With the marriage of the concepts of cognitive dissonance and relative deprivation, deprivation no longer requires an observable source. The subjective deprivation existing in the minds of group members is now assumed to be the impetus for most apocalyptic expression. The deprivation experienced by Jewish apocalyptic movements is commonly thought to have been the failure of prophetic promises. Thus, to understand the rise of apocalyptic movements one must know the eschatological expectations of the group and examine how it perceived of its present situation in light of that tradition. A number of Old Testament, second temple Jewish, and first century texts manifest prophetic fulfillment and eschatological imminence.
Objective deprivation is often part of the fulfillment.
The apocalyptists believed the delay was over, the final day was imminent. The letters reflect the end-time apostasy. Seals one through four reflect the fulfillment of the synoptic eschatological discourse. Because Jesus' prophecy in the discourse was not completely fulfilled, in the trumpets and bowls cycles and their associated narratives, John shows how those events had been or would be fulfilled in another way. Similarly to his own life experience, John transfers the center of end time events from east to west, and shows how in his revised end-time scenario it was Rome rather than Jerusalem that would be destroyed before the final battle of Armageddon and the parousia.