Its the end of the world!

I'm putting in out there: Harold Camping is wrong. You can quote me now. I do not think Judgement Day is a bit over a month away (hey if it comes before, I don't think anyone will post on this blog to saying I was wrong so its a bit of a win win). If you don't know, Camping has mathematical proof that Jesus is gong to Rapture His church on the 21st May 2011. I don't believe in the Rapture, but I do believe in the logic of maths and the Bible so lets check out his argument:

1. Noah loaded all the animals onto the Ark in 4990 BC 
2. "do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." (2 Peter 3:8)
3. "after seven days the waters of the flood came upon the earth." (Genesis 7:10). Based off point two these seven days really equal 7000 years
4. 7000 - 4990 = 2010
5. There was no year 0 so add 1 to 2010 = 2011
6. " in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened." (Genesis 7:11). When you convert the 17th day of the 2nd month in the Jewish calendar you get May 21st
7. Therefore the rapture is going to happen on May 21st 2011

It is all so clear! The scary thing is, I am not making this up. There are so many things wrong with this I just don't know where to start.

Let just assume the first premise, although to me it seems more like an assertion than anything else. There are a host of other suggestions for the Ark going as far as 2348 BC by James Ussher which is a 2600 year error of margin.

The whole "day is like a thousand years and a thousand years is like a day" is not some exact mathematical conversion formula to work out the ratio of God's time to human time. It just doesn't work (and is probably kinda the point of the verse in the first place). The verse also says that a thousand years is like a day. I don't know why this guy doesn't also apply this logic to the six days of creation and immediately assume creation took 6000 years, after all 2 Peter 3:8 says so (by his own logic).

Also if a day is equal to a thousand years (which the text doesn't say - it says it is like not equal to a thousand years) then does that mean an hour is equal to 41 years? I think Camping needs to work out what time the Ark set sail, as if it wasn't at midnight on the 17th day of the second month but at 1am. If there is one hour difference in this equation the Rapture could come in 2052 instead. You might not think that logic is fair as after all they didn't have our 24 hours measurements back then, but they also didn't have "May" or 2 Peter either. Again, we can assume that the Ark was around the Middle East somewhere, which is between +2 and + 4 GMT and America is -8 to -4 GMT. I hope Camping catered for time zones as well...

I also have no idea about the connection between the Rapture and Noah. Maybe the whole "as in the days of Noah" thing that Jesus says in Matthew 24 and Luke 17, but that very same passage also has Jesus explaining what those days of Noah looked like: "they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage" (Matt 24:26-27; Luke 17:26-27) which doesn't really tie His second coming to a particular date or generation down, as for a long time now (throughout all of history maybe?) people have been eating, drinking, getting marrying and divorced....

I also don't know why the focus on the seven days it took to load the ark. Why no focus on the rain that fell for 40 days? "Forty days" is mentioned at least four times in the Noah story or why not look at the two mentions of the150 days the water hung around for? If that is the case Camping could be out by 40,000 to 150,000 years!

If this guy takes the Bible so seriously maybe he should read:

"when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him." (Deut 18:22) 

"when the word of that prophet comes to pass, then it will be known that the Lord has truly sent the prophet.” (Jer 28:9) 

"When this comes—and come it will!—then they will know that a prophet has been among them." (Ezek 33:33)

You might say, based off the above verses, that maybe we should give Camping the benefit of the doubt and wait for the time to come to pass, so we can then call him on it. You know, not pounce on the guy. The thing is, Camping already said Jesus was going to come back on September 6, 1994! (article, video) He was wrong then, so I think that means he isn't a prophet. My money is on him being wrong on May 21, 2011.

While writing this rant, I found another mathematical proof Camping uses to get to May 21, 2011 as being the date for the end of the world. I might also spend some time looking at that other proof.