Revelation was not taken seriously in the early days. In fact it was regarded as spurious for quite some time.

In any case, yes they clearly believed that the end was just around the corner. But, so has every single generation since then.

But I say, what if "the end of the ages" is only the end for us, ie. the end of the reincarnation cycle, even if Paul and most people misunderstood? This isn't as big of a stretch as you think. Most Jews to this day think reincarnation is a thing, and so did they back in New Testament times. Indeed, when some Jews ask Jesus if a man was born blind as a punishment, whatever he had done wrong must have been in a past life. There's also the concept of karmic debt, which is what makes people have to keep living miserable lives. And what did Jesus do again? And in fact the same research you mentioned giving evidence of past lives also shows that the world is controlled by malicious beings who put stumbling blocks everywhere, to ensure that it's impossible for anyone to ever pay their debts. Is this starting to sound familiar?

I must have been some horrible feminazi last time, because I can almost remember it, and now I'm forced to live as a male which is just plain WRONG for me. It makes me want to kill myself, it's horrible. I bet I was also an identical twin of or at least closely related to another user on this site, who is literally the person I was deprived of being, and who I still seem to have a twin-like connection to. I am also disabled in so many ways. I must have really fucked up. And the evil overlords only plan to fuck me up further by devastating me. They watch me like hawks, making sure I can't so much as imagine anything, or have any supernatural experiences. And they elaborately scripted every single aspect of my life to drive me mad, because everything and everyone comes together for this very purpose. They even knew about me before my birth, because there are references to me and this plot in media shortly preceding it. And also certain media reads my mind, as well as other people, and they all seem to be able to read each other's minds as well so that I'm out of the loop and so suffer severe consequences. They want to get the hate to flow through me. And I hate to say it, but I can't see any way they could lose at this point. But I will say that if I get the chance, I will NEVER return here EVER again. I'm done with this crap. All this toxic positivity is here to make you want to be in this world, but it's all bullshit. I've seen through it now, no one will convince me otherwise again.