Sell the house and quit your job — Jesus is coming back!
I know you’re thinking, “Haven’t I heard this countless times before?”
But wait, this time it’s different. I’m super-duper serious.
Harold Camping, a civil engineer by trade and president of the conservative Christian group “Family Radio,” invented a shoddy biblical numbers game to prove, without a doubt, that good ole’ JC is mounting up his white horse in the near future and heading our way.
And I mean real soon — May 21, to be exact.
That’s right folks, commencement is May 20, and the apocalypse will occur the next day.
While 2012 had previously been the accepted year of humanity’s unavoidable doom, it seems some eager beavers just couldn’t wait.
Camping’s eschatological pronouncement has put in a fast lane to the apocalypse.
Of course, this isn’t the first time someone has tried to set a date for man’s demise.
I suppose the first attempt came from Jesus himself, as reported in Mark 9 and Matthew 16. Next would most certainly be Paul, who based his entire ministry on the imminent return of the risen Lord.
Following their examples, many Christians have been obsessed with mankind’s destruction.
Notable in these countless failed predictors are Pope Innocent III, founder of the Mormon faith Joseph Smith, Seventh-day Adventist founder Ellen White and the innumerable failed dates published in the Jehovah’s Witness publication, “The Watchtower.”
But Camping’s prophecy is based on “sound” biblical calculations, which also consider Earth to be 13,000 years old.
Using some funky math, he dates Jesus’ crucifixion to April 1, 33 CE, tosses in some Bible Code nonsense and, eureka — now we know for sure when to expect the return of the Jewish cosmic zombie.
All joking aside, I can’t help but wonder how this charlatan has received so much media attention.
This is actually not Camping’s first rodeo. He also asserted the end of the world would occur on Sept. 6, 1994.
His followers gathered and held open their Bibles toward the heavens but to no raptured avail.
One would think deceiving people and giving them false hope would damage their prophesying credibility and cause some questioning the next time they cry “wolf.”
Not so in the Christian faith.
But, to provide some criticism of Camping’s claim, one only needs to understand where he’s getting his misinformation.
The basis for his prediction is a calculation made using numeric values ascribed to Hebrew letters.
This is much like Michael Drosnin’s best-seller, “The Bible Code,” which makes a complete mockery of biblical scholarship and fails to realize the fallacy of claiming the Bible is “unchanged.”
So, Camping has deciphered a nonexistent code in a book that has been redacted and changed throughout history, and he has no scholastic biblical education — not terribly surprising.
Meanwhile, droves of ignorant followers are devouring his prediction and spreading the word to the masses without ever questioning his credibility or motive.
Most importantly, it seems nobody has grasped the insanity of the claim itself. Camping proclaims the world is going to end and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. Only about 3 percent of humanity will be rescued from the literal doomsday scenario, and everyone else is just plain screwed.
As for me, I’ve beaten the apocalyptic horse for far too long.
If society wants to make famous those who only desire to see it burn and destroyed, then perhaps the time has indeed come for all things to be made new.
Amen. Come, Lord Jesus — any day now.
Andrew Robertson is a 24-year-old English writing and culture senior from Baton Rouge. Follow him on Twitter @TDR_Arobertson.