The Anti-Christ History Channel

Because I am intrigued by this whole end of time thing I had to watch "The Anti-Christ" tonight on the history channel. Here are my notes. Yes. I took notes. Why? To argue with mother dearest. Friends. Whatever. A lot of this I knew, but some was new, so definitely worth watching. Learned lots about Left Behind series... I just wanted some notes for reference just because... it'd make me tingle or something... or at least I thought it would. But if you're interested...
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Zorroestrianism 500BC or so, this religion emerges and it has a anti-Christ/Christ figure like Christianity

Daniel= anti-Christ or historical figure?
Word anti-Christ never mentioned in the chapter
Mentions a man who will come during turmoil and this man will draw the world together, bring prosperity

Daniel 9:27 - He will confirm a covenant with many for one 'seven.' In the middle of the 'seven' he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And on a wing of the temple he will set up an abomination that causes desolation, until the end that is decreed is poured out on him.
--- basically the man described in Daniel believes he is better than God, and a biblical week is 7 years --- Daniel written during persecution of Jews --- think may be toward Syrian despot who declared himself god. --- Many of details in Daniel may have been written before the end of the Jew war in 164

Apocalyptic literature was not meant to understand end times, rather explain what was going wrong at a certain time

Anti-Christ shows up 5 times talking about John the Baptist

Revelation = most forceful comm. about end times, about a beast, one whose real ID is anti-Christ
Rev. 13:5-13:7
well liked, spiritual, insightful, given authority over every tribe

Rev. 13:18- 666 comes up (prefix type thing some say like a social security number type thing)

Scholars say about understanding future as much as past

Revelation written during 1st century with comm. of Christians being persecuted experiencing famine, econ failure, saw anti-Christ everywhere and in order to serve had to worship emperor, etc.

Thessalonians didn't live up when it said that end didn't come

Anti-Christ helps explain there still demonic forces, which is why end still hasn't come

John Baptist wrote addressing ppl. in Asia-minor, modern day Turkey

Passages about Rome? Sea beast talks about political power (Rev 13:11) or so dark beast and false prophets where religion being used in false sense

666 - 3rd form of evil - if didn't go along with Rome, couldn't buy or sell - numeric value for Nero Caesar?

So Revelation can be read as Rome, the anti-Christ coming, or symbols asking us to question how good and evil are present
- Tells us good people have bad things happen
- Right eventually triumphs
- Numerous victories for evil along the way and innocent hurt

People like Marilyn Manson have been called anti-Christ

1st and 2nd John - letters/epistles written at end of 1st century AD when Christians fighting whether or not Jesus existed in flesh (Dan 9:27) defines them as those who don't recognize Jesus

How does stuff from John where anti-Christ mentioned become so great and so powerful?

Anti-Christ image from Hippolytus in his treatus on Christ and anti-Christ talks about ideas prevalent in early church

During Crusades anti-Christ name used to destruct Jews and Muslims

1st Crusades in 1095 - people's crusade destroyed many jews
2nd was wide slaughter of Muslims

1187 Muslim recapture lead to arguments that Salimus was the anti-Christ
Muslim anti-Christ appears in 9th century

Protestant Reformation anti-Christ was used among CHristians who broke away from Catholicism

Nostradamus wrote poetry like Quatrain 1 about 1 being more of fire than blood

Hitler was 2nd referred to as Hister, or Danube River

Whatever needs to be identified at that moment as evil can be termed anti-Christ

So who does the Bible say the anti-Christ is/Christians?

Mass media renowns the term a-Christ

Global TV networks and books (televangelists and Left Behind series)

Novel "Planet Earth" from 70s helped bring about this a-Christ

Left Behind says anti-Christ will be head of UN and from Romania who gets control of it and movies it to new Babylon (Iraq) for new world order. Going to use modern speak everyone good and the average people will say he is great. He'd bring peace treaty in mid-East

3 years in he'd declare himself to be god and put to death those who don't receive his mark

What apocalyptic messages can we continue to convey? How can we continue to make sense of history and what is going on?


It is a 2 part series... I just watched the 1st
The 2nd part is called "Zero Hour"


Matt 28 evangelizing whole world - like Puritans/Spanish coming to US?
need to evangelize before anti-Christ comes

anti-Christ during Revolution was thinking George III of England was him - lots of presence in Amer. hist.

Have looked to presidents for AC since Rev. 13:17-18 where people saw Roosevelt as puppeteer who with things like social security bringing about a monetary thing for everything

Reagan's 3 names have 6 letters... was he?

Cold War - Soviet Union thought it was, then US being superpower was

Scholars say... DISPENSATIONALISM (dividing bible into diff. eras, god works with diff. humanities, unified scripture and brought in books like Daniel and Revelation that had been ignored - read bible like jigsaw)--- John Nelson Darvey, British evangelist brought about many of the ideas around today because of his dispensationalism (1880s-1940s it huge and changed how bible read/thought in US)
- antiChrist vital part of this teaching


Got 25 minutes into the 2nd part and that's where I stopped... but I got a lot of what I wanted to hear about it and clarification on all the interpretations I've heard, so I was glad