Antichrist: Two Thousand Years of the Human Fascination with Evil - Softcover

Simmons, Amy; Mcginn, Bernard

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0231119771 ISBN 13: 9780231119771

Publisher: Columbia University Press, 2000

Synopsis

In this timely and sweeping exploration, one of the greatest living historians of Christian thought traces the concept of Antichrist from its Judeo-Christian origins to the present day. Rooted in Second Temple Judaism--a period of intense religious and political disruption--Antichrist developed out of belief in malevolent angelic and human forces. McGinn demonstrates how Antichrist has often reflected the human need to comprehend the persistence of evil in the world, and examines how it has haunted popular imagination in both the form of indivuduals--such as Nero, Napoleon, and Saddam Hussein--and groups--Jews, heretics, Muslims.

About this title

Review:

A splendid historical survey of images of Antichrist in the Western religious traditions....The book's topic is timely, its scholarship impeccable, and its presentation masterful.--C. H. Lippy "Choice "

First and foremost, it's very well written... The book is still masterpiece of thorough academic religious research.--Stefan Isaksson "www.ufo.se "

I can only salute this broad, judicious yet comprehensive survey of beliefs about the Antichrist....This is a wonderful, beautifully written and challenging book, surely the best one-volume introduction to the subject.--John Van Engen, director of the Medieval Institute and professor of history at the University of Notre Dame "Christian Century "

Rarely has a historian of Christianity pierced a murkily inchoate human impulse with so much enlightenment as McGinn--Publishers Weekly

About the Author:

Bernard McGinn, Naomi Shenstone Donnelly Professor of Historical Theology and History of Christianity at the University of Chicago, is the author of many books, including Visions of the End: Apocalyptic Traditions in the Middle Ages (Columbia).

About this edition

• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0231119771
• ISBN 13: 9780231119771
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 392