The End of the World: Whatever Happened? Or Leftover Time to Kill

Abstract

When the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh announcing at once the end of the world and the birth of a new creation is located in a nineteenth-century setting, surrounded by the eschatology of Hegel at its beginning and the eschatology of Nietzsche at its end, the unique station of the Manifestation of God and the meaning of Revelation becomes clear. By contrasting the eschatology of Bahá’u’lláh with that of Hegel and Nietzsche, this article attempts to locate and explore in the prophetic context of resurrection and return as interpreted by Bahá’u’lláh in, for example, the Kitáb-iÍqán, the spiritual origins of the planetary consciousness upon which the survival of humankind and the globe itself now depends. Primary emphasis in locating and exploring these origins is placed upon a close reading of Bahá’u’lláh’s Tablet, “The Divine Springtime is come, O Most Exalted Pen...”