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In Isaiah, the sky will roll up like a scroll. Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas says the heavens and the earth will roll up in the disciples' presence, probably with that scroll in mind, and rolling up is one of the mildest ways to describe the world's end.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Isaiah 34:4
Hebrew Bible
3 Their slain will be left unburied, their corpses will stink; the hills will soak up their blood. 4 All the stars in the sky will fade away, the sky will roll up like a scroll; all its stars will wither, like a leaf withers and falls from a vine or a fig withers and falls from a tree. 5 He says, “Indeed, my sword has slaughtered heavenly powers. Look, it now descends on Edom, on the people I will annihilate in judgment.”
Gospel of Thomas 1:111
Nag Hammadi
110 Jesus said, “Whoever has found the world and become rich should renounce the world.” 111 Jesus said, “The heavens and the earth will roll up in your presence, and the Living One from the Living One will not see death.” Does not Jesus say, “Whoever has found himself, of him the world is not worthy”? 112 Jesus said, “Woe to the flesh that depends on the soul; woe to the soul that depends on the flesh.”
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Notes and References
“... ‘The heavens and the earth’ correspond to the cosmos or world in GTh 111.3. The muted character of eschatology in Thomas comes out here: of terms which can be used to depict the disintegration of the cosmos, ‘roll up’, like ‘pass away’ in GTh 11, is one of the least violent. The image of the rolling is probably the rolling up of a scroll (Isa. 34.4; Rev. 6.14) or perhaps a garment (Heb. 1.12). The emphasis is on the impermanence of the cosmos by contrast with the immutability of the living sphere. ...”
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