ABSTRACT
Taking our cue from Coppola’s film, Apocalypse Now, throughout this book we have found the term ‘apocalypse’ to be an important source for speculation about the nature of the mythic imagination. Let us remind ourselves of the most famous apocalyptic narrative of all, that recounted in the last book of the Christian Bible. The Book of Revelation concerns the victory over the ‘beast’ and over the ‘whore of Babylon’, along with ‘the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan’, by the Messiah and his angels (Revelation 20: 2). After plague and pestilence have ravaged much of the earth, the Messiah establishes ‘a new heaven and a new earth’ (Revelation 21: 1). Thus, the creation myth narrated in the first chapter of the first book of the Bible, Genesis, is retold with an ‘apocalyptic’ turn. Where Adam and Eve fell from the garden, their descendants, or at least those who have remained faithful to God and have recognized his Son, the ‘second Adam’, are allowed to enter the heavenly city of Jerusalem. We have progressed from creation to re-creation, from Eden to Jerusalem, from ‘fall’ to redemption.
