case there is only one entity: light, or truth. In Christian theology Satan is the father of lies and the prince of darkness. Since Christ entered the domain of the strong man (Matthew 12:29) and defeated him, there has been a change in the dynamics of the kingdom of darkness.

In Zoroastrianism at the beginning of time, the world was divided into the dominion of the good and of the evil and between these each man is bound to decide. He is free and must choose either the Wise Lord and his rule or Ahriman, the lie. The same is true of the spiritual beings, which are good or bad according to their choice. From man's freedom of decision it follows that he is finally responsible for his fate.

As to the spiritual beings mentioned here they are also free to choose but are apparently angelic beings who are followers of Ahriman. "The very daevas [malicious powers and devils] are only the inferior instruments, the corrupted children of Ahriman, from who come all that is evil in the world. The daevas, attacked by Zoroaster as the enemies of mankind, are still, in the Gathas, the perfectly definite gods of old popular belief, the idols of the people. Zoroaster regarded them as spurious deities, and their priests and votaries as idolaters and heretics. In the later developed system the daevas are the evil spirits in general and their number has increased to millions."[6]

In this respect Zoroaster must have held the same idea as Enoch that is later found in Hebrew scripture, that some of the angels of heaven defected and intermingled with the seed of mankind producing a hybrid race which was destroyed by the Great Flood. Since spiritual beings, such as angels, cannot be destroyed by natural means, these spirits of the fallen angels continued on and are with us today in the form of demons. It was commonly believed by the Zoroastrians that these false gods worshiped by the people were demonic in nature and therefore evil. This belief also entered into Christianity and may have been at the root of the iconoclastic controversy that arose about relics and images.

Zoroastrianism played a role in the restoration of monotheism and the concept of good and evil in the world. It was the only religion of antiquity, other than the Hebrew religion, that was progressive and held out any hope for the future of mankind. Yet that hope was non-Messianic and was based on human works. "Each act, speech, and thought is viewed as being related to an existence after death. The earthly state is connected with the state beyond in which the Wise Lord will reward the good act, speech, and thought and punish the bad. This motive for doing well seems to be the strongest available to Zoroaster in his message. After death, the soul of man must pass over the Bridge of the Requiter (Cinvat), which everyone looks upon with fear and anxiety, which is a counterpart to the great White Throne judgment of the Christians. In this last phase, Ahriman will be destroyed and the world will be wonderfully renewed and be inhabited by the good, which will live in paradisiacal joy. Later forms of Zoroastrianism teach a resurrection of the dead, a teaching for which some basis may be found in the Gathas. Through the resurrection of the dead, the renewal of the world bestows a last fulfillment on the followers of the Wise Lord."[7]

We are not attempting here to glorify Zoroastrianism. It holds no more solution to the problem of sin than does Judaism. Nevertheless, when tracing the origin of ideas, we cannot ignore Zoroastrianism which has had a part to play in the eschatology of both Judaism and Christianity. We must remember that Zoroaster probably lived even before the time of the Hebrew prophets, so his eschatological belief did not arise from the influence of the Hebrew prophets. If there was anything that had influenced his thinking, then we must go back to perhaps the pre-flood literature of Enoch, or the traditions that were passed down through the Semitic race of which he was a part. At any rate, his teaching is responsible for at least some of present day eschatology even though the Messianic promises have come through Judah.

When Jesus was discussing with the Samaritan women the question of on what mountain to worship God (the Samaritans had build a temple on Mt. Gerizim), he made a very interesting point: You worship that which you do not know; we worship that which we know, for salvation is from the Jews (John 4:22). This makes it clear that God's eternal purpose did not come through Zoroaster, or any other prophet, but through the bloodline of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and with Judah his son. It was through the line of Judah that the promised Messiah came. He is called in scripture the Lion of the tribe of Judah.

