This paper will conclude that the emphasis on the Shema and “Final Enemy” legends in the Jewish writings of the intertestamental period provide the necessary cultural background for the Mark of the Beast passages in John’s Apocalypse. The Second Temple period gave rise to new styles of writing and eschatological hopes previously unnoticed in Jewish literature. For example, apocalyptic writing seems to have distinctly advanced as a genre during this intertestamental span giving voice to the messianic and eschatological hopes of the Jewish people who were scattered across the Greek and later the Roman Empires. Furthermore, many of these apocalypses are identified as “historical apocalypses” meaning that they claimed to foretell the events that would come to pass between the time of writing and the end of history. John’s Apocalypse was notably written in close proximity to this period only a few decades after the Roman destruction of Herod’s Temple.
Some Jewish factions stirred by these eschatological considerations took the active approach of seeking the heart of the Torah to usher in the messianic age. For the members of the Qumran sect, the eschatological conflict playing out in history between the Sons of Light (Torah-keepers) and the Sons of Darkness shaped their interpretation and observance of the Law. Deuteronomy 6 stood as a central text defining what it meant for the people to keep Torah. The legends concerning a final eschatological enemy of the promised Jewish Messiah also intensified within this cultural milieu. To prove the thesis, this paper will catalog significant instances of Deuteronomy 6:4-9 language and the “Final Enemy” legend in the literature of the time by giving special attention to the convergence of the two motifs in the writings of Qumran, the Apocrypha, and Pseudepigraphal works of the Second Temple period.