The belief in the millennium is one of the oldest and most enduring patterns of thought in Western civilization. The idea that human history is divinely ordained and will lead to a period of heavenly perfection on earth can be dated at least as far back as the prophecies of Isaiah in the eighth century B.C. Since then the idea has received extensive and diverse elaboration within the providential religions of Judaism, Islam, and Christianity and, in combination with other mythologies about the future, has spread throughout the world.

How much the basic millennial belief in a future age of perfection is a specifically biblical one is a matter of debate among historians, folklorists, and anthropologists. What does seem clear is that the Judaic belief in a universal and transcendent God known primarily through his people's experiences on earth served to produce a particularly keen sense of the sacred significance of secular history. Time was conceived by the ancient Israelites as possessing a linear structure with a clear beginning and an end. History was expected to culminate in the glorious triumph of God's people across the world. The earth would then become a paradise for the righteous; sickness, deprivation, war, and oppression would cease to exist. This Old Testament vision of the future has repeatedly been challenged, reinterpreted, and rendered anew, from the age of the Hebrew prophets to the present day. It has formed the core of a remarkably persistent millennial tradition that has deeply affected the historical consciousness of the modern world.

The history of this tradition has been the object of an enormous secondary literature characterized by vigorous interpretative debate and empirical controversy.