Harold Camping is teaching thousands of the loons that follow him that the Rapture will happen on May 21, 2011. Camping also teaches that the end of the world will occur just four months later on October 21st 2011.
I think all these birdbrains are in for a rude awaking on May 22, 2011 when they find themselves still here after they burned all their bridges on earth in the days of their acting like April fools.
Some of these loons will then probably think that they did not make the Rapture and think that they will reap God’s judgments until they find out that Harold Camping is also still here recalculating what he now claims cannot be wrong. (Of course he might die first since he is 89 years old.)
Harold Camping has cried wolf before. He claimed the Lord would return on Sept. 6, 1994. Date setters and heretics seldom learn from their mistakes and neither do their followers. I guess the adage that there “is no fool like a old fool” applies.
Harold Camping owns a large Christian radio network called “Family Stations, Inc.” (Family Radio). It has more than 150 outlets in the United States and it is broadcast worldwide via shortwave, it has a network of AM and FM radio stations, a cable television station, and the Internet. His organization also utilizes numerous low-power television signals. All that gives him a very large platform for his heretical teachings to reach the simple and the gullible. Believe it or not many thousands of people around the world are actually believing his heretical nonsense.
Camping claims he has scrutinized the Bible for almost 70 years and says he has developed a mathematical system to interpret prophecies hidden within the Good Book. One night a few years ago, Camping, a civil engineer by trade, crunched the numbers and was stunned at what he’d found: The world will end May 21, 2011.
Here is how Harold Camping figured out the date of the Rapture.
The number 5, Camping concluded, equals “atonement.” Ten is “completeness.” Seventeen means “heaven.” Camping patiently explained how he reached his conclusion for May 21, 2011.
“Christ hung on the cross April 1, 33 A.D.,” he began. “Now go to April 1 of 2011 A.D., and that’s 1,978 years.”
Camping then multiplied 1,978 by 365.2422 days – the number of days in each solar year, not to be confused with a calendar year.
Next, Camping noted that April 1 to May 21 encompasses 51 days. Add 51 to the sum of previous multiplication total, and it equals 722,500.
Camping realized that (5 x 10 x 17) x (5 x 10 x 17) = 722,500.
Or put into words: (Atonement x Completeness x Heaven), squared.”
All this can be found in this article. Unfortunately the person that wrote that article actually called Harold Camping a Bible scholar which gives true Bible scholars a bad name. I would hardly think that someone that thinks that the whole Old Testament is a parable is a scholar. A flake is a title much more suiting for Harold Camping.
Camping’s teachings are unique and believable to the simple because like you see above they really are very detailed fabrications. It should be obvious that Harold Camping’s 5 x 10 x 17 formula is just something that works for him because it fits a date in the future. If it did not fit he would not have used it, or he would have just come up with other names and numbers. All that look for hidden codes in the Bible do similar manipulation. The computer now makes endless combinations possible so it becomes inevitable that some combination will fulfill something similar to what you are looking for.
Why did Camping use the words “atonement, completeness, and Heaven that he says means 5, 10 and 17? Only because using those words and numbers comes up with a date in the future that he wanted to see. There are many other words that also could have added up to a date in the future using his scheme.
All claiming hidden messages in the Bible do pretty much the same thing. What they find is so manipulated to fit what they are looking for that any seeming fit becomes statistically meaningless. It is little more than chance and if better than chance, so what? Some things always have to be better than chance. Some people win a lottery and chance says they won’t. Some people get killed by lightening and chance says they won’t. I have had people email me other dates that they came up through similar “word” “number” schemes. They are meaningless to anyone trained in the science of statistics.
We also have to disregard the more simple formulas were teachers just read into what scripture actually says to set a date for the Rapture. Some of these just add 70 years to 1948 and they also come up with a 2011 date for the Rapture. They are just as wrong as Camping but for other reasons and those following their conjecture are also likely to disappointed.
Don:
First off Happy New Year and I hope and pray all the best for you in 2011. Secondly you could not be more on point. Do these “followers” read there Bibles? As you know it clearly states in the Scriptures that NO ONE knows the day or hour. I shake my head at this. I would love for the Rapture to come today, but I won’t know until it happens.
The sad thing is all of the people that will follow this loon and on May 21st they will be standing around looking at each other.
The whole point of my rant is READ THE BIBLE. READ, READ, READ!!!
Keep up the great work!
I really wish people would stop setting dates. Whether they are a heretic or a true bible believing Christian, this date setting reflects badly on Christianity as a whole. It just seems to give the television news anchor one more thing to smirk at when they bring up Christianity or the Bible.
Some are probably surprised that I include “true bible believing Christians” as date setters, but we all know of persons that follow the Word and at least appear to be true Christians who still set dates.
