Comment: There is no “deep mainstream interest amongst Christians in Revelations”. Studying Revelations for signs and portents only interests maybe 1-2% of Christians.
As far as Christian millennialism is concerned, early Christian Zionists (100-150 years ago) revived and reinterpreted traditional Jewish millennialism, giving it a big boost among fringy Christians … and making more than a few Jews extremely uneasy.
The traditional Jewish narrative is that (1) God kicked Jews out of Israel because they screwed up, (2) the Messiah (Moshiach)–a human, not cosmic being–would arise in Israel, (3) he would do battle with the forces of evil, (4) Jews around the world would flock to his standard and move to Israel, and eventually (5) the whole world would accept him as King of their Kings.
The big point being that Jews were supposed to wait until Moshiach told them to come back. They were NOT supposed to jump the gun, move to Israel, and deliberately force God’s hand. Oh, sure, they could move back, onesies and twosies, to just LIVE there, but not to try and create some Jewish Kingdom. That was blasphemy.
The Christian Zionists are in favor of Jews jumping the gun and moving back to Israel, because more Jews in Israel meant that Jesus (Messiah) will come again, not that the Jewish human warrior Moshiach/King of Kings will come the for the first time.
Christian Zionists are the largest group of millenialists. However, their activities are pretty much limited to Israel tourism, political and military support of Israel and donating to Israeli charities. No “heavy lifting” is required: just visit Israel, vote Israel, donate to Israel, and that’s about it. This leads to weird situations. For example, galut Jews hate Jerry Farwell, John Hagee and their ilk, yet Israeli Jews honor them.
NB: Neturei Karta and mainstream Jews still fight over the legitimacy of a Jewish kingdom/state in Israel. NK is happy to live and be ruled by goyim (both in Israel and elsewhere) until Moshiach returns and sounds his trumpet. For regular Jews in Israel, this is close to treason, particularly when NK is caught consorting with goyim like Abbas and Arafat.
