AntichristIn Christian eschatology, the Antichrist refers to people prophesied by the Bible to oppose Jesus Christ and substitute themselves in Christ's place before the Second Coming. The term Antichrist (including one plural form) is found four times in the New Testament, solely in the First and Second Epistle of John. The Antichrist is announced as the one "who denies the Father and the Son." The similar term pseudokhristos or "false Christ" is also found in the Gospels.
Two witnessesIn the Book of Revelation, the two witnesses (duo martyron) are two prophets who are mentioned in Revelation 11:1-14. Some Christian eschatology interprets this as two people, two groups of people, or two concepts. Some believe they are Enoch and Elijah, as in the Gospel of Nicodemus, since they are the only two that did not see death as required by the Scriptures. Others believe them to be Moses and Elijah because they appeared during the transfiguration of Jesus, or because Enoch was not Abraham's descendant.
ApocalypticismApocalypticism is the religious belief that the end of the world is imminent, even within one's own lifetime. This belief is usually accompanied by the idea that civilization will soon come to a tumultuous end due to some sort of catastrophic global event. Apocalypticism is one aspect of eschatology in certain religions—the part of theology concerned with the final events of world history, or the ultimate destiny of humanity (societal collapse, human extinction, etc.).
Christian eschatologyChristian eschatology, a major branch of study within Christian theology, deals with the doctrine of the "last things", especially the Second Coming of Christ, or Parousia. Eschatology – the word derives from two Greek roots meaning "last" (ἔσχατος) and "study" (-λογία) – involves the study of "end things", whether of the end of an individual life, of the end of the age, of the end of the world, or of the nature of the Kingdom of God.
