Welllllllllll . . . I never liked the term "Abrahamic religions" since it implies a direct kinship I do not accept. That is being persnickety, I confess, but there were so many "non-Abrahamic" influences and none of them were monolithic entities. For example, it is impossible to speak about "Judaism" as if it was one thing, certainly one that exists today.
All that aside, the Judaisms as preserved in the biblical texts were not apocalyptic by and large.
That being written, there certainly
was various apocalyptic moments as we would understand it, and there is Huge Books Full of the extra-biblical literature on the subject: its rise, influence, and all of that. A fun question to consider is how apocalyptic Judaism was in the Roman period particularly amongst "da peoples."
The big question for Christian studies--of many "big questions"--is how apocalyptic the Historical Junior was. The Synoptic Gospels are, by and large, but they are late, and I have pontificated sufficiently on how dangerous it is to assume they have any actual relationship with the Historical Junior. Sure, the Historical Junior became utterly irrelevant for the various movements--see Paul.
Take a common quote that some scholars will grant historicity since it would explain him getting hung up on a tree: the vow to destroy the Temple and rebuild it. What does that mean? Some have gone so far as to suggest he went to the Temple, tried a miracle or actual attack, and the Romans squished it. The only problem with that, as I have bloviated previously, is the Romans clearly did NOT stamp out the movement.
Is that "apocalyptic?" Modern conceptions tied into Revelation then expansions that include things like "the Rapture" which are not in Revelation imagine an "Earth-Ending" event which . . . is . . . also not in apocalypses. Just like Creation Myths often involve re-ordering rather than actual creation, apocalypses tend to involve a reordering of the world-order or at least local voting district: "roll up a scroll."
"The Event" for Christianity, in a way, with all of the traditional scholars still masturbating over "kerygma" notwithstanding, was the Squishing of Jerusalem which sort of demonstrated what the Romans do when you "become difficult." Which brings us to:
Islam. Must confess my research into Islam is quite lax in comparison. I cannot list Arabic amongst my list of languages of which I am functionally illiterate
I cannot personally pontificate as to whether or not Islam
began apocalyptic or apocalysm crept into it or its various branches over time.
Nevertheless, one of the attractions to religions is "This World That Sucks Will End and We Who Suck Will be Awesome and Fuck Chad." The idea of an apocalypse has become a major part of most Christianities I know of. Judaism? Not really.
The Danish and Icelanders are still waiting for Ragnarøkkr. . . .
--J.D.
