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Messianic Age is a theological term referring to a future time of peace and brotherhood on the earth, without crime, war and poverty. Many religions believe that there will be such an age; some refer to it as the "Messianic Age".

[edit] Terminology: "messianic" and "eschatology"

In the context of "Messianic Age", the earliest meaning of the word "messianic" is derived from notion of Yemot HaMashiach meaning "The Days of the Messiah", that is, the Jewish Messiah, meaning "related to the Messiah" (See also Messiah). Messiah comes from a Hebrew word meaning "The Anointed One", i.e., a person who is "specially appointed and empowered". Originally this phrase--the "anointed one"--referred to a king who was anointed with oil as part of what might be understood to be his coronation ceremony. After the destruction of the Israelite kingship and Davidic line with the destruction of the First Temple in 586 B.C.E., Biblical figures began to write of a yearning for the "mashiach" to return. Originally, however, this only meant a yearning for a return to the Davidic kingship and the just rule and (Israelite) national independence that such a thing connoted. Over time, however, as a return to independent rule became increasingly distant-seeming, hopes for a new "anointed one" to come and liberate the people from their current, dismal conditions took on a decidedly more transcendent cast, eventually morphing into the "Messiah" (that word, an Anglicanization of "moshiach") known to Judaism and Christianity--that is to say, the Divine messenger who will come and herald God's world to come/future age.

Eschatology is an area of religious scholarship that deals with prophecies about "the end of the current age" of human civilization.

[edit] Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Bahá'í

Jewish, Christian, Zoroastrian and Islamic eschatology teach that there will be a "Messianic Age" when the Messiah will come and bring peace and prosperity to the earth. Although the Hebrew Bible, also known as the Old Testament, and the New Testament both describe such a period, the term "Messianic Age" does not appear in the Hebrew Bible or nor in the Apocrypha and is called the "Millennium" in the New Testament. The "Messianic Age" in Islam is described in the Hadith. In the Bahá'í Faith, the "Messianic Age" refers to a 1000-year period beginning with the Declaration of Bahá'u'lláh in 1863. Bahá'ís believe the period of peace and prosperity is gradually unfolding and will culminate in the appearance of 'The Most Great Peace'.

[edit] See Also