2. Uzziah, King of Judah

After the era of Solomon, Israel divided into separate kingdoms. Israel had ten of the twelve tribes and was known as the Northern Kingdom. Judah had two tribes and was known as the Southern Kingdom. Jeroboam I reigned over Northern Israel for 22 years. Rehoboam reigned over the Southern Kingdom for 17 years. The division of Israel led to the final weakening of their monotheistic belief in Jehovah. The Northern Kingdom was the first to succumb to Palestinian paganism and the power of Assyria.

During this period of incessant war between these two factions of Israel and their conflict with adjoining nations the Messianic prophecies began to emerge. In the 27th birth year of Jeroboam II, King of Israel, Uzziah (Azariah) was made king over Judah at the age of sixteen (II Kings 15) and he reigned fifty-two years.

a. Lo-ammi

It was during Uzziah's reign that that a most important event occurred in God's covenant relationship to His chosen people Israel. This spiritual event came in the form of a word: Lo-ammi. Hosea the prophet named his son, born of a harlot, Lo-ammi (not my people) as a sign to Northern Israel that they were no longer God's people. Then said God, call his name Lo-ammi: for ye are not my people, and I will not be your God (Hosea 1:9).

The prophet Amos also prophesied during the days of Uzziah two years before the earthquake, and his message was the same as that of Hosea: The end is come upon my people Israel; I will not again pass by them anymore (Amos 8:2). Again Hosea said: Israel is swallowed up: now shall they be among the gentiles as a vessel wherein is no pleasure (Hosea 8:8). And again: My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children (Hosea 3:6). In plain language, Israel's flirtation with idolatry had cost her the unique position as a priest to the nations. Not only had they lost their commission, but their covenant relationship with the one and only God, Creator of heaven and earth. Uzziah's reign marked the end for Northern Israel as God's people. As though to emphasize the point, God sent a great earthquake to mark a spot in history where God had broken His covenant with Northern Israel. This occurred around 762 B.C. just eight years before the founding of Rome and fourteen years before the death of Uzziah.

b. Isaiah the prophet

Another important event that occurred during the reign of Uzziah was the birth and the ministry of Isaiah the prophet. Isaiah's prophetic insight marked a new beginning in the history of prophetic literature. With the exception of the Psalms of David, it marked the beginning of a new world view based not on the nation of Israel but on a coming Messiah whose coming would affect all nations of the earth. The first chapter of Isaiah's prophecy says: The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah (Isaiah 1:1). The reign of Uzziah marked the era in which God's dealings with Israel as a covenant people had come to and end and a new season began. In the year that King Uzziah died, says Isaiah, I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple (Isaiah 6:1). After this vision Isaiah had a new understanding of God's purpose. He realized that the old Mosaic system of sacrifice and offerings were through. Hear the word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah. To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? Saith the Lord: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats. When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts? Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meetings. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them (Isaiah 1:10-14).

The dualism of Zoroastrianism is found in some of the prophecies of Isaiah. This, ironically, is found in the same passage of scripture in which the name of Cyrus (King of Persia) is mentioned. Since Cyrus came to the throne long after the time when Isaiah gave the prophecy, it is clear that Isaiah was not influenced by Persian Zoroastrianism unless, of course, Zoroaster lived before the time of Isaiah. But it is interesting to note how clearly the two agree with one another. The scripture reads: I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God beside me…. That they may know from the rising of the sun, and form the West, that there is none beside me. I am the Lord, and there is none else. I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things (Isaiah 45:5-7).

If in this respect they were similar, in other respects they were completely different. Zoroastrianism held no belief in a coming Redeemer to deal with the question of sin and was therefore incomplete and outside the main stream of God's eternal purpose even though it was monotheistic. The mission of being a priest to the nations was never committed to any nation except to Israel Yet this mission was lost by Northern Israel when they failed to live by the conditions of the Covenant made through Moses (Hosea 3:6). The remaining portion of the twelve tribes of Israel (the three tribes of Judah, Benjamin, and Levi) were, alone, responsible for carrying on the mission once committed to the House of Jacob. That is why Jesus said to the Samaritan women that salvation is of the Jews (the word Jew comes from being of the tribe of Judah but is generally used to include the whole of the Southern Kingdom).

c. A remnant in Israel

Thus saith the Lord, As the new wine is found in the cluster, and one saith, Destroy it not; for a blessing is in it: so will I do for my servants' sakes, that I may not destroy them all. And I will bring forth a seed out of Jacob, and out of Judah and inheritor of my mountains; and mine elect shall inherit it, and my servants shall dwell there (Isaiah 65:8-9).

