German translators of AtD:

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

          Michael J. Hußmann:
          "Für den Tag" is colloquial German, and as far as I can tell, it 
          carries no specifically biblical connotations. I don't think there's 
          a way to preserve the archaic flavor of "Against the Day". And 
          is the allusion to  the day of judgement really that important? 
          One might take it to refer to the revenge theme in AtD, be it the 
          revenge of Webb's murder specifically or the struggle between 
          capitalists and workers/unions/ anarchists in general. But does 
          the biblical concept of a day of judgement really fit here? 
          I don't think so.

Looking at Thomas Pynchon's life as, in some way, continuing what his ancestors 
were up to [and commenting on the Myth of 'America' in the process] leaves the 
reader with a plethora of Christian---more often than not, Calvinist---
references woven into the novels in such a way that the reader tends to 
take them for granted. Consider the repeated use of 'Revelation' in The 
Crying of Lot 49 or 'Illumination' in 'Against the Day'. As Monte Davis
points out:

          . . . .Really?

          ...From p. 12 when "the very mouth of Hell" opens (and the _
          Inconvenience_loses buoyancy)

          ... Past the Dantean gate (154 and 401)

          .. Through Telluride ("to-Hell-you-ride"), described as "Hell with 
          electric lights" (79), with a smell "believed here to rise... from the 
          everyday atmosphere of Hell itself" (282). . . .

I've been trying to track down the family tree for Charlotte Champe Stearns 
Eliot. She was the mother of T.S. Eliot, and a force in her own right as a poet 
and all-around good-deed-doer. As papa Eliot was deaf, T.S. Eliot tended 
to have more interaction with this Unitarian exemplar. What got me all excited 
with Mama Eliot was her maiden name: Stearns.

Look at the birth of the 'American Experiment' around Boston & Salem 
& Springfield & you're looking at a whole lot of Calvinists, Puritans, 
exiles from England. William Pynchon Gent. was an exile from the exiles, 
very much resonating with the younger Pynchon's comment that Orwell 
was "Left of the Left." The Stearns, on the other hand, not quite as early 
coming on-shore in New England. were a lot more Calvinist and most likely 
the spring that issued forth Charles Stearns of Springfield. I don't think 
Charlotte and Charles are particularly close, but It looks like they're related. 
These old New England Families have particular pride as regards where 
they came from, their family lines and such-like. After all, this is the age of 
Royalty---"Blood will tell!"

However you want to parse it, the boy's family history is just jammed with 
religious events, there's no way that's going to be excluded from this 
writer's book of life.

But that "Waste Land" theme, that post-apocalyptic vision---there's your 
money shot, that loss of connectedness, the state of 'Anti-paranoia', the
condition of G-d knows what, that unnameable horror, is also central to 
Pynchon's writing, and again there are multiple family connections---
Henry Ware Eliot's ancestors include Deacon Samuel Chapin, usually
cited as the source for Augustus Saint-Gaudens "The Puritan" ^
http://tinyurl.com/2gssm5

Right at the start, 'The Waste Land' was on the author's mind:

          "The Small Rain" was my first published story. A friend 
          who'd been away in the army the same two years I'd 
          been in the navy supplied the details. The hurricane 
          really happened, and my friend's Signal Corps 
          detachment had the mission described in the story. . . ."

So note that with the first story, personal history in already the mix. . . .

          . . . .Most of what I dislike about my writing is present 
          here in embryo, as well as in more advanced forms. 
          I failed to recognize, just for openers, that the main 
          character's problem was real and interesting enough 
          to generate a story on its own. Apparently I felt I had 
          to put on a whole extra overlay of rain images and 
          references to "The Waste Land" and A Farewell to 
          Arms. I was operating on the motto "Make it literary," *
          a piece of bad advice I made up all by myself and 
          then took.
          Slow Learner, pg. 4

[Note to self: Read 'A Farewell to Arms']

Whatever else is going on, 'The Waste Land' is on young Tom's mind. 
And again note Pynchon v. Stearns, the "Waste Doctrine", the 
transformation in the waste doctrine as the legal concept crossed the 
Atlantic and was altered [Translated? Distorted?] to serve the 
purposes of expanding business in America. but also remember Mama 
Eliot was a Stearns, Papa Eliot's connected to Springfield's Deacon 
Samuel Chapin, the genesis of 'The Waste Land' comes out of the genes of
New England Transcendentalists, and that heresy of embracing the 
"Preterite" is pretty important  to Unitarian Charlotte Stearns Eliot.  
There are so many of these family connections to all these Founding
Puritians. Flashes of Calvinistic lightning can be expected to run up 
and down all of his books, making any seeming Biblical reference very, 
very likely.

Whoever the hell 'Friend Tom' is, his promise of always having a Bible 
alongside his copy of 'the Gravity Book' is a very good piece of advice.
'Against the Day' sounds like a phrase the Rev.'s would slip in the sermons 
on a weekly basis, Against the day of judgment, the judgment that your 
book's going to be burned, that your property will be razed, that your 
institution of higher banking and investment is gonna go down in flames.

*          '. . . .The next story I wrote was "The Crying of Lot 49,"
          which was marketed as a "novel." and in which I seem to 
          have forgotten most of what I thought I'd learned up until then.
          Slow Learner, pg. 22

. . . .that is to say, an extra helping of 'Make it Literary' [me, I like the 
effect, call me callow], but in particular figuring out a web of references 
that ultimately lean as heavily as possible on whole notion of 
'The Waste Land,' and how that became our collective inheritance.
There's a Jeremaid lurking in that lot of stamps, another sermon on 
what we lost.

^ : I've seen an attribution to William Pynchon as the "Puritan" in question.