Other Lists of Eschatological Sufferings
Other Lists of Eschatological Sufferings
Lists of eschatological hardships appear in other early Jewish works, such as Jubilees 23:16-31; at various points in 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch; in the Testament of Moses and in Mishna Sota 9:15; as well as several other lists preserved in the NT. Some of the signs or hardships listed also appear in noneschatological pagan sources as portents, reported annually by Roman historians.
Most of the pagan portents are missing in this discourse. Roman writers listed wood, stone or statues sweating, bleeding or speaking (perhaps peripherally paralleled in Rev 13:15);2 raining blood or stones,3 not quite analogous to Jubilees ’ hail (23:13) or Revelation’s hail echoing a plague in Egypt (Rev 8:7; 16:21; Ex 9:18-34); fluid turned to gore,4 closer to Revelation’s waters turned to blood, again echoing a plague in Egypt (Rev 8:8-9; Ex 7:19); and animal prodigies.5 Pagans also listed animals born malformed or with human parts,6 and somewhat more commonly mutant babies or other human birth prodigies (even in the days before modern tabloids).7 The latter appear twice in 4 Ezra (5:8; 6:21-22) and also in a passage in the Sibylline Oracles (2.154-64) dependent on something like eschatological signs in Hesiod (W.D. 181).
Jewish lists of end-time signs are fairly diverse, but typically include sufferings. Many specific examples of hardships or evils appear in only one list, but of those that recur more often (some in other first-century Christian lists as well), a number are lacking in the list in Mark and Matthew (which admittedly is also fairly random). Besides those mentioned above, common signs included sexual immorality;8 a hypocritical pretense of righteousness;9 a particular end-time war (rather than merely “wars” in general), modeled after warnings in the biblical prophets;10 children sometimes challenging parents or elders, whether to turn them to the right way (Jub. 23:16, 19; cf. 1 En. 90:6-7) or as a sign of the evil of the times (m. Sot. 9:15; 2 Tim 3:2); and a reversal of the poor over the rich, again for positive (Jub. 23:20) or negative (2 Bar. 27:3-4) reasons.