Mel Gibson is prepared for the end of civilization in The Road Warrior (1981)
An expectant Mimi Rogers awaits the end of all things earthly in The Rapture (1992)
Things to Come's 1936 prophecy of World War Two is now ancient history: this is exactly what Aachen, Germany looked like in 1945
Is it the Apocalypse yet?
As of this writing, December 2008, the world financial system has broken down—Bear Stearns tanked, Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac went kaput, Lehman Brothers died (and took the rest of us with it, the bastards), say bye-bye to Washington Mutual, and now Citibank is on life support. What’s next?
Only you will know, O gentle reader of the future. Only you will know if the electricity has ended and the hot water has run out, and heating is a thing of the past. Only you will know if
The grainy black-and-white pseudo-newsreel beginning of The Road Warrior is straight of out the opening of H.G. Wells’ Things To Come [1936]—the same sense of social apocalypse brought about by political and moral failure.)
The endless war: Korea, Vietnam, Central America, the Gulf War, Afghanistan, Iraq...
The war-created plague that Wells envisioned: a glimpse of radiation poisoning in Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Fortunately, for readers out there who still have electricity, the Apocalypse is subject of the essay that follows, an exegisis of Revelations 12. Rev 12 contains one of the key scenes of the Christian Apocalypse, the Last Loosing of Satan and his eventual defeat.
Like The Confessions of St. Augustine, it’s the saga of a troubled soul who progresses from damnation to salvation—but then the story takes a wholly unexpected U-turn.
Mimi Rogers, in a stunning, Oscar-worthy performance, plays Sharon (the Biblical Rose of Sharon?), a beautiful, jaded telephone operator who already lives in Hell; in the film’s astonishing opening—a slow dolly shot through a maze of icy, dimly-lit blue cubicles—trapped souls in headsets repeat endlessly, “What city, please? Is that a business or residence?” It’s a purgatory written by Beckett.
But on her lunch hour in the company cafeteria, Sharon overhears co-workers at the next table discuss a fundamentalist religious sect they belong to; they follow an eerie boy prophet who preaches the imminent end of the world and the Second Coming of Jesus Christ—the Rapture, when all saved souls will rise inexorably to heaven.
In the nightmarish ending of the film, after her husband is murdered by a rampaging fired co-worker who went postal (a sign of the erupting chaos of the End Times),
In a grim retelling of Abraham and Isaac,
Then follows the Apocalypse, which Tolkin makes entirely believable with minimum, but very effective, special effects. After all the Saved ascend to heaven,
Basically she tells God to go fuck Himself, and it’s amazing to see that in an American film—in any film, for that matter. The individual soul and conscience is declared to be supreme—and even more important than the Almighty in its sanctity.
These people hate reality and the difficulty of day-to-day life. Instead, as an abject escape, they embrace a crazed neo-Platonic vision of the afterworld that’s really only an excuse to trash this world and everyone around themselves.
Britney feels the Rapture
Idiot wind: Sherri Shephard on The View
The coming end of the world is merely a justification for their destructive, nihilistic impulsive behavior—as Nazism was solely an excuse for all the psychopaths in
* * * * * *
Revelations 12: The Woman and the Dragon
1 And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars: Gen. 37.9
2 and she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered. Mic. 4.10
3 And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, Dan. 7.7 and seven crowns upon his heads.
4 And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: Dan. 8.10 and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.
5 And she brought forth a man child, Is. 66.7 who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: Ps. 2.9 and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne.
6 And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days.
7 ¶ And there was war in heaven: Michael Dan. 10.13, 21 ; 12.1 · Jude 9.1--0.1 and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels,
8 and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven.
9 And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, Gen. 3.1 called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, Lk. 10.18 and his angels were cast out with him.
10 And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven,
Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren Job. 1.9-11 · 0.1--0.1 ; 0.3 ; 0.1--0.1 is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. 11 And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.
12 Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.
13 ¶ And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child.
