For most people, the term "apocalypse" conjures disturbing images of impending doom. Yet historically, apocalypse encompasses far more than the cataclysmic events prophesied in the Book of Revelation. A Brief History of the Apocalypse provides us with a concise historical and thematic introduction to the "apocalypses," the ancient Jewish and Christian works concerned not just with popular views of the last judgment and violent end of the world - but with reward and punishment after death, the heavenly temple, and the revelation of astronomical phenomena and other secrets of nature.

The book traces the tradition of apocalyptic writing through the Middle Ages, when Jews and Christians continued to record apocalypses and developed related forms of literature. It concludes with a look at the modern era, a time when the production of apocalypses may have ended, yet movements with intense expectations of the world's imminent demise continue unabated. Accessible and enlightening, this brief history provides readers with insights into the fascinating historical genre of apocalyptic literature.

Martha Himmelfarb is the William H. Danforth Professor of Religion at Princeton University. Her work has focused on Judaism of the Second Temple period and apocalyptic literature in particular. She is the author of Tours of Hell: An Apocalyptic Form in Jewish and Christian Literature (1985), Ascent to Heaven in Jewish and Christian Apocalypses (1993), and A Kingdom of Priests: Ancestry and Merit in Ancient Judaism (2006).