I thought the insights and claims made by Elaine Pagels were very interesting. They definitely added a new perspective to the Book of Revelations and end-of-the-world stories I’ve become familiar with, having grown up as a Christian.
The idea I found most interesting were the observations that Pagels makes when she refers to the Book of Revelation as being “anti-roman propaganda”. I had never heard that interpretation before, but after reading her texts and listening to her interviews, I think she has a good point. The myths and end-of-the-world stories written by St. John of Patmos are clearly fueled by the emotions he was feeling during the chaos of the time. As the bible has been reconfigured and passed on through the generations I think people adapted the myths to convey the emotions they were experiencing during their own hard times. Pagels demonstrates that many of the different Christian denominations had their own interpretations of the Book of Revelation, and that they used it to propel their own doctrines and agendas.
When we compare this to the year 2015, I think there are still many people, both affiliated and unaffiliated with a Christian church, who adapt and interpret the myths to convey their own thoughts and concerns for the future. There are more end-of-the-world stories than we can even count anymore. In particular we like to focus on disasters. Some disaster like Hurricane Katrina were thought to be the beginning of the end. Even as recently as September 28th there were groups all over the country that were preparing for the beginning of the end with the supermoon bloodmoon. I read articles and even hand firsthand experience talking to people who were preparing for the end of the world because they had read the Book of Revelation and it makes mentions of the moon turning to blood at the time of the second coming. People were buying absurd amounts of food so they could bunker down, some people quit their jobs and even sold their homes. They may have jumped the gun a little bit, but I think its notable that they were so impacted by the myths that they went to such extreme measures.
I think there are people in the world that truly fear these sorts of disaster myths, and I don’t want to belittle those anxieties by any means. But I think we have all observed that many of these myths seem to be a form of propaganda, normally to sell movie tickets, popcorn, and fan merchandise. Hollywood capitalizes on these fears by creating film after film about how the world is going to end. It’s a multi-billion dollar industry to try to convince people that their deepest end-of-the-world fears are entirely possible, and maybe not too distant from the present day. If we look back at 2012, there was a movie made about how the world was going to end. Millions of people thought it would end that December in some huge natural disaster. While that didn’t happen, we certainly saw a lot of people getting all worked up about it.
When St John of Patmos was writing about the apocalypse I don’t think he even imagined how impacted some people would become based on his words 2000 years later. We have let our fear of things happening beyond our control become an obsession. I think our society craves that kind of chaos. My own brother-in-law truly believes that there will be a zombie apocalypse and that he’ll be a survivor who will spend his days hunting them The Walking Dead-style. It’s not that anyone want’s to die in a huge disaster, but I think many people (including many Christians) have gone from being afraid of something terrible happening, to just wondering if/how they will survive it.
Hum 115: World Mythology 