Leonhard (2010): Visions of Apocalypse#
Full citation
Leonhard, R. (2010). Visions of Apocalypse: What Jews, Christians, and Muslims Believe about the End Times, and How Those Beliefs Affect Our World. Johns Hopkins University, Applied Physics Laboratory, National Security Analysis Department. 138 pages.
Disclaimer (from the original)
The creation of this monograph was sponsored by the Strategic Assessments Project within the National Security Analysis Department of The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL). Its ideas are intended to stimulate and provoke thinking about national security issues. Not everyone will agree with the premises put forward. This monograph reflects the views of the author alone and does not imply concurrence by APL or any other organization or agency.
Why this monograph matters#
When a national security laboratory publishes a monograph on eschatology, it is worth paying attention.
The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory is not a seminary. It is one of the premier defense research institutions in the United States. That APL’s National Security Analysis Department sponsored an essay on what Jews, Christians, and Muslims believe about the end times tells you something important: eschatological beliefs are a national security concern. They shape foreign policy. They influence which wars are fought and which peace deals are possible. They determine whether leaders see compromise as wisdom or as betrayal of divine mandate.
Leonhard’s monograph surveys all three Abrahamic traditions systematically:
Chapter 2: Judaism (Mélekh ha-Mashíah) — the Anointed King, messianic expectation, and how Jewish eschatology shapes Israeli politics and identity.
Chapter 3: Christianity (Thy Kingdom Come) — the longest chapter (68 pages), covering the full range from premillennial dispensationalism to postmillennial optimism, and how each reading of Revelation produces different political behavior.
Chapter 4: Islam (The Awaited One) — the Mahdi, the return of Isa (Jesus), and how Shia and Sunni eschatological differences drive real-world conflict, including the theological architecture behind Iran’s 1979 revolution.
The conclusion — The Crucible of Prophecy — is where the monograph becomes most relevant to the work on this site.
The connection to this site#
Leonhard demonstrates from a national security perspective what Richard Löwe argued in 1935 from a theological one: what people believe about the end of the world determines what they do in the middle of it.
If Christians believe Armageddon is inevitable and divinely ordained, they are less likely to invest in preventing it. If Muslims believe the Mahdi’s arrival requires a specific geopolitical configuration, they may work to create those conditions. If Jews believe the Messiah’s coming depends on the state of Israel, they will defend that state at costs that puzzle secular observers.
These are not abstract theological debates. They are operational inputs to foreign policy, military doctrine, and nuclear brinksmanship. The Iran-US confrontation described on the Epic Fury page cannot be understood without understanding the eschatological beliefs driving both sides.
LLoL’s work on this site takes Leonhard’s analysis one step further: if eschatological beliefs shape the world this powerfully, then the most strategic intervention possible is to offer a better eschatology — one that is gentle kind reasonable, mathematically rigorous, and grounded in what all three traditions actually share rather than in what divides them.
That is the purpose of mathematical theology: to make eschatological claims precise enough to check, so that the future of the world rests on evidence rather than on whichever interpretation is most politically convenient.
Contents#
Preface |
Page 3 |
Chapter 1: Prophecy and Interpretation |
Page 10 |
Chapter 2: Mélekh ha-Mashíah — Judaism and the End Times |
Page 21 |
Chapter 3: Thy Kingdom Come — Christianity and the End Times |
Page 54 |
Chapter 4: The Awaited One — Islam and the End Times |
Page 102 |
Chapter 5: The Crucible of Prophecy (Conclusion) |
Page 121 |