Despite being largely united on doctrinal issues like the Trinity and moral issues like sexual morality, Christians who take the Bible literally and seriously are remarkably scattered on eschatology (a fancy term that means “beliefs concerning the end times”). Is Jesus coming back before a thousand year reign? After? Is there a thousand year reign at all? What about the tribulation? What on earth is Revelation about?

If you are skeptical of Christianity or are struggling with grounding your faith in reason, you have every right to expect the end times passages in the Bible to make logical sense, be internally consistent, and be straightforward when properly grasped.

After 17 years (starting with my conversion) of trying to navigate the confusing maze of Christian theological claims about the end times, I found it necessary during the course of my chronology studies to “solve” eschatology. I therefore included the model I developed in my “A Journey Through the Bible Timeline” chronology project. If you find eschatology a blocker to accepting or returning to the Christian faith, hopefully it will help you.

Note: To help you understand eschatology in the Bible, I must educate you about important historical events from 530 BC to 678 AD (all of which you can look up for yourself, except in a few instances where I claim that the Bible calls into question secular historical scholarship). It may come across as a bit dry, but if you can get through it, with any luck the Bible’s end times passages will “click” for you.

With the framework I have developed in place, Bible students interested in eschatology could potentially work on successfully interpreting all the end times passages in Scripture (I haven’t interpreted every single relevant verse, focusing instead at times on high-level narrative).

Note: In the Bible, the “former days” of Israel started with the Exodus and ran through the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and the exile of the Jews in Babylon. The “latter days” refer to the time from the return of the Jews to Judah by decree of Persian king Cyrus the Great to the coming of Jesus the Messiah and the destruction of national Israel.

To explore the model I’ve developed, please review the following articles, which constitute the “eschatology” section of my chronology project:

• 70 Years in Babylon
• 7 Weeks of Restoration
• 62 Weeks of Intertestamental History and the Week of the Messiah
• The Life of Jesus
• The End Times
• The Future