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In biblical texts, the river Euphrates functions as a geopolitical border: it delineates the boundaries of the land promised to Abraham and his descendants, and it demarcates the border of the Babylonian exiles, separating those who remain in the land from those in exile while imagining a future when they will be reunited. After the destruction of the second temple, however, the Euphrates transforms into a border separating the eschatological future from the crisis of the present. This transformation is reflected in the pseudepigraphic works of 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch, where the eventual restoration of the full community of Israel is imagined through both a physical and a temporal crossing of the Euphrates. This paper explores the presentation of the Euphrates as a border that indicates temporal proximity to the eschaton and to the lost tribes in 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch.1

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This chapter examines the influence of biblical apocalyptic literature in popular culture. After exploring the problems of terminology and definitions, it examines four examples of apocalyptic in popular culture: two of these, Good Omens (Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, 1990) and the television series Supernatural (created by Eric Kripke, 2005–2020) draw directly from the biblical apocalypses, especially Revelation. They also change details from Revelation in order to better fit their agenda. Two additional examples are explored: the movie 2012 (2009) and Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam trilogy. Both focus on end-time scenarios that do not derive directly from the biblical apocalypses but instead use the flood narrative from Genesis 6–9 to highlight their eschatology. This chapter argues that the shift in popular culture from drawing directly on biblical apocalypses to drawing on other narratives—specifically the flood—derives from a turn toward environmental concerns in contemporary Western culture.