daf bit: Sanhedrin 97

[cellio]

The g'mara on today's daf is discussing the timing of the coming of the moshiach. R. Kattina said the world would exist for 6000 years and then be desolate for another thousand -- just as in the seventh year we are commanded to let our fields lie fallow, so too with the seventh millennium for the world. The tanna Eliyahu also said the world would exist for 6000 years, but that is: 2000 of desolation, 2000 in which the torah flourished, and the next 2000 is the messianic era -- that was the design, but through our iniquities it has been lost. (A different) Eliyahu said to R. Yehudah: the world shall exist not fewer than 85 jubilees (which occur every 50 years). And R. Chanan b. Tahlifa once met a man in possession of a scroll written in Assyrian characters that said the world would be orphaned 4231 years after creation. After that come the war of the great sea monsters and the war of Gog and Magog and only then the messianic era. Opinions differ on how long that takes, either 7000 years (total) or 5000. (97a-b)

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/merle_/]

After that come the war of the great sea monsters

Gojira! Finally, a better explanation for kaiju than radioactivity.