The Antecedents of Antichrist: A Traditio-Historical Study of the Earliest Christian Views on Eschatological Opponents

The present volume discusses the earliest Christian views on eschatological opponents and their backgrounds in contemporary Judaism. It treats the rich variety of early Christian speculations on the subject and shows that, within this variety, a continuity with Jewish speculations is to be discerned.
Part One of this book treats the early Christian passages of the period up to Irenaeus that contain speculations on the coming of an eschatological opponent. Part Two offers a survey of Jewish expectations that formed the basis for the Christian speculations discussed. After the General Conclusion the book finishes with an extensive Bibliography and an Index.
The book is of interest to any student of early Christian eschatology and the continuity between early Christianity and contemporary Judaism.

This monograph discusses the rich variety of early Christian speculations on eschatological opponents as well as the Jewish roots of these speculations, showing both the continuity and the discontinuity between early Christianity and contemporary Judaism.

Booknews

Treats the early Christian passages of the period up to Irenaeus that contain speculations on the coming of an opponent to Christ for the occasion of Armageddon, and surveys the Jewish expectations that formed the basis for those speculations. Among the Christian figures described are false prophets and messiahs, the man of ungodliness, the dragon and the beast from Revelation, the deceiver of the world, the eschatological tyrant, and Isaiah's Beliar. The Jewish sources include the Books of Daniel and Jubilees, 1 Enoch, literature in Qumran, Moses, the fourth Ezra, the Syriac apocalypse of Baruch, and the Sibylline oracles. Revised from a 1995 Ph. D. dissertation for the University of Leiden. No illustrations or subject index. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

Lambertus J. Lietaert Peerbolte, obtained his Ph.D. degree at the University of Leiden in 1995. His thesis formed the basis for the monograph. Currently he is employed at the Seminary of the Dutch Reformed Church in Leiden.