adamkor's review

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informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

greeniezona's review

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3.0

I bought this book ages and ages ago. I don't remember why or when. Last year one of my reading resolutions was to read more of my religion books, which I absolutely failed to do. But it explains how this ended up finally on my to-read shelf when I was looking for a new non-fiction book to read.

So, this book tracks Christianity's changing views on the Antichrist, from Jewish pre-Christ apocalyptic writings to the present day. It's a sprawling history with a narrow focus, and I just am not familiar enough with Catholic history to get as much out of the book as I could have. Great swaths of the book felt very much like reading those stretches of The Name of the Rose dealing with different sects of the Catholic church, and all the names start to blur together and I'm straining to get anything meaningful out of it at all.

Which is not to say I didn't get anything out of it. It's easy to get mired in the mythos and worldview of your own time. Seeing how the ever-evolving understanding of evil, Antichrist, and end times both shaped and was shaped by the events and forces of history was good perspective on how we got to now.

A good reminder on why I set the goal of reading more books from my religion shelf in the first place.
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