The End of the world

The 2011 end times prediction made by Christian radio host Harold Camping states that the Rapture (in premillennial theology, the taking up into heaven of God's elect people) will take place on May 21, 2011 at 6 p.m. local time (the rapture will sweep the globe time zone by time zone) and that the end of the world as we know it will take place five months later on October 21, 2011. Camping, president of the Family Radio Christian network, claims the Bible as his source and says May 21 will be the date of the Rapture and the day of judgment "beyond the shadow of a doubt".[5] His followers claim that around 200 million people (approximately 3% of the world's population) will be raptured. Camping's predictions have not been embraced by most other Christian groups; some have explicitly rejected them. A group of church leaders noted that all of them have scheduled services as usual for Sunday, May 22. Camping previously claimed that the world would end in September 1994. Camping has presented several numerological arguments, or biblical "proofs", in favor of the May 21st end time. A civil engineer by training, Camping states he has attempted to work out mathematically-based prophecies in the Bible for decades. In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle he explained "... I was an engineer; I was very interested in the numbers. I'd wonder, 'Why did God put this number in, or that number in?' It was not a question of unbelief; it was a question of, 'There must be a reason for it.' " As early as 1970, Camping dated the Great Flood to 4990 BC. Taking the prediction in Genesis 7:4 ("Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth") to be a prediction of the end of the world, and combining it with 2 Peter 3:8 ("With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day"), Camping concludes that the end of the world will occur in 2011, 7000 years from 4990 BC. Camping takes the 17th day of the second month mentioned in Genesis 7:11 to be the 21st May and hence predict the rapture to occur on this date. Another argument that Camping uses in favor of the May 21st date is as follows: According to Camping, the number five equals "atonement", the number ten equals "completeness", and the number seventeen equals "heaven". Christ is said to have hung on the cross on April 1, 33 AD. The time between April 1, 33 AD and April 1, 2011 is 1,978 years. If 1,978 is multiplied by 365.2422 days (the number of days in a solar year, not to be confused with the lunar year), the result is 722,449. The time between April 1 and May 21 is 51 days. 51 added to 722,449 is 722,500. (5 × 10 × 17)2 or (atonement × completeness × heaven)2 also equals 722,500. Thus, Camping concludes that 5 × 10 × 17 is telling us a "story from the time Christ made payment for our sins until we're completely saved." Camping has not been precise about the exact timing of the event, saying that "maybe" we can know the hour. He has suggested that "days" in the Bible refer to daylight hours particularly. Another account says the "great earthquake" which signals the start of the Rapture will "start in the Pacific Rim at around the 6 p.m. local time hour, in each time zone.