14 And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, Dan. 7.25 ; 12.7 from the face of the serpent.
15 And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood.
16 And the earth helped the woman; and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth.
17 And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.
A VISION OF THE END: AN EXEGESIS OF REVELATIONS 12, THE WOMAN AND THE DRAGON
In the twelfth chapter of the Book of Revelations, John has a vision of Satan's attempt to prevent the salvation of mankind by Jesus, followed by the eventual victory of the Prince of the Next World over the Prince of This World. Chapter Twelve also gains importance because it recounts the Last Loosing of Satan and explains why "he must be loosed a little season" (Rev. 20:3, King James Version). The account is heavily laden with symbols whose meaning were obvious to John's audience; with a little work they can be readily understood by us.
The "huge red dragon" that pursues the mother is both Satan and his earthly manifestation, the
Both pagan deities had divine fathers, both of their mothers were pursued by an evil dragon that the holy mother managed to escape; and in the story of Horus, the serpent Set-Typhon sought to engulf Isis, the divine mother, with a flood, exactly like the Satanic dragon, and as in Revelation 12, the mother was saved by the earth's absorption of the water. (4)
As if to emphasize the apocalyptic overtones of the previous verse, verse 7 describes the war in heaven between the dragon and Michael with his angels, in which the dragon is defeated. For the first time, the identity of the dragon becomes is made explicit; he is "the primeval serpent" who tempted Adam and Eve into man's Fall, "known as the devil or Satan, who had deceived all the world." Michael and his minions hurl the dragon and his fallen angels to earth, where he will be free to wreak havoc; this is the "little season" in which Satan is loosed for the last time. The proclamation by the voice in verses 10-13 explains the purpose of the Last Loosing, while in the process, it clarifies the significance of Michael's victory.
St. Michael, the divine warrior
In verse 10, the voice (divine, presumably) mentions "our brothers," who are the righteous martyrs who, through their deaths, have witnessed for Christ. (5) After the voice proclaims their triumph over Satan the dragon (thereby suggesting that Michael and his angels were really Christ and his martyrs), it speaks of Satan as "the persecutor, who accused our brothers day and night before God" (12:10). Here Satan becomes the persecuting
But the above description also reveals the radical role change Satan has made between the Testaments. In the Old Testament, Satan was an agent of God, a kind of attorney for the prosecution; his name meant "accuser." Now, in the New Testament, with the infusion of Zoroastrian dualism into Christianity, Satan has become the all-destructive adversary who is a power unto himself.
Peter Sellers in Rod Serling's little-seen bitter 1964 Hallmark Hall of Fame teleplay Carol for Another Christmas as the Imperial Me, the post-Bomb dictator who mirrors Ralph Richardson as the Boss: dressed in a ten-gallon hat and a Puritan costume and spouting the virtues of individuality, he's clearly a spokesman for Barry Goldwater and a prefiguration of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush
In verses 11-12, the voice implies that Satan is being allowed to descend to earth to destroy, since the only slain souls who will end up damned will be pagans; any Christians who are annihilated in the process will be saved, since "even in the face of death they would not cling to life" (12:11). God is letting Satan massacre mankind in order to make way for the Last Judgment.
As mentioned before, the action of verses 15 and 16 reproduces Set-Typhon's attempt to sweep
The birth of Horus, Louvre
In the creation myths of the
Satan's annihilation of humankind is inevitable, John is saying; but he is also implying at the end of Revelation 12 that as God protected Christ (the child) and the woman (the Church), so will He guard the souls of those who would fashion themselves after Jesus. Their flesh will be blasted in the Apocalypse, but on the Day of Judgment, their spirits will remain intact.
* * * * * *
NOTES
- Martin Rist, Exegesis, "The Book of Revelations," The Interpreter's Bible. Vol. XII (New York, 1957), p. 452.
- Howard Clark Kee, Franklin W. Young, and Karlfried Froehlich, Understanding the New Testatament (Englewood Cliffs, 1973), p. 409.
- Rist, op. cit.
- Ibid., p. 459.
- Ibid., p. 457.
- Ibid., p. 459.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Jones, Alexander, General Editor. The New Testament of the
Kee, Howard Clark, Franklin W. Young, and Karlfried Froehlich. Understanding the New Testament.
Rist, Martin. Exegesis. "The Book of Revelations." The Interpreter's Bible, Vol. XII.
Note: I wrote an earlier version of this essay in May 1976 as a Religion paper for Prof. Philip H. Ashby while a junior at
No comments:
Post a Comment