Imagining the End: Visions of Apocalypse from the Ancient Middle East to Modern America PDF
Preview Imagining the End: Visions of Apocalypse from the Ancient Middle East to Modern America
Imagining the End Imagining the End: Visions of Apocalypse from the Ancient Middle East to Modern America Edited by Abbas Amanat and Magnus Bernhardsson I.B.Tauris Publishers LONDON • NEW YORK Published in by I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd, Salem Road, London Fifth Avenue, New York www.ibtauris.com In the United States of America and in Canada distributed by St. Martin’s Press, Fifth Avenue, New York Copyright © I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd, All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. A full record for this book is available from the British Library A full record for this book is available from the Library of Congress Library of Congress catalog card: available Set in Monotype Ehrhardt and Franklin Gothic Heavy by Ewan Smith, London Printed and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin Contents Preface vii List of Contributors ix Introduction: Apocalyptic Anxieties and Millennial Hopes in the Salvation Religions of the Middle East Abbas Amanat Part I Origins Mesopotamia and the End of Time Benjamin R. Foster Millennialism and Eschatology in the Zoroastrian Tradition Philip G. Kreyenbroek The Biblical Roots of Apocalyptic Robert R. Wilson Part II Judaism, Christianity and Islam Eschatological Dynamics and Utopian Ideals in Early Judaism John J. Collins The Messiah and the Millennium: The Roots of Two Jewish– Christian Symbols Harold W. Attridge Messianism, Millennialism and Revolution in Early Islamic History Said Amir Arjomand Part III Medieval and Early Modern Periods Medieval Europe: Religious Enthusiasm and Social Change in the ‘Millennial Generation’ R. I. Moore Wrestling with the Millennium: Early Modern Catholic Exegesis of Apocalypse Bernard McGinn Deciphering the Cosmos from Creation to Apocalypse: The Hurufiyya Movement and Medieval Islamic Esotericism Shahzad Bashir Part IV Modern Times American Millennial Visions: Towards Construction of a New Architectonic of American Apocalypticism Stephen J. Stein Millennium, Prophecy and the Energies of Social Transformation: The Case of Nat Turner Richard H. Brodhead Comparative Millennialism in Africa: Continuities and Variations on the Canon Lamin Sanneh Is There a Chinese Millenarian Tradition? An Analysis of Recent Western Studies of the Taiping Rebellion David Ownby Millennialism in Modern Iranian History Juan R. I. Cole The Middle East in Modern American Popular Prophetic Belief Paul Boyer Notes Select Bibliography Index Preface The papers in this volume were first presented to a year-long faculty and graduate seminar at Yale University in . Approaching millennialism from both textual and historical perspectives, the contributors to this volume discussed the origins and the evolution of apocalyptic and millennial ideas and movements in the four major religious traditions of Middle Eastern origin: Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam over a long span of time from the ancient Middle East to medieval and early modern Europe and from the pre-modern Islamic era to modern times. The six papers on the modern and contemporary periods examined American, African, Chinese and Iranian millennialism. Contributors to this collection are also remarkable because they represent the state of scholarship in their related fields and together they present a rare comparative approach to the study of millennialism. Like any comparable collection, however, there are major regions and periods which are not add- ressed, even those trends which are within the domain of Western religions, most notably Latin American, Byzantine, Russian, Eastern European, and medieval and modern Jewish, and millennialism in Eastern religions. Moreover, Hinduism, Buddhism, Daoism and indigenous millennial beliefs of the Pacific, pre-Colombian America and native American, and Africa were also deemed outside the concern of this volume. Likewise, apocalyptic and millennial expressions in arts and literature can be the subject of another volume. The editors would like to thank the Mellon Foundation for a Mellon- Sawyer Seminar grant to the Council on Middle East Studies at the Yale Center for International and Area Studies for the organization of the seminar, the post-doctoral fellowship and other activities in what came to be known as the Millennialism Project. Our thanks are also due to the Director, Gustav Ranis, and the staff of the Center (especially Haynie Wheeler) for their sincere support. Members of the Millennialism Project’s steering committee: Carlos Eire, Patricia Pessar and Jonathan Spence also offered their insight and assistance. In addition to the contributors to this volume, a large number of vii viii Imagining the End colleagues and scholars from Yale and other institutions presented papers or served as commentators in various sessions of the seminar. They include Jean-Christophe Agnew, Wendell Bell, Gerhard Bowering, Jon Butler, Mary Carpenter, Ann Ping Chin, Christina Crosby, Ahmad Dallal, John Demos, Louis Dupre, Carlos Eire, Jamal Elias, Steven Fraade, Paul Freedman, Laura Green, William Hallo, Paul D. Hanson, Robert Harms, Stanley Insler, Paul M. Kennedy, Ben Kiernan, Richard Landes, George Lindbeck, Wayne Meeks, Frederick Paxton, Patricia Pessar, Stuart Schwartz, Jonathan Spence, Frank M. Turner, Paul Vanderwood and Jace Weaver. The two Mellon-Sawyer post- doctoral residents, Mahnaz Moazami and Shahzad Bashir, also supervised the pedagogical progress of the seminar and conducted workshops on pertinent apocalyptic texts. Barbara Papacoda provided critical administrative support. We would like also to thank all the faculty, students, and other occasional visitors who participated in the often lively sessions and made the seminar more enriching and memorable. The editors would also like to acknowledge the Kempf Memorial Fund, administered through the Yale Center for International and Area Studies, and the Frederick Hilles Publication Fund, at the Whitney Humanities Center, Yale University for generous funding towards preparation and publication of this volume. Abbas Amanat Magnus Bernhardsson New Haven, Connecticut Contributors Abbas Amanat is Professor of History and Chair of the Council on Middle East Studies at Yale University. He is a specialist on modern Iran, and his publications include Pivot of the Universe: Nasir al-Din Shah and the Iranian Monarchy () and Resurrection and Renewal: The Making of the Babi Movement in Iran – (). Currently he is writing The Search for Modern Iran: Authority, Nationhood and Culture, a general history. Said Amir Arjomand is Professor of Sociology, State University of New York, Stony Brook. He is the author of many books on Islam, especially Shi'ism, such as The Shadow of God and the Hidden Imam: Religion, Political Order, and Societal Change in Shi'ite Iran from the Beginning to (Chicago: ) and The Turban for the Crown: The Islamic Revolution in Iran (New York, ). Harry W. Attridge is Lilian Claus Professor of New Testament, Yale Uni- versity and was previously Dean of the College of Arts and Letters, University of Notre Dame. He is the author and editor of numerous publications in- cluding Hebrews: A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews (Philadelphia, ) and “Christianity from the Destruction of Jerusalem to Constantine’s Adoption of the New Religion: – ”, in Hershel Shanks (ed.), Chris- tianity and Rabbinic Judaism: A Parallel History of their Origins and Early Development (Washington, DC: Biblical Archaeology Society, ). Shahzad Bashir is Assistant Professor, Department of Religion, Carleton College. Dr Bashir received his PhD from Yale University in and is a specialist in medieval Islamic religious thought, especially the messianic Nur- bakshiya and Hurufiyya movements. Magnus T. Bernhardsson is Assistant Professor of History at Hofstra Univer- sity. He received his PhD in from Yale University. His book Reclaiming a Plundered Past: Archaeology and Nationalism in Modern Iraq will be published by the University of Texas Press in . ix
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