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Some forms of Christianity depict the end time as a period of tribulation that precedes the second coming of Christ, who will face the rise of the Antichrist along with his power structure and false prophets, and usher in the Kingdom of God. In later Judaism, the term "end of days" makes reference to the Messianic Age and includes an in-gathering of the exiled Jewish diaspora, the coming of the Messiah, the resurrection of the righteous, and the world to come. The Abrahamic religions maintain a linear cosmology, with end-time scenarios containing themes of transformation and redemption.
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Various religions treat eschatology as a future event prophesied in sacred texts or in folklore. In the context of mysticism, the term refers metaphorically to the end of ordinary reality and to reunion with the divine. Belief that the end of the world is imminent is known as apocalypticism, and over time has been held both by members of mainstream religions and by doomsday cults. The end of the world or end times is predicted by several world religions (both Abrahamic and non-Abrahamic), which teach that negative world events will reach a climax. Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, woodcut print from the Apocalypse of Albrecht Dürer (1497–1498), Staatliche Kunsthalle KarlsruheĮschatology ( / ˌ ɛ s k ə ˈ t ɒ l ə dʒ i/ ( listen) from Ancient Greek ἔσχατος ( éskhatos) 'last', and -logy) concerns expectations of the end of the present age, human history, or of the world itself.
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