Point is, we should be ready and even hope for the rapture but the actual date should not matter to us.
God Bless everyone in this new year and thank you, Don, for your insight.
What bothers me about this nonsense is that the media totally picks up on it… Then, when May comes and goes, as well as 2011, the media will be mocking God.
Only heretics set dates. That’s pretty much all you can say.
Only heretics set dates? That sounds rather harsh. Many sincere Christians speculate on the Lord’s return. Some more enthusiastically than others. Perhaps in their enthusiasm, they show a lack discernment? Of course, then there are the few, like Mr. Camping, who repeatedly prophesy error, and we all know the Lord’s recommended punishment for them. But I would not call all those who speculate out loud on the Lord’s return as heretics. We are, after all, told to know the times, and we wouldn’t have been told that if the times were unknowable.
I tend to agree with Jon and Craig….the media loves date setters because it gives them a chance to mock Christians and Christianity. Camping has a large platform – so the crash should be heard by many. He may already be working on his explanation of what went wrong.
On another topic…has there been any explanation of the dead birds, fish, or crabs?
Don,
This guys theory is based on a math/date theory he came up with. Some such theories have a little more ‘meat’ to them like the Ezekiel time frames that Grant Jeffrey has proposed, but this Camping theory is too far off the path of real Biblical studies.
I have to admit many of us will take a look at ideas and jump on the bandwagon if the guy has any credibility and of course many of us don’t do any research ourselves and just believe what we are told.
Hal Lindsey had us all ready to get out of here in the 80’s.
I think what he is saying and how he is approaching prophecy now is very interesting.
I swallowed a big drink of koolaid myself just the other day.
I got an aritcle sent to me on my work computer which had some videos and endtime economic ‘insight’.
A guy ‘Pastor Lindsey Williams’ had some pretty dire predictions for the next two years. He had a reliable source who gave him the news. It turns out the videos were two years old and what he predicted should have already come about.
As we do approach the end we will get an increase in the frequency of these types of things, especially with the 2012 ideas people are passing around.
We need to keep our predictions to sound Biblical study and not throw in our own crazy thoughts.
I feel silly myself that I drink the koolaid Williams was selling.
The kool aid looks pretty good sometimes.
Keep in mind that Grant Jeffrey came up with several time cycles that implied that Christians would leave in 1993 in his book “Armageddon Appointment with Destiny”. Even I bought into the time-lines in that book. Jeffrey also bought into the Bible Codes.
J.R. Church also had everything occurring in the 90’s and he even claimed that the Psalm chapter numbers paralleled events in the 19th century. He was still selling his book “Hidden Prophecies in the Psalms” in Bible conferences after the year 2000 but the book implied it would all be completed by the year 2000??
But hey, that is the way some of these guys make a living. After dozens of claims like this, Christians should get the point that we are not going to figure out the date from some hidden numerical scheme.
So now you say Jeffrey has come up with something else? I would not sell the farm.
At least Jeffrey’s other views on the Bible are orthodox but Camping is a rank heretic. Specific date setting is only a wee bit of Camping’s errors.
If you really want to know how close we are to the end observe what is going on in Israel, the increasing hatred toward God’s people and His laws in the world, the rise of Europe, the rise of the nations mentioned in Ezekiel 38, the rise of the kings of the East, and the rise of the religious Harlot and Babylon.
In other words read the clear prophecies and see how the world is now setting thing up to fulfill them. From that you can already project that the world is in its last couple of decades. As we get closer to the end we will see the signs of the end times more clearly but the time of the Lord’s return it is not going to be discovered by some math formula.
That’s right, only heretics set dates: Matthew 24:36 (King James Version)
36 But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.
Don,
I’m right with you on what you say.
The Grant Jeffrey comment I made wasn’t referring to anything new from him but just saying he at least did some good Biblical research before coming to his conclusions. Harold Camping just has some theory. I think we should refer to Peter in which he says prophecy is of no private interpretation.
Daniel was told the book was closed and it was implied he wouldn’t understand them clearly and only those at the end (that’s us.) would be able to make better sense of the things that really troubled him.
Peter,I think tells us we all should be able to take a look at Scripture and comparing all the Prophets we can develope a reasonable ‘prediction’ of how things will play out.
The Bible codes and Camping ideas require modern computers or much twisting and don’t apply basic principles of interpreting Scripture.
I’ve also heard of the Psalm theories being tied to dates etc. These things only confuse those who are very willing to be confused and as said above they add fuel to the critics.
I’m of the opinion we probably have a decade or two before we are done here, very much like you, but I see things getting worse economically to set things up for the one world government to come in and fix things for the ends times as Daniel saw them.
