Parousia once meant a king's showy visit before it meant Christ's return
Christians and Muslims both expect Jesus to come back, though for very different reasons. The Greek word the New Testament leans on, parousia, was used centuries earlier for the staged arrival of a ruler at a city. In 2010 about 40 percent of Americans thought the return likely by 2050.
Christian doctrine holds that Jesus, having ascended to Heaven roughly two thousand years ago, will return to judge the living and the dead. Most English renderings of the Nicene Creed put exactly that promise into the mouths of worshippers each week. Islam carries its own version: Jesus, known as Isa ibn Maryam, is expected to descend in the end times, defeat the false messiah called al-Masih ad-Dajjal, restore justice and reaffirm the oneness of God. Muslims regard him as a revered prophet, not as divine, and treat his descent as a major sign that Judgment Day is near. Shia Muslims most often call it Raj'a, meaning return.
Vocabulary matters here. The Greek New Testament uses parousia 24 times, seventeen of them for Christ, and epiphaneia, an appearing, six times for the same event. Parousia tends to describe a span of time rather than a single moment; in Matthew 24:37 it covers the days of Noah. In 1908 Gustav Adolf Deissmann showed the word had described, as early as the 3rd century BC, a dignitary's visit arranged to dazzle the townspeople.
Scholars disagree sharply over what Jesus himself expected. Many in the third quest for the historical Jesus see him as an eschatological prophet announcing the Kingdom of God, and some conclude his forecast of an imminent return was simply wrong. The Jesus Seminar instead credits the early Church with those apocalyptic hopes. R.T. France and N.T. Wright read passages such as Mark 13:26 as borrowed Old Testament imagery for the Temple's destruction in AD 70, a position called Preterism when the whole prophecy is tied to first-century events.
Belief in the return varies widely by group. The same 2010 survey found 58 percent of white evangelicals expecting it by 2050, against 32 percent of Catholics and 27 percent of white mainline Protestants. Many precise dates have been announced over the centuries, and plenty have already come and gone.
Source: Second Coming
