The Real Difference Between Apocalypse, Armageddon, and Judgment Day
With so much frankly bad news that we face every day, it’s easy to feel like we’re living in the End Times – and maybe we are. We often say that we live in a dystopia, throwing around words like “apocalypse” and “armageddon”. But what do these words mean? This is the same? What about Judgment Day?
What is an apocalypse?
The term “apocalypse” refers to any time when a supernatural being such as a god reveals secrets or the future to a person, according to Greg Carey, author of Ultimate Things: An Introduction to Jewish and Christian Apocalyptic Literature . According to Merriam-Webster , it also refers to “the inevitable cosmic cataclysm in which God destroys the ruling powers of evil and restores the righteous to life in the messianic kingdom.”
This is certainly not how we usually use the word these days. When you Google “apocalypse” you get this short definition, which is closer to how we use the word today: “the complete and final destruction of the world as described in the biblical book of Revelation” or “an event involving destruction or damage.” on a terrifying or catastrophic scale.”
So “apocalypse” often has a religious connotation, but not always . For example, when we think about what a nuclear holocaust might look like, we tend to say that it will be an “apocalypse.” Nuclear annihilation is man-made, like most things that can cause global damage, but this idea has its roots in the Bible.
What is Armageddon?
Sometimes you can hear someone talk about “Armageddon” the same way they talk about the apocalypse – describing a bleak, ruined wasteland or the end of civilization. It’s not quite right.
According to the Britannica , Armageddon refers to the site of the final battle between earthly evil and God, as outlined in the New Testament. The word can refer either to the place where this battle will take place before the Day of Judgment, or to the battle itself. This battle may lead to some kind of apocalypse, but in reality it will not be an apocalypse.
What is the end of the world?
You already know about the Doomsday Clock , which is used by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to show how close humanity is to annihilation, but what is Doomsday? Like the apocalypse and Armageddon, this one has religious roots, but has expanded in its definition as the horrors of the world have grown beyond what is described in centuries-old texts.
The word may refer either to the last day of the world, or, more broadly, to a period of great peril. In Christianity, this refers specifically to the day of the Last Judgment. The Cambridge English Dictionary says it is “the end of the world, or the time when something very bad will happen”.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists says that their Doomsday Clock actually determines the apocalypse at midnight and then moves the hands of the clock every year to show how close we are to destruction due to threats to humanity and the planet, such as nuclear escalation and changing of the climate. Thus, doomsday is largely interchangeable with the apocalypse, although it usually refers to a major event, and the apocalypse can usually be understood as something of a longer duration.