The prophet uses the analogy of a cluster of grapes (in reference to the twelve tribes of Israel) to illustrate the fact that there still remained a remnant in Israel who had not bowed their knee to Baal though the main body of the descendants of Jacob had forsaken the Lord and were Lo-ammi (not God's people). Regardless of Israel's failure as a Chosen People, the kernel of truth was still reflected within the ritualistic system of Judaism. It was the gift of Isaiah to discern the metamorphic nature of the Law and expose the spiritual nature of the Kingdom of God.

When God chose Israel, they represented a cluster of tribes held together by a common belief in Jehovah. This was the cluster of grapes that the prophet saw. When ten of these tribes forsook the House of David at Jerusalem and followed Jeroboam, they no longer worshiped Jehovah God at Jerusalem, but a golden calf at Bethel. Some, not willing to bow down to the golden calf that Jeroboam had set up, forsook Jeroboam and returned to their historic faith and practices at Jerusalem. So the Southern Kingdom was made up of remnants from all the twelve tribes (but principally Benjamin, Judah, and Levi). Isaiah credits this remnant as being the only reason that God had not wiped out all of Israel as He had done to Sodom and Gomorrah. Unless the Lord of hosts had left us a few survivors, we would be like Sodom, we would be like Gomorrah (Isaiah 1:9). Again Isaiah says: The remnant shall return, even the remnant of Jacob, unto the mighty God. For though thy people Israel be as the sand of the sea, yet a remnant of them shall return… (Isaiah 10:21-22).

With the exception of Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, all the Hebrew prophets prophesied either before or during the captivity. That means that most of the prophecies concerning a returning remnant were fulfilled in the days of the Persian Kings when a remnant of Israel was allowed to return to Jerusalem from Babylon. That captivity lasted seventy years fulfilling the words of Jeremiah (Jeremiah 25:1, 11-12). Both Daniel and Zechariah were aware that the 70 years had expired and that the time had come for Israel's return. And return they did, fulfilling most of the prophecies about a returning remnant in scripture. There is no doubting the fact that from the time that Ezra and Nehemiah entered Jerusalem until John Hyrcanus had extended the boundaries of his kingdom to almost the proportions that it was in the days of David and Solomon, there had been many an occasion for Jewish families to return to Palestine under the mild treatment of the Persians and later the Greeks.

If Isaiah's vision had ended with just the return of a remnant of Israel, then he would have missed God's whole purpose in Abraham and his descendants. While Isaiah's prophecy had to do with a physical remnant out of Jacob, he narrows it down to a single household of Judah: the House of Jesse. And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots (Isaiah 11:1). From this point on Isaiah launches into a description of a coming Messiah whose Kingdom would change the world. This is the beginning of a millenarian eschatology among the Jewish people that has come down into Christianity. The prophecy reads: They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek: and his rest shall be glorious (Isaiah 11:9-10).

The vision of Isaiah describes a time when the wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them (Isaiah 11:6). All that is lacking in this scene of bliss is the inclusion of a time frame in which this event would occur, the idea of the seventh day of rest as a prototype for the thousand year rest when Messiah will reign on this earth. This was a development within Judaism in which the Seven Days of Creation became the model for a Sabbatarian system[8] within the Mosaic Law: a week of days, a week of months, a week of weeks of months, a week of years, and, in this case, a week of millenniums. The Sabbatarian idea of the millennium entered Christianity and has become a major part of Christian eschatology.

Notes

1. The Encyclopedia Britannica

2. The Encyclopedia Britannica

3. Ibid.

4. www.albany.edu/offcourse/fall99/millenniumbis.html

5. Ibid.

6. The Encyclopedia Britannica

7. Ibid.

8. Richard O. Govier, Daniel: The Calendar of