The Encyclopedia of World Religions

136 S Essenes

judgment will be by Jesus C HRIST , who will then come in glory to judge the living and the dead. HINDUISM AND BUDDHISM In the Eastern religions of H INDUISM and B UDDHISM , individual eschatology is seen more in terms of K ARMA , though its popular scenarios may include personal judgment by the lord of the underworld, Yama or Yenlo, and possible perdition to the hells or the realm of GHOSTS , or reward in one of the heavens, as well as human or animal reincarna tion—all for as long as it takes to expend one’s bad or good karma. World eschatology may be ultimately within the context of cycles, but may more immediately include the coming of Kalki, the final avatar or divine appearance, or in Buddhism of Maitreya, the future Buddha. In popular lore Maitreya’s coming realm is often seen as a para disal age. New religious movements both East and West frequently have a highly eschatological cast. Further reading: S. G. F. Brandon, Man and His Destiny in the Great Religions (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1962); Norman Cohn, Cosmos, Chaos, and the World to Come (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001); Mircea Eliade, Death, Afterlife, and Eschatology: A Thematic Source Book (New York: Harper & Row, 1974); Wilson LaDue, The Trinity Guide to Eschatology (New York: Continuum, 2004). Essenes Members of a group of ancient Jew ish ascetic communities. These communities are called “ascetic” because their members practiced rigorous self-denial. They existed from the time of the Hasmonean revolt (167–164 B . C . E .) to the Jew ish wars (66–74 C . E .). For centuries the only information on the Ess enes came from ancient writers, such as Philo, Josephus, and Pliny the Elder. In the mid-20th cen tury a library of scrolls was unearthed at Qumran. These scrolls are known colloquially as the D EAD S EA S CROLLS . Despite some differences in teaching, most scholars believe that these scrolls represent the library of an ancient Essene community.

beliefs about death, judgment, heaven, HELL , or REINCARNATION . World eschatology involves the des tiny of the world as a whole: the future coming of MESSIAHS or saviors, the last judgment, the divine destruction and perhaps recreation of Earth as a new paradise. HISTORY Idea of world eschatology as we know it probably did not begin until people started to think in terms of historical time, not the cyclical time in which the world just repeated itself year after year and age after age. This realization broadly coincides with the invention of writing and the emergence of world religions in which G OD or ultimate reality is seen as doing something of immense importance within historical time: giving the law to M OSES , sav ing the world in J ESUS , showing supreme enlight enment in the B UDDHA , delivering the Q UR ’ AN to M UHAMMAD . If God can act to save the world within history, can there not also be a supreme consum mation of history in which its meaning is fulfilled and revealed, justice is done, and perhaps a new and better age begun? World eschatology comes from seeing the course of a world as a line, not a circle, commencing with creation and ending in a last judgment or supreme revelation that sums it all up and makes it meaningful. This would be the end of history. WESTERN RELIGIONS This style of world eschatology may well have begun with the ancient Iranian prophet Z ARATHUS TRA and his religion Z OROASTRIANISM . He taught that the world is a battleground between Ahura Mazda, the Lord of Light, and the principle of EVIL , the Lord of the Lie, Ahriman. As Ahura Mazda would defeat Ahriman, the prophet Zarathustra would return, all those who had died would be raised in a gen eral resurrection, and God would create for them a new and perfect earth. Ideas highly reminiscent of these, perhaps influenced by Zoroastrianism, are found in the three great Western monotheistic reli gions, J UDAISM , C HRISTIANITY , and I SLAM . In their tra ditional forms, they emphasize a divine judgment of the world on the Last Day; Christianity says the