The end of the world?

Abstract

The author shows through the analysis of the texts of The Old Testament that in the texts included in it "the end of the world" is not taken in its absolute, but rather in its relative sense, as the end of a particular era in human history. It was only as late as in Jewish apokalyptics, that the metaphorical language of these texts started to be taken literally and the end of the world has been proclaimed to mean the end of that era, which will be followed by an entirely (even geologically) new one. Jesus restored the original conception of the end of the world as embodied in The Old Testament. The analysis od Jesus' sayings offers an evidence of this fact. However, as early as in the 2nd century the Church witnessed another revival of the Jewish apocalyptics with its own conception of the end of the world, It is this understanding of the end of the world that is taught in church dogmatics, nevertheless the catastrophic end as the fullfilment of the Divine scenario has no support neither in the sayings of the prophets of The Old Testament, nor in the sayings of Jesus.