Mythology and the gods depicted in the holy books have talked about the creation of the world and life within it which I have written about in one of my earlier articles. But there are myths about the destruction of the world also written in those holy books. It is referred as the apocalypse. So let us see how the world is going to end- as per them. Now days there are many post apocalypse movies talking about zombies or robots taking over, nuclear fallouts. But apocalypse stories are more related to the gods of the religious texts where they will themselves destroy the world.
Apocalypse is all about how a super natural power will cause the death and destruction of the entire human life. This would be a form of divine punishment as we see in those stories of floods. The difference between these floods stories and the apocalypse is that those flood stories are all in the past but the apocalypse is what is coming in the future. Also these stories end with a promise of a new beginning with everything good in it.
The Hebrew Bible has more than one story of apocalypse. But these stories have two common things; one is the general destruction of the natural kind and second is the punishment of the non believers and enemies of god. The book of Isaiah describes that the lord will strip the earth bare, twist the surface of the earth and scatter the inhabitants. The book of Zachariah says that while the destruction of world is taking place the people of Jerusalem will be fighting a battle. The lord will participate in the battle in order to save the righteous followers. And the non righteous ones are going to have a painful death; it is described as their flesh, eyes and tongues will be consumed away, most likely by fire. For the righteous ones there is the promise of the god kingdom
The ancient Persians have their Ahura Mazda, their ultimate deity. But there is a destructive counterpart also called the Ahriman. Here it depends on whom you follow. The followers of Ahriman will be punished and the followers of Ahura Mazda will get rewarded. Ahura Mazda’s son, the fire will destroy everything including hell. After the destruction of the world a ceremony will be held were the righteous followers will be brought back to life and thereafter will be a golden age.
For the Christians it is all written in the book of revelation. Saint John Divine describes the 7 angels who will be the harbinger of death. The 7 angels will be holding a vial of plague each with them and pour it on earth one by one. Then comes the thunder, lightning and earthquake leading to all the cities and nations crumbling. These apocalypse stories also talk about beasts in the form of dragons and multi headed animals.
Islam being an Abrahamic religion also has similarity to the earlier myths. These stories can be found in the Quran and the hadiths. Mohammad says that once people forsake the study of Quran and start indulging in worldly pleasures, there will be famine in Mecca and Medina and earthquakes across North Africa, Turkey and Iran will have thunderstorms, flood in the East and banditry in Iraq. The Dajjal ( anti Christ) will come riding on a donkey and rule for 40 days and thereafter god will send Jesus again with his army of the faithful. As expected Jesus will defeat Dajjal and rule for 40 years. Then Jesus will move to Jerusalem and from there he will again go to heaven. But still there is a twist in the story.
7 days after Jesus rises to heaven two monsters Yajuj and Majuj will escape will escape and destroy the world. Then Angel Israphel will blow the horn leading to 40 more years of earthquake and storms. After these 40 years Israphel will blow the horn again leading to the resurrection of the faithful followers who will spend the next 40 years praising Allah. After these 40 years the horn will be blown again when Mohammad will return to the world for the day of the Judgment. The sin and good of all will be measured in a scale and all will have to cross a bridge to the paradise. The sinners will fall off the bridge to hell and the good ones will cross over. Those sinners seeking mercy will have the chance to escape hell.
All these stories speak of great natural disasters and plagues but give a ray of hope at the end for the righteous promising some sort of reward or amnesty. This is where the innocent and the gullible commoners tricked into the belief of the promised land.
Thank you Telesfor sir