Apocalyptic mania received another setback today. The latest prediction of the End Time has come and gone without incident: no earthquakes, no one Left Behind, and no Four Horsemen. But wait, the Mayan calendar predicts that the apocalypse will occur on December 21, 2012! Another countdown! If this is a (fair & balanced) thousand years of folly, so be it.
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Other Times The World Was Going To End And Didn’t (Does This Make Us Due?)
By Alexandra Beggs
Tag Cloud of the following article
According to advertisements on the subway and T-shirts of people on the street, the Day of Judgment is tomorrow. If you’re asking yourself “how can we, mere mortals, predict such a momentous event when we can barely predict whether or not it will rain,” don’t. The answer is that some people just have the prophetic gift. Harold Camping, the president of Family Radio—a “Christian educational network” that pulls in over $100 million every year in income—did some complicated Bible-derived math, and determined that May 21 is exactly 7,000 years after the flood that Noah made famous back in 4990 B.C. Add in a few verses about the Wrath of God, the Seven Seals, and a dash of worldwide destruction, and boom! You’ve got yourself a Judgment Day. Now, Camping has been wrong before, and he admits his math was slightly off (back in 1994)—but not unlike Santa, he’s checked it twice and for those who have been naughty—it isn’t going to be nice.
For the skeptics out there, here is a compilation of the Apocalypse’s greatest hits—mostly misses:
1184: Joachim of Fiore, an Italian monk, reads the scripture—especially the Book of Revelation—as a sort of Magic 8-Ball that always lands on “My sources say: end of the world really soon.” He invented a complex, Glenn Beck–esque, chart system that separated time into three stages, the end of the second stage (the Age of the Son—and mankind) would be between 1200 and 1260, and the world would enter into the Stage of the Spirit.
How he dealt with the embarrassment when his date came and went with no Apocalypse: he was already dead.
1650: James Ussher, an Anglican bishop, writes a chronology of the world that predicts the Second Coming of Christ would be in 2000.
How he dealt with the embarrassment when his date came and went with no Apocalypse: Taking a page from Joachim, he was long dead.
1844: William Miller, a Baptist minister from Massachusetts, wrangles up 100,000 followers and announces that Christ’s great comeback tour will take place between March 21, 1843 and March 21, 1844.
How he dealt with the embarrassment when his date came and went with no Apocalypse: “I actually meant October 22.”
How he dealt with that embarrassment: The Millerites called it “The Great Disappointment”, but a handful of members went on to found the Seventh Day Adventist movement, who still hand out tiny Bibles at the mall.
1859: John Nelson Darby, a British minister, finds a wide audience in America. Without naming a specific date, Darby does preach that the end is inevitable. He coins the term “Rapture,” meaning that when the Second Coming takes place, the devout Christians will take the express elevator to Heaven where they will watch the rest of us suffering on Earth for seven-years.
How he dealt with the embarrassment when his date came and went with no Apocalypse: No date, so technically he’s still in the clear.
1914: Charles Taze Russell, who founded Zion’s Watch Tower Tract Society in 1844 (which later became Jehovah’s Witnesses), believed 1914 would be the year of the Second Coming. Russell also noted that there was an “invisible return” in 1874.
How they dealt with the embarrassment when his date came and went with no Apocalypse: Changed their name and moved on. Also noted that 1914 did end the so-called “Gentile Times.” There just weren’t any giant floods/earthquakes/horsemen.
1970: Hal Lindsey publishes the bestseller, The Late, Great Planet Earth, which has sold millions of copies. Although he doesn’t give a specific date for the end of the world, he does prophesize all of the signs that will lead up to the Second Coming. None of these include that his book will only get 2.5 stars on Amazon.
How he dealt with the embarrassment when his date came and went with no Apocalypse: No date, no worries. As for the May 21, 2011 apocalypse, Lindsey’s website announces, “I want all of my friends to know that I AM AGAINST any form of predicting a specific day that the end of this age and the Rapture will occur.”
1982: Pat Robertson, the televangelist and one time presidential hopeful, announced in 1976 that there would be “judgment on the world” in 1982.
How he dealt with the embarrassment when his date came and went with no Apocalypse: With so many subsequent crazy pronouncements and controversies, this one is practically forgotten.
September 1988: Edgar Whisenant, who had been an engineer at NASA, published 88 Reasons Why The Rapture Will be in 1988. Like Lindsey, he sold millions of copies.
How he dealt with the embarrassment when his date came and went with no Apocalypse: “It will be next year.” (He ultimately put off Judgment Day three times, to 1989, 1993, and 1994.)
September 6, 1994: This was the first apocalyptic prediction by Harold Camping, president of Family Radio.
How he dealt with the embarrassment when his date came and went with no Apocalypse: As told to ABC News, he was “thrown off a correct calculation because of some verses in Matthew 24.” Was he saying God made... a mistake? In his defense, the Book of Matthew is like the AP Calculus of the scriptures.
May 21, 2011: Harold Camping is absolutely positive this is going to be Judgment Day. His organization, Family Radio Inc., funds extensive advertising that has fueled the Apocalypse hysteria.
What he plans to do on May 22 if things don’t go as planned: As told to New York magazine: “It. Is. Going. To. Happen.” Ω
[Houston native Alexandra Beggs majors in English and journalism at New York University, and worked as an intern at The New Yorker.]
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