The Y2k Hysteria By Richard Landes - 2027 Words

This phrase and the belief that the world was formed in 6 days with a 7th for rest, gave the early Christians a view that the world would last for 6000 years. According to scriptures the world had a beginning, it had a â€Å"now† in which they were living and a promised end. This end was proclaimed in the Olivet discourse (Matthew 24, Luke 21, Mark 13), but with warnings that none on Earth would know when. The Y2K hysteria caused many scholar to wonder how the millennial dates past where thought of by those that lived in that time. This essay is a discussion on whether merging of dates with the idea of six millennia (1000 year) periods was just an intellectual exercise or directly gave rise to apocalyptic thought. Richard Landes’ papers†¦show more content†¦This was part of the problem chronologists had in merging dates systems. Landes’ diagram showing the various chronological systems, that highlights when they hit the 6th Millennium. Note: the vertical dotted lines, of the changing a date system to avert the â€Å"dangerous† millennium. From this it seems obvious that the church fathers of Augustine and later Boniface must have made the decision to change dating to avoid the Millennium fever. But that is not quite the full picture. It does not consider the intervening centuries of learning, translation and scholarship creating better methods of calculations. Figure 1 - chronographical shifts and apocalyptic target dates. (illustration by Richard Landes.) The study of chronology has been a pursuit of many a scholar over the ages. We should note that it was not just early Christians who were interested in this. Rabbi Yossi ben Halafta, a 2nd century scholar, calculated the beginning date of the Hebrew calendar from when Adam Eve were created (Year 1 of Jewish calendar) which (adjusted for modern calendar) was October 7, 3761BC. . The old Testament part of the Bible was a collection of the religious writings from Jewish Torah, giving a chronology from Genesis to well before the Coming of Jesus. VariousShow MoreRelatedNew World Order in Conspiracy Theory13987 Words   |  56 Pagesseeped into  popular culture, thereby inaugurating an unrivaled period of people actively preparing for  apocalypticmillenarian  scenarios in the  United States  of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. These political scientists warn that this  mass hysteria  may not only fuel  lone-wolf terrorism  but have devastating effects on Ameri can political life,[8]  such as the  far right  wooing the  far left  into joining a revolutionary  Third Position  movement capable of  subverting  the established political powers