re: 2 billion year old fossils of multicellular life forms discovered

You would be correct in stating that they were looking for a messiah. The Jews were promised a kingdom of their own and they were looking to God for a savior to free them from Roman rule. However, they did not realize that God was speaking of an eternal kingdom in the afterlife ruled by The Father, rather than a terrestrial Kingdom in the Levant ruled by men. The Jews had already had one Messiah in the writings of the prophets: King Cyrus the Great of Persia, who freed the Jews from captivity in Babylon.

John the Baptist had been preaching throughout the region for decades that the messiah was coming. Jesus's first coming created the Kingdom of God in Heaven. His return will be as the military messiah to create that Heaven on Earth during the End Times as discussed in Revelations.

Personally, I'm not big on Revelations. I see it as more of an abstract commentary on current events in the region at the time it was written rather than a prophesy. John of Patmos had been exiled there by the Romans during the Jewish Revolt in order to suppress his writings in support of the Revolutionaries. After exile, he decided to write more in a style that his target audience would understand, but that the Romans would write off as harmless religious writings. The Jews thought they had their "military messiah" in Rebel leader Bar Kochpah, which translates to "Son of the Star". He lead the Jewish forces to victory in several battles, eradicating an entire legion of Rome's best troops and completely liberating Jerusalem for a time. However, his pride was his fall. When he began attributing his battlefield successes to his own brilliance rather than the will of God, the grace of God left him and he never defeated the Romans again in battle. You know, that or the Romans dispatching a bunch more legions to crush the revolt