{"product_id":"cosmos-chaos-and-the-world-to-come-2nd-edition-9780300090888","title":"Cosmos  Chaos  and the World to Come  2nd Edition","description":"\u003cp\u003eAll over the world people look forward to a perfect future  when the forces of good will be finally victorious over the forces of evil. Once this was a radically new way of imagining the destiny of the world and of mankind. How did it originate  and what kind of world-view preceded it? In this engrossing book  the author of the classic work The Pursuit of the Millennium takes us on a journey of exploration  through the world-views of ancient Egypt  Mesopotamia  and India  through the innovations of Iranian and Jewish prophets and sages  to the earliest Christian imaginings of heaven on earth.  Until around 1500 B.C.  it was generally believed that once the world had been set in order by the gods  it was in essence immutable. However  it was always a troubled world. By means of flood and drought  famine and plague  defeat in war  and death itself  demonic forces threatened and impaired it. Various combat myths told how a divine warrior kept the forces of chaos at bay and enabled the world to survive. Sometime between 1500 and 1200 B.C.  the Iranian prophet Zoroaster broke from that static yet anxious world-view  reinterpreting the Iranian version of the combat myth. For Zoroaster  the world was moving  through incessant conflict  toward a conflictless statecosmos without chaos. The time would come when  in a prodigious battle  the supreme god would utterly defeat the forces of chaos and their human allies and eliminate them forever  and so bring an absolutely good world into being. Cohn reveals how this vision of the future was taken over by certain Jewish groups  notably the Jesus sect  with incalculable consequences.  Deeply informed yet highly readable  this magisterial book illumines a major turning-point in the history of human consciousness. It will be mandatory reading for all who appreciated The Pursuit of the Millennium.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45279695863861,"sku":"ByrdShop_0300090889","price":29.42,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780300090888.jpg?v=1780606770","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/cosmos-chaos-and-the-world-to-come-2nd-edition-9780300090888","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}