IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/mhr/jinste/urnsici0932-4569(199909)1553_443teotam_2.0.tx_2-m.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Economics of the Apocalypse: Modelling the Biblical Book of Revelation

Author

Listed:
  • Ian Smith

Abstract

This paper constructs an economic model of the argument of the biblical book of Revelation. The apocalypse of John addresses Christian participation in pagan religion. The early Christian believers faced an intertemporal trade-off between consumption in this life and the next. Nonparticipation in pagan idolatry incurred present costs but would be compensated with future rewards. Conversely, accommodation to pagan religion risked incurring severe future divine penalties. Using extensive symbolic imagery, John augments the imagination capital of believers, seeking to reduce their discount on afterlife outcomes and remove the incentive to participate in pagan idolatry.

Suggested Citation

  • Ian Smith, 1999. "The Economics of the Apocalypse: Modelling the Biblical Book of Revelation," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 155(3), pages 443-443, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:mhr:jinste:urn:sici:0932-4569(199909)155:3_443:teotam_2.0.tx_2-m
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D10 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:mhr:jinste:urn:sici:0932-4569(199909)155:3_443:teotam_2.0.tx_2-m. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Thomas Wolpert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mohrsiebeck.com/jite .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.