contemporary readers would have understood every anti-christ reference to have meant somebody they'd know and hate.
The antichrist of revelation was understood to be Nero, for example, where Daniel would have been talking about babylon. Remember: we're not the target audience. The target audience was the original audience contemporary to the author. the eschatology of Revelation has already been seen to happen. The world didn't end. the book is wrong. (Insert "it was all allegory anyway" here.)
Well, that should be reassuring to those who need it, then. The wound was neither fatal nor healed.
Not that a candidate bearing multiple points of uncanny RESEMBLANCE to what the Bible says the Church should WATCH OUT FOR in the personage of the antichrist so that they don't accidentally end up following him because they were among the deceived has managed to stop many of them so far, but hey, if it avoids water like a duck with late stage rabies, we should put it on the lifeguard stand.
Prophecy is intentionally vague and the reason it endures so well is because it can apply to such a broad amount of topics...
HOWEVER, we've had a shit load of things that match up with prophecies too fucking close in the past few years. There's a part of my brain that was joking at first, but now is wondering if this really is the end times.
Well, like Luke 2:10, Be not afraid, I come with good news of a great joy. God isn't real. No one can see the future. All of this is bullshit, and the only thing that matters is what you do about it. We all have personal responsibility, and no one should be putting that on the shoulders of their sky-daddy and saying, "It's all part of his plan."
How cod it be the end times, the harkening events of Ragnarok havent happened yet. Also why resist it, if the world is to end thwn it is to end betted to embrace it and go out with it in madness and glory.
And the Lord said, fear not thy enemies, for in the moment your sin is the greatest I shall turn the sword off the righteous and you will endure to sin again.