Judgment Day

Judgment Day or Doomsday, central point of early Christian, Jewish, and Islamic eschatology, sometimes called the Day of the Lord. References to it throughout the Bible are numerous. The Christian belief in the Last Judgment asserts that this world will end, the dead will be raised up in the general resurrection, and God, or his agent, will gloriously come to judge the living and the dead. The sinners shall be cast into hell, and the righteous shall live in heaven. These concepts are also common themes in early Jewish apocalyptic speculation. No generally accepted Christian teaching pronounces when Judgment Day shall occur, but many individuals have prophesied its date. Doomsday believers are called chiliasts, millenarians, or, specifically, Adventists. See also Antichrist; Armageddon; millennium; apocalypse. The Last Judgment also figures in the Qur'an.

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.