The Antichrist-Biblical Fanfiction
Another character that the church invented
The Antichrist-Biblical Fanfiction
Another character that the church invented
The character of The Antichrist is something I grew up hearing about in church, and at home from my parents. The prophecies of this evil character would show up near the end times, and so many Christians would be tricked into believing in him as the second coming of Christ.
There are even best-selling books and movies made about this concept that are super popular among Evangelicals.
So yet again, I was surprised that this character doesn’t really have any Biblical backing. In fact the term only appears five times, in two small epistles of the New Testament.
18 Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time.-1 John 2:18 KJV
22 Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son.-1 John 2:22 KJV
3 And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.-1 John 4:3 KJV
7 For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist.-2 John 1:7 KJV
These four verses containing the five instances are literally the only verses that make a reference to an “antichrist”, and it’s pretty clear-cut here that it’s talking about anyone who denies that Christ is the Messiah. We see that it says “there are many” and that they are “already in the world”.
So how did this term get twisted into this giant villain in the end times called The Antichrist that would be basically a dark-side version of Jesus?
The imagination of the early church.
They connected the reference from 2 Thessalonians’, the “man of sin” or “son of perdition“, and the character of “The Beast” from the acid-trip “The Book of Revelation”.
Combine all of these surreal characters together and voila a new supervillain!
3 Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;
4 Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.-2 Thessalonians 2:3-4 KJV
Somehow that got connected with this chimera.
13
2 And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.
3 And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.
4 And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?-Revelation 13:1-4 KJV
Now the church tries to claim that 1 and 2 John were written by John the Apostle, but this claim is disputed among historians and biblical scholars.
They also try to attribute The Book of Revelation to him, which would make this connection between the term antichrist and the connection to The Beast a bit more likely, but there is a lot of evidence that he wasn’t the author of The Book of Revelation.
The author was John of Patmos, not the apostle, or the evangelist.
That particular book was almost left out of the canon of the Bible actually, due to disputes over the unknown author and its unusual style. These disputes continued through to the 15th century.
Just as an amateur reader of the Bible, I can see why this particular book would raise your eyebrows, it’s all over the place with crazed symbolism and is more reminiscent of something out of a psychedelic nightmare than any of the other books of the Bible.
John of Patmos evidently had a pretty hardcore stash on that island where he wrote the book.
So where did Christians cook up this ultimate villain?
Well, it turns out they had a lot of their own fanfiction of the time.
One such story was The Tiburtine Syble written in the early 11th century. In that story, the daughter of the Trojan king has a vision of a character called the “Last Emperor” a character named Constans who will destroy all pagan temples and convert huge amounts of people to Christianity before being confronted by the antichrist.
In this story, The Antichrist is a Jewish man, a son of the tribe of Dan, who is the “son of perdition”.
This fanfic connects Gog and Magog mentioned in The Book of Revelation and connects them with two northern barbaric people that The Last Emperor has to defeat, prior to facing off against The Antichrist.
This entire thing is basically the basis of the material for the Left Behind series of books and movies, complete fan-fiction.