I probably talk too much but I enjoy this topic.
thanks Don,
If I remember, 1993 was big because of the European Union coming together and the Oslo accord. 1996-97 was also big because of a red heifer birth in Israel. There was the year 2000 as well. Then there was 9-11, the wars in the middle east, the Tsunami of 2004 and Katrina. One thing I’m watching is the possible end of population growth, as Don points out in “The Harvest Is Ripe.”
Also in the 80’s when Jeffrey’s book was actually written the Soviet Union was still there to fulfilled Ezekiel 38.
This is the article Charles was referring to
http://www.thepropheticyears.com/reasons/the%20harvest.HTM
Thanks for your input Charles.
Don & others,
I do see the Rapture coming inspite of the date setters; but as Don says we should keep an eye on Israel not the latest theories.
An interesting thing caught my attention recently. I am of the opinion that Babylon as a city will be rebuilt. I think it is necessary to fulfill what the Bible clearly says. I see it as another indicator of where we might be on the timeline.
I saw that there is an effort to rebuild the tower of Babel also. That sounds crazy but the mound is there right next to the Euphrates river just West of the ruins of Babylon. Hussiens’ old palace sits on top of the mound. You can see it on Google Earth. In the article it was mentioned that some are proposing uniting the globe with one lanquage.
That sounds familiar…where have I read that before?
The world blindly is being led down the path the Lord’s prophets have foretold.
Doug – Joel Rosenberg writes of Babylon being rebuilt. I think you are correct in your opinion about Babylon.
The Tower of Babel may be the next UN headquarters (my speculation, only).
Hey Bob,
How’s Texas?
I did just read the Rosenberg book. I usually steer clear of the Bible fiction, (I got this one for free) because it leans too much on speculation, but this had some interesting ideas as it developed the story.
Isaiah, Jeremiah, Zecariah and of course Revelation have Scripture that fairly clearly points to a literal city of Babylon in the last days. It has been over spiritualised over the years but as we get closer it becomes so clear that literal interpretation is the best way to see Scripture coming about.
Hey Bob, A UN headquarters building would certainly qualify as a tower of Babel. I do think Babylon must be rebuilt to literally fulfill prophecy.
I’ve always found it curiously funny that ever since God confounded them at Babel, man has tried to undo God’s punishment. If God has a sense of humor, as I suspect he does, I can almost hear him saying, “this’ll take ’em a few thousand years to figure out”. Every time I see a picture of those nimrods at the UN wearing those translation head phones, I have a chuckle.
You can include Jack Kelley amoung the 2011 loons–this saddened me as I use to enjoy his insight. The outcome of date setting the Rapture always will cause egg to splatter on the collective faces of all pri-trib/pre-mil believers–even though most of us hold to a literal and not a spiritualized interpretation of Scripture. Peace out.
Just because he will be proven wrong about his conjuncture that all will be completed 70 years from the creation of Israel in 1948 does not mean that he is wrong on his other teachings. In fact, he has great teaching and insights and I highly recommend that people read them. That is not the case with Camping.
Hey Don,
Thanks for your reply in defense of Jack Kelly. He has taken a stance that will very probably prove to be wrong and he will deal with it as a Godly man, but none of us have the right to call him a loon. I think Ransen knows that, but we get carried away a bit. Jack has based his theory on an interpretation of Scripture that has been popular for decades now and it will not really be proven completly wrong until we go 80 years past 1948 or even past 1967. I know you are not in agreement with Jack on his stance on this but we do need to support fellow brothers who make a strong attempt to be good students and good teachers of the Word. I’m glad you said that.
There are enough real heretics that we don’t need to call real brothers names.
Don’t mean to be rough on Ransen but when things get bad the church needs to pull together not apart.
Also, in defense of Jack Kelley, he has clearly stated that this is simply his interpretation (70 years) and that it may very well be wrong. He indicates that people should not, as Don would say, sell the farm.
The Bible applauds those who are keenly looking for the Lord’s return for his Church and there is a crown of righteousness awaiting all those who do, so I say let us all enjoy this expectant hope.
For myself, I again look to his appearing in the coming year, but unlike Harold Camping I believe that that might not be the case.
In my desire to see the return of our Lord, I like to remind myself that there is at least seven years between Christ’s return for the saints and his return to the Mount of Olives and because of other factors probably more. It is almost certain that there is at least one decade from the Rapture to the Lord’s return to the earth.
So; I look to his appearing in the coming year but do understand that that might not be the case.
Hey don,
I was thinking about the people who say the 2nd coming will be in 2018 and even tho I do not agree with them I have an idea of my own.suppose that key technological developements that must happen ( mark of beast, Babylon rebuilt, military power ) were supernaturally built or created by Satan and his angels after rapture. That the only way 2018 would ever work imo. But even this is flawed cause war of hog Magog would need to be happening like now. Just a thought on how 2018 would even be possible at all.
Your right, that is the only way it could be possible. I am sure the Angels do in some way help accelerate events and the Mark of the Beast technology but even they cannot make chip and communication factories out of nothing and make wars happen out of the sequence that were written.
I have to agree with you all, these people are in for a bit of a shock on the 22nd May. But can I say this one thing, If any of you are reading this. I am willing to look after your money for you, so just transfer it over to me before the 21st May & I will let you have it back with just a small charge, after the 22nd.
God Bless you all
Don, thanks for this thread. Now that we are closer to the date, the interest is increasing. I am referring those interested to your site.
BTW – Texas does not have an income tax, yet.
Also, I have heard the Parumph(sp?), Nevada area has the highest concentration of ex-special ops retirees. I was curious if, as a Nevada refugee, you know anything about that
My answer would be more suitable on my touring America post but here it is.
Parumph is the land of Art Bell it’s an out of the way place in the desert on the way to Death Valley where you used to be able to get a double-wide mobile and a few acres of land for a reasonable price. Parumph is a tough commute to Vegas so living around Parump and working in Vegas was not something that most would consider. You have to be pretty much retired or have a source of independent income to live there. It probably started growing a lot in the housing boom like all of Southern Nevada. The Parumph valley is pretty barren and dusty but there are big mountains nearby. I think it is one of the better areas to live in South Nevada and maybe land prices have now come down.
The Rapture comes on May 21, 2011 then the world ends in October according to minister Harold Camping. It’s good to expect The Savior but ….
~The End according to JESUS … Not Harold Camping nor Hollywood
The timely composition “Prophecy” written by Marvell 40 yrs ago has surpassed 10,000 visits in just over a month. Here is the Youtube link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtNpFp_GjsY
Harold Camping reminds me of Art Bell.
Apparently, Mr. Camping said it was 1994 that the world was going to end, also.
I can’t help but wonder how much money Mr. Camping is making off this nonsense.
To have to answer to the Lord God Almighty on the judgment seat for this should be warning enough to not do this…then again, does Mr. Camping have any love and respect for the Lord?
Oops, most of that has been already said…
I would like to make a date setting prediction though…
I’m still going to have to install sewer pipe in June : (
Well, we are almost there. Atheists are planning “Rapture Parties.” It will give the MSM more to mock all Christians.
I suspect Camping will claim Christ came “in the Spirit” and a new denomination will be born.
Bob,
I think it would be hard to pull a new denomination off since he also predicts the end of the world five months later.
More likely he will find a minor flaw in his math again and set a new date. We shall see.
Its is having the effect I figured. A mocking of Christians that believe in a soon Rapture. But then again the Bible predicts that will happen in the last days even from among those identified with Christianity.
Rick is probably becoming tired of supporting Todd – He may be able to arrange a long term leadership role with Harold. Todd can lead the Alpha classes.
Interesting article @ WND on the H.Camping hoopla’.
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=300269
Funny how Camping won’t allow anyone to take over his assets beings that he won’t be here May 22nd.
This morning in church my pastor said he was in a restaurant last night where a group of athiest’s were having a party celebrating the rapture that didn’t happen. How tragic that Harold Camping and those who believed him should bring redicule on the true Christians. Do none of these people ever check THE BIBLE , JESUS said watch and pray , but no man knoweth when the Son of Man cometh. I hope God will use this foolishness of date setting to bring all of us to be more faithful in studying HIS WORD. BLESSINGS to ALL!!!!!!!
Yea, the atheists are having a field day right now.
The forums for the news articles are littered with antagonistic berating of Christians…the atheists say they are living in the “real world” while the Christians are “getting what they deserve”…according to them.
Camping’s sudden disappearance, to me, shows he doesn’t even have the decency to admit he was wrong…or maybe he’s off spending all the money he made in his apostasy.
It is good to see the Calvary Bible Church from Milpitas, CA going up to Oakland to try to help those abandoned by Camping.
Retirement was probably Camping’s plan all along since he is getting too old to broadcast so he probably found a hideaway to retire. The real question now is will those working for his Family Radio network get someone more orthodox, sell out, or get another nut case?
This is sad – but probably represents only 10% of the problems created by Harold.
From Yahoo:Eileen Heuwetter was shocked to find out that her aunt left the majority of her estate to Family Radio, the group responsible for the doomsday warnings that the world would end on May 21. She and her sister were each left $25,000 from their aunt’s estate. The rest is going to Family Radio.
If the family contests this insanity through the legal system my bet is that will win.