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Rating: 
Summary: Pretty good, but there are errors
Review: I agree with most of the other reviews but was dissapointed with Abanes dismissal of the validity of Near Death Experiences which he writes off as subjective brain activity caused by the process of dying. Nonesense. There are documented cases of NDE's in which the patient has accurately recalled all the steps in the operation on herself/himself from an ABOVE vantage point that would be impossible to recount from someone lying down. This was told to the doctors amazement within minutes of recovery and the information was not obtained any way else. Another mistake by Abanes is when he mentions that the books (still retained)in the Catholic Bible were "proven false by Christians hundreds of years ago." Wrong again. They were not proven false but were removed by Protestants because these books in the Bible did not agree with their philosophy. These books were absolutely used by the early Christians for centuries. Were Christians wrong for fifteen hundred years? By what authority did these men remove these books? What's to stop men from removing more books now from the Bible because they have decided that there are still more false books in the Bible? Read some of the book "Don't Know Much About the Bible" and other sources from historians who will tell you without a doubt that the Catholic Church did not add these to the Bible but the Prostestants removed them from the Bible. No doubt Mr. Abanes has alot of truth in his book but he didn't look deeper into some very important areas that deserve it. 23,000 + Protestant demoninations--is something wrong--you bet!
Rating: 
Summary: An Interesting read but seriously marred by grave errors!
Review: I have read several of the most recent examinations of "Apocalypse Culture" and Apocalypse prediction including this book. I must tell you that I am astonished by reviews stating that this book is well researched since the Author makes a number of very glaring errors and mis-statements. In some cases, it appears these mis-statements have been to further the author's own biased view of Catholicism and other Christian faiths which have openly discussed the theological implications of Biblical prophecy concerning Armegeddon and The Apocalypse. For instance, he alleges, quite incorrectly, that the Catholic Bible contains books which were added to the Bible. Apparently he is not as familiar with the chronology of the consolidation of the Hebrew texts (the "Old" Testament) and the Greek texts (the "New" Testament). While most of the currently "approved Gospels" came together in the first hundred years following Christ's death, the consolidation of what is now considered the Catholic Canon took place not very long after that and was made official at Nicea.(324 CE if memory serves me)during the famed Nicean Conference at which, the present Catholic "testament of Faith or "Apostles' Creed" (you know, the one that starts with: "We believe in one God etc etc) was introduced into the Liturgy virtually as it stands today. So, the Catholic Bible with all it's books was established then and remains the same today. Protestants and other newer Jerusalem-sects reject certain of these books based on the Jewish closing of the Canon. A better explanation of this could be obtained from any local Kingdom Hall, since Jehovah's Witnesses tend, as a group, to be very knowledgable about the complicated issues of what got put in when , why and what got taken out and why. Keep in mind, I say this and I am not a member! Along the way, however, various break-away sects subtracted a number of books from this complete Bible for a variety of reasons. Most of the excised books were cut during and after the Protestant reformation and even up til present day, many protestant sects even slice out chapters or verses for what they consider very good reasons. Incidently, several other Modern Christian faiths, including Jehovah's Witnesses have more or less retained the complete "Catholic" Bible as the book upon which they base their theology concerning the end of the world. However, they do not include the "Extra Canonical books" of the Old Testament which have slid in and out of various approved version of the Catholic Bible over the past 1,700 years. This is a scholarly issue that appears to be beyond the scope of this author but can be easily explained to readers in other works. The JW's use a Bible translation referred to as The New World Bible and, by the way, more than just the JW's use this translation as their approved text. It is quite a remarkable modern translation worth perusing if you are unfamiliar with it. Now, all that history that said, I must state also that in this book, the Author fails to accurately reveal the motivations behind the cuts, slight verse alterations and outright slices that were made including some of the Anti-semtic reasons for some of them (like The Book of Maccabees for example which many modern Faiths consider innapropriate for promoting Zionism.)Other sects object to one of the "Non-Canonical" books such as TOBIT due to it's alleged use as a source of witchcraft and Angel-worship. so you see, to talk about the current understanding of belief in an Apocolypse, an author needs to cover how we have arrived at the texts now used to describe what form that event might take. More importantly, I feel that the author reveals a very strong bias against Orthodox Christian theological interpretations as well as mislabeling as "Cults" some Christian sects that have long overcome their modest beginnings as break-away groups at which time they might have espoused some beliefs considered rather odd at the time. Some of the groups maligned have now amassed millions of members world-wide. To me, this seriously mars the credibility of his conclusions. Another point I feel I must raise is the authors flip-flops on Biblical Prophecy. This is very common today but in a world where we accept "Spin" as an everday event but "Spin" doesn't cut it when you are treading upon people's core religious beliefs. For example, when it suits his argument, he invokes certain prophecies to support a point and then later, he debunks the same prophecy as proof of the entire point of this book. A real scholar cannot have it both ways. Look, there are better works out there which many of the below reviews list and Amazon carries. Please consider flipping downwards thru these rewviews for reference and checking outthese other sources as well if you are seriously interested in gaining a balanced perspective on the subject of belief in an eventual Apocalypse. Also, consider buying or renting an A&E production called WHO WROTE THE BIBLE, available here. It's a Two video tape set of four episodes of MYSTERIES OF THE BIBLE which reveals much more accurately the history of the Bible. It clearly tells you when which books were written, by whom when possible and when they came to be included in what we call the modern Bible. This series does not contain the clear Anti-Catholic tone that this book seemed to me to be riddled with. In fact this production doesn't favor any one faith above any other which is a strength. Belief and/or concern about an eventual Apocalypse is a nearly Universal concern or at least a Global concern and it behooves any reader interested to look beyond this flawed work for better answers if you really desire to gain an understanding of WHY this issue concerns so many people and WHY so many faiths and sects have attempted to fervently ferret out predictions of the exact date. I'll leave you with a reminder that the New testament tells us that "No one knows the day or the Hour" of the Apocalypse. Thank you.
Rating: 
Summary: Making sense of nonsense
Review: Richard Abanes, a former cult member himself, takes on apocolyptic ideoligies in his book, "End Time Visions."This is a remarkable work, one that had a great influence on my outlook on several aspects of my own religion. I am a Christian, but I was greatly impressed by Mr. Abanes unmasking of some of the more extreme Doomsday prophets of our times. It is refreshing to see someone throw a proverbial wet blanket on the armegeddon fires raging in several Christian circles today without ridiculing Christianity itself. This is a fascinating, wonderful book that I would highly reccomend to anyone that is suffering from "end of the world tension", or anyone that is interested in making informed decisions for themelves. This book was one of the most delightful finds I ever encountered in my search of non-fiction material.
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