We have always loved stories of our own destruction, from the book of Revelation to the countless books, movies, television, and any other medium we can think of. Many can say that Hollywood is out of ideas, though I can’t get enough and neither can most people. Whether in the Terminator franchise, The Walking Dead (and it’s own spin off Fear The Walking Dead), Jennifer Lawrence shooting arrows to smite her enemies, or Jennifer Lawrence quite literally fighting the Apocalypse a big bad from the X-Men franchise that has his own four horsemen by his side who will all be in next years installment of the X-Men series. Our own deaths are always on our mind at some level.
Professor Pagels was amazing I could talk to her all day about the end times. Growing up in a Christian household I was no stranger to the end of days tales. Which is strange looking back on how this is not a bizarre practice for other Christian children to be told about the demise of the world. Professor Pagels explained that the book of Revelation is the most out of place book in the bible and yet so many people are drawn to it to explain many things going wrong in this world. I cannot agree with her more. What blew my mind the most is how she call this chapter in the bible, “anti-Roman propaganda”. This makes complete sense if you think how the repressed people cannot just show their displeasure for their leaders. They would have to find a more creative way for doing so.
In Ragnarok, also a movie coming soon, the third in the Marvel’s Thor stand alone films, you see the end of everything as we are led to believe. As stated earlier many people will point to any tragic happenings in our world and say, this is the end of the world. Mark XIII, v.8 states, “For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these are the beginning of sorrows”. People constantly point out the sorrows in this current world and I think they are exacerbated by the 24 hour news cycle and “if it bleeds it leads” journalism. There have been terrible times when cavemen were cracking each other skulls open for food. Famine, drought, disease, and just plain bad “stuff” has been going on since the beginning of time. As R.E.M. puts it, “It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine”.
Sorry for the quality. Someone recorded off their tv.
Hum 115: World Mythology 
Are you still a Christian? Where do you stand in regards to Revelation? How would you call this book out of place when in 1 Thessalonians, Isaiah, Daniel, Matthew, Mark and Revelation all have mentions of Eschatology or End Time Events? Either way, where to you stand in regards to the end of the world? Do you side with certain myths?
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I agree with you I am fascinated with Pagel’s analysis! Like I said in my post, I think she makes it seem a lot scarier as an anti-roman piece of propaganda.
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I agree. Pagel’s talk was fascinating about the book. Do you really think there are signs to the end of the world? Earthquakes, famine, disease, fighting, war…all these have been going on since the world started. I think there will be other signs. Maybe certain people will be given signs like in the Native American myths.
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