The Final Confrontation Between Good and Evil in the Text of the Book of Revelation, in the Nordic Myth Ragnarok and in the Romanian Popular Eschatological Scenario: Similarities and Differences

The Final Confrontation Between Good and Evil in the Text of the Book of Revelation, in the Nordic Myth Ragnarok and in the Romanian Popular Eschatological Scenario: Similarities and Differences

6 July 2020

The theme of the confrontation between Good and Evil, between God and the Devil, has always occupied a significant place in the religious mentality of the Romanian peasant. The religious concepts of the Romanian peasant were modeled, first and foremost, on the basis of canonical scriptural sources, in addition to a considerable amount of medieval apocryphal Christian sources, but also superstitions of pagan origin, from the Geto-Dacian, Greco-Roman and Slav religions. Obviously, also the Romanian popular eschatological scenarios are impregnated with events and characters from all these sources, they wishing to be a proof of the symbiosis between the doctrinal religion and the popular religion, a symbiosis that has always characterized the religious world of the traditional Romanian village. Analyzing the most widespread and complex Romanian popular eschatological scenario, the present study will show the similarities and differences between it and the biblical eschatological scenario in the Book of Revelation, but also between the two and the nordic eschatological myth Ragnarok, against which, in our opinion, the scenarios Biblical and popular eschatologies are the closest thing to similarity.