For the last three weeks or so, I have been getting a bunch of emails from folks telling me that the world will end on Saturday, May 21 “because over the past 4 decades serious Bible students have been given understanding of the Biblical Calendar of History as recorded in the geneologies of Genesis 5 and 11.” (That quote comes from the latest email, signed by “Len.” But they have all said basically — if not exactly — the same thing.)
Len goes on to warn: “Given the Bible’s Calendar, May 21, 2011 is the 7000th anniversary (to the very day) of Noah’s flood and the Door of Salvation in the ark, a picture of Christ Jesus, was shut. (Genesis 7:11 and 2 peter 3:3-10). There are other proofs within the Holy Bible that assures us Christ’s return will come to pass on May 21 when God will catch up His people and with a catastrophic earthquake commence the final 153 days of the earth and on October 21 the universe will be annihilated.”
Len — and apparently others — is praying that I will “carefully review and investigate this fast approaching event,” but since they seem pretty steadfast in their belief that this is what will happen, I am not sure what they want me to do about it. Am I supposed to help them to warn others to get right with Jesus om the next three days? Or do they just want me to know — for sure — that I am about to burn for eternity?
For weeks, I have been just deleting these Chicken Little (“The sky is falling!”) emails as soon as I realize what they are. But today, after getting yet another one, I decided I wanted to figure out where all this “end-of-the-world” hype is coming from. I mean, we all know the world will actually end in December 2012; the Mayans said so.
A quick Internet search answered my question: It’s all coming from Oakland, Calif. preacher Harold Camping who, according to this article on the website for the U.K. newspaper The Independent, came to his conclusions using mathematics to decode prophesies hidden in the Bible. Preacher Camping says that May 21 this year will be 722,500 days from April 1, 33 A.D., which is the day Christ was crucified. He came up with the sum 722,500 by multiplying three holy numbers — 5, 10 and 17 — together. Twice.
The sudden realization of that holy equation, Camping says, “blew my mind.”
Camping also says that a slew of recent natural disasters — like earthquakes in New Zealand, Haiti and Japan — are unmistakeable signs of the end times, along with changing social values: “All the stealing, and the lying, and the wickedness and the sexual perversion that is going on in society is telling us something. So too is the gay Pride movement. It was sent by God as a sign of the end.”
Did you catch that last part? The part where he says that the gay Pride movement was “sent by God as a sign of the end”? Yep, that’s right. It’s our fault. If we gays were so dang prideful and didn’t insist on demanding equal rights, God might be willing to let us slide and not end the world until, say, Aug. 8 or something.
(And by the way, Preacher Camping does not believe in evolution and thinks all abortions should be banned. I bet you’re all surprised by that, right?)
So anyway, Preacher Camping has added up his holy numbers, come up with May 21 as the end of the world, and is now spending the considerable assets of his Family Radio Network to make sure everyone knows what’s about to happen. They have more than 2,000 billboards across the country, and he has even convinced people to drive around in camper vans emblazoned with “The World Is Ending” logos to spread the word.
Adam Larsen, a 32-year-old from Kansas, actually quit his job and gave up his favorite pastime of raccoon hunting to drive around in one of those camper vans to warn everyone the world is ending. Wonder how Adam’s going to feel when he wakes on the morning of May 22 and the world is still here?
Because see, here’s the good part: This isn’t the first time Harold Camping has gone around telling everyone the world would end on a specific date. Back on Sept. 6, 1994, he gathered hundreds of his followers together in an auditorium in Alameda, Calif., and they all sat around watching for Jesus to return. Guess what: No Jesus.
Preacher Camping has an answer for that, of course: Back then, he hadn’t actually researched the whole Bible. Now, he’s sure he’s right: “We’ve had the chance to do just an enormous amount of additional study and God has given us outstanding proofs that it really is going to happen.”
OK, yeah. Right. See you on Sunday, preacher.
HAROLD CAMPING IS NOT A CHRISTIAN!
No True Christian would follow this man. He is an arrogant Old fool who believes his own Bible translations.
His followers are the worst, they trust “HAROLD CAMPING INTERPRETATION OF THE BIBLE…NOT THE BIBLE!
Harold Camping is a horrible Bible teacher.
SEE HERE HIS LINK TO JIM JONES CULT
https://haroldcamping-21.blogspot.com/2011/05/how-ex-bible-teacher-became-cult-leader.html
I feel sorry for all the people who can fall for this stuff. Religion is a powerful weapon and I’m never surprised when idiots do things like this to either cause mass chaos or, just for a moment ,get attaten and cause mass chaos, or, of course, pull a Father Cornello, and blindly lead people with religion to there doom for there own greedy reason…then again…most T.V preists and Westboro baptist church. more reason to make people stay away from religion.
I don’t see the point in trying to predict the end of the world its a very morbid topic and anyone whose read the Bible might notice that it says NO ONE KNOWS when the world will end
Matthew 24:36 “However, no one knows the day or hour when these things will happen, not even the angels in heaven or the Son himself. Only the Father knows.
P.S. Your article was very well written 10 points too you.
I totally forgot the world was going to end this Saturday!! And I had so much planned…
Hi. I’d like to say, I do not believe this. there is planty of ways to get those numbers. & I am a christian& would like to say nobody knows when the world will end, NOBODY. & it will happen when everyones least expecting it. & also, the mayans, plenty of times, have predicted the end of time…they were wrong. & also, these earthquakes& hurricanes have been happening before, but we the people have invented this thing called technology….& if you look back in time, there has been WORSE EARTHQUAKES. All these are just natural disasters. Bad stuff happens, that doesn’t exactly mean the world will end just cause a few bad things happen, there has been before periods of times where we went through difficult times, like the great depression, did the world end? No. But someone probably predicted it because for some reason people believe that if bad things go on it’s necessarily the end of the world. I highly disagree. I love god& I strongly believe in him…& I don’t believe camping. I believe god when he said “NOBODY KNOWS WHEN THE WORLD WILL END”. I believe it’s believing what god says. But that’s just what I believe. I just thought’t i’d let you know…
I am very sad for those who have been following this lie that the rapture will occur on May 21st. Even if they attempt to explain away “No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven nor the Son, but only the Father” (Mark 13:32), they cannot explain away that most every Christian, theologian, scholar, and prophet from the first Century until the Nineteenth Century all believed that the church would go through the Great Tribulation and not escape through some secret rapture that would leave the world paralyzed. I pray that they will take a moment and read my book, “Final Warning” because the hour of is His judgment has come.
7,000 years after Noah? How is that possible when it’s only the year 5771, which counts from the Garden of Eden and the creation of Adam and Steve?
If I’m to blame for the end of the world cause I’m a fudge-packer, I think I should at least do it regularly. Anybody looking for a date?
i think that the only person that nows the time & day of the end of the world not iven the angel , son of god nows just the father.
I agree with David. How can this be the 7000 year when the Jewish calender has it as 5771. Also it is said that “God will come as a Thief in the night to gather his children and that no one will hear “. I feel sorry for these people who have done away with all their life savings and will have nothing when it has past. This preacher should be ashamed of himself for scamming people the way he has, and also have heard that he is making a bundle of money off of this end on the world hype. Last I heard it was 21 millon dollars that he now has. Shame on him and anyone who believes in this scam artist.
Just remember to wear cute shoes in case you are raptured! Just sayin’…
well, one sure thing someone world did end today, everyday there is an end for someone,someone dies every second, whether u believe in jesus or not your life will end at some point.
ok so he multiplied them twice? why not once? or 3 times? ??? or divide or simply 05 10 17???
U dumbasses actualy believed that long line of bull shit well let me tell you somtin, this halfassed dush has told us the world was gonna end several other times in pas decades and he has always been rong