After the End: Apocalyptic Grammar as a Cross-Traditional Strategy of Religious Futurity

This paper argues that apocalypticism is best understood not as a historically confined literary genre but as a recurring cross-traditional strategy for organizing religious futurity. Through a comparative analysis of Second Temple Judaism, early Christianity, and contemporary East Asian redemptive movements, it identifies what I term “apocalyptic grammar”: a patterned set of operations that compress time, intensify moral polarity, consolidate remnant identity, and recalibrate expectation under conditions of delay. Rather than assuming genealogical transmission, the study focuses on structural correspondences that emerge when communities confront crisis and deferred hope. Close textual attention demonstrates how anticipated endings are reinterpreted without abandoning expectation. By foregrounding conceptual tools and methodological transparency, the paper contributes to Comparative Studies in Religion by showing how disciplined structural comparison can illuminate recurring strategies for inhabiting uncertainty. Apocalyptic grammar thus emerges as a durable architecture of religious futures rather than a relic of ancient sectarianism.