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Antichrist

Two Thousand Years of the Human Fascination with Evil

Bernard McGinn author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Columbia University Press

Published:7th Dec '99

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Antichrist cover

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 individuals--such as Nero, Napoleon, and Saddam Hussein--and groups--Jews, heretics, Muslims.

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.

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 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 Rarely has a historian of Christianity pierced a murkily inchoate human impulse with so much enlightenment as McGinn Publishers Weekly First and foremost, it's very well written... The book is still masterpiece of thorough academic religious research. -- Stefan Isaksson www.ufo.se

ISBN: 9780231119771

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: unknown

369 pages