I've been in the "lab" the past few months. I actually took a deep dive into eschatology for the first time. As much as I"ve studied the Bible and other worldviews, this was the first time I actually took time to look at the end-times and compare the different versions across Christianity, Islam and Judaism.
It's interesting how interconnected the views are and how easy it is to see how the prophesy laid out in the Bible is simply inverted, particularly by Islam.
Within Christianity, there are a few core pillars. Not looking to debate timing of/if there is even a Rapture (I don't know), but rather prophesy laid out in Daniel, Matthew 25, and Revelation. There are a few core pillars:
- The world will fall into the rule of the Antichrist, who will initially appear to be "good" in that he unites people in peace with Israel/Middle-east, but will then renege on his deal with Israel
- There will be 2 prophets who are the Witnesses mentioned in Rev 11. I believe this will be Moses and Elijah as the timing of their evangelism should be targeted toward Jews in Israel, but I could be wrong.
- The Antichrist will kill the witnesses after ~3.5 years
- The witnesses will be raptured to heaven
- Jesus will return as the conquering king and wreck shop on the Anti-Christ and all Non-Believers
There are some other details in here, but these are the specific points that jumped out at me that I will go through, comparing against Judaism and Islam.
With Judaism, they believe that a conquering Messiah (a man) will come and deliver the Jews from the persecution that is largely in alignment with the Christian end-times. They view this Messiah as King David reincarnate. What is interesting about David is that he was not allowed to build the temple. God reserved that task for Solomon and does anyone remember the reasoning?
It was because David had caused bloodshed due to his time as a warrior-king. I find this so interesting in that a logical sequence of events should be that the Messiah had to first come as the suffering servant, to fullfil that prophesy and ensure salvation was guaranteed BEFORE he could return as a conquering hero (the return of Jesus and the Jewish Messiah) in order maintain the integrity of God's character.
Now the Islamic story boggles my mind. To me, it's so easy to see the blatant distortion/inversion, but you tell me.
In Islam the Mahdi is their version of their "Messiah." There are a lot of details (see video below for thorough take), but the outline is the following:
- Revives Islamic Caliphate
- Kills the Jewish Messiah (Jesus)
- Rules for 7 years
- Seat of authority on Temple Mount in Jerusalem (Abomination of Desolation in Bible)
To me, this demonstrates that Satan is not truly a "creator" but rather the deceiver and he has to twist God's creation and plan to fit his own deplorable plans. I'm sure
@catfishpunter has some great commentary here.