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McFall argues that various ancient texts contain veiled references not only to the advent of Christ but also to the events of the last days as described in the Book of Revelation. After a lengthy opening in which he argues that the Book of Daniel was written at the height of the Babylonian Empire and is not (as many scholars now claim) a Maccabean-era forgery, he then attempts to connect Alexander the Great with the "he-goat" mentioned in that book, and thus with Dionysus and the horned devil of medieval iconography.
McFall finds references to prophetic events in the teachings of Aristotle, the tragedies of Seneca, the comedies of Plautus, and the poetry of Menander. He describes the Poetics as "an eschatologically informed dialogue with Daniel" and the character of Oedipus as a harbinger of the Antichrist. Citing a passage from the Talmud, he makes a thoroughly charming case that the wicked emperor Nero may have faked his own death and fled to Judea to become a beloved rabbi. He then connects Macbeth with end-times prophecy via a cryptic reference in Act III, Scene iv of that play to "the secret'st man of blood."
Christian historian Mark Knoll caused a stir thirty years ago when he wrote, "The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is no evangelical mind"—suggesting that evangelicals refuse to engage with history, literature, and scholarship. Given this, it's thrilling to read a book written from an evangelical perspective that cites Jerome, Plutarch, Sophocles, and Dante—authors many people have not heard of, let alone read. One doesn't have to agree with McFall's conclusions to admire the book's literary scope and intellectual ambition. He's keeping the flame of the humanities alive, and that alone makes the book worth reading.