Why Judgment Day Didn't Come: Why Harold Camping's Predictions Failed

By Mark Koltko-Rivera

For many years, Harold Camping taught through radio shows produced by Family Radio of Oakland, California that the Rapture of the righteous into heaven would occur on May 21, and that the end of the Earth and the universe itself would occur on October 21, of 2011.

The failure of Camping’s predictions no doubt shook many of his followers. However, even on the basis that Camping used to validate his predictions—the Bible itself—these predictions were simply wrong.

Harold Camping’s predictions about the dates of the Rapture and the end of the world were based on a series of grave errors. First among these errors is a deeply flawed, even bizarre set of teachings regarding the historical timeline of the Bible. Secondly, Mr. Camping’s teachings about Biblical symbolism are shot through with logical and theological holes. But perhaps the worst problem with Mr. Camping’s teachings is that they are based on a very shaky understanding of Biblical teaching regarding both the interpretation of the Bible, and the nature of prophecy. I demonstrate all of this from the text of the Bible itself, which I consider to be the most powerful refutation of Mr. Camping’s ideas.

This sort of thing matters. People who expect the world to end have been known to commit murder and suicide, and to take other drastic, ill-considered courses of action. False predictions of the Judgment and so forth bring down ridicule upon Christianity and the Bible. A focus on false predictions distracts people from the real Christian message, and from the very real challenges that we face in today's world.

In the first section of this book, “The Claim,” I summarize Mr. Camping’s predictions and the rationale behind them. In the second section, “Why the Claim is Wrong,” I describe the errors that Mr. Camping made regarding biblical timelines and the interpretation of biblical symbolism. I also address the important question of whether Mr. Camping claimed to be a prophet. In the concluding section, I summarize the case against Mr. Camping’s predictions; I explain why predictions that claim to pinpoint the Judgment Day are popular; and I describe what it is that the Christian should do to gain accurate knowledge and avoid misinformation about that Judgment and the end times. (I also include full reference information for the citations to other literature that I make throughout this book, and I give a brief personal description of myself as the author.)

I am a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, who has received awards for my scholarly work in the psychology of religion and theory in psychology.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mark Koltko-Rivera
• Release date: May 21, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458055026

Mark Koltko-Rivera

Mark Koltko-Rivera holds a doctoral degree in counseling psychology from New York University. He writes in the areas of psychology, social issues, and religion and spirituality, which areas he has studied for many years. Dr. Koltko-Rivera is an elected Fellow of the American Psychological Association, three divisions of which have presented him with awards for his scientific and scholarly work. He has published significant scholarship regarding the psychology of worldviews, the psychology of religion, and humanistic psychology, as well as regarding Mormonism, and Freemasonry. He is also a graduate of Haverford College and Fordham University. Dr. Koltko-Rivera has taught statistics, counseling skills, and other courses at New York University, the University of Central Florida, and Hartford Seminary. Mark was born in 1956, and was raised on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City. He has lived for significant periods of time in central Florida and Japan. He now resides in Manhattan. He is both a Latter-day Saint (a "Mormon") and a Freemason.

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Why Judgment Day Didn’t Come

Why Harold Camping’s Predictions Failed

Mark E. Koltko-Rivera, Ph.D.

Published by Mark Koltko-Rivera at Smashwords

Copyright 2011 Mark Koltko-Rivera

Discover other titles by Mark Koltko-Rivera at his Smashwords Author Page

Much of the text of this book was previously published as Judgment Day? Not Now.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

The ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the rights and hard work of this author.

The cover photo of a Family Radio bus was taken on March 8, 2011, in New Orleans, by Bart Everson. It appears here under the provisions of the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic License. Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Judgment_Bus_New_Orleans_2011.jpg

Table of Contents

Dedication

Introduction

The Claim

Judgment Day, Rapture, and World’s End in 2011

Why the Claim Is Wrong

Biblical Timelines

Is Harold Camping Claiming to Be a Prophet?

Biblical Number Symbolism

Conclusions

How Do Harold Camping’s Predictions Hold Up?

Why Such Claims Are Popular