Yes, from the opening letters of Genesis, b-r-sh-y-t, traditionally rendered, “In the beginning,” C. I’m a Hebrew Language Scholar: The Berisheet Passover Prophecy is Rubbish Instead, it is to expose the latest, completely unfounded, pre-trib prophecy, especially since it claims to deduce all this information from the first word of the first line of the first book of the Hebrew Bible. And the purpose of this article is not to debate the pre-trib doctrine. That being said, I do not divide over this issue, and some of the finest Christians on the planet today believe in a pre-trib rapture. (For more on this, see the book I co-authored with leading New Testament scholar Craig Keener, Not Afraid of the Antichrist: Why We Don’t Believe in a Pretribulational Rapture.) Instead, I understand from the Scriptures that the Church will meet Jesus in the air when He returns for the world to see, and we will accompany Him back to earth at that time. And many Christians believe this is true!įor the record, I don’t believe in a secret, pre-trib rapture at all, at any time in the future. The clock is ticking rapidly, and we’ve got a few months, at most, before we’re out of here. The latest, utterly ridiculous prediction is that the rapture will occur before the end of this year. Some Say the Rapture Will Happen This Year

It was only that final failure, only exacerbated by his age (he was about 90 at the time), that put an end to the folly. What is most striking in this sad account is that, despite his previous failures in setting the date for Judgment Day (not to mention some bizarre doctrines that he espoused), many thousands still believed his 2011 prophecy, which received wide attention. In 2005, Camping predicted the Second Coming of Christ to May 21, 2011, whereupon the saved would be taken up to heaven in the rapture, and that ‘there would follow five months of fire, brimstone and plagues on Earth, with millions of people dying each day, culminating on October 21, 2011, with the final destruction of the world.’” When it failed to occur, he revised the date to September 29 and then to October 2. Then there was Harold Camping, who “first predicted that the Judgment Day would occur on or about September 6, 1994. It is even sadder, though, and more disturbing, when people actually think that, hidden in the first word of Genesis, is a prophecy that Jesus will remove the church from the Earth by the end of 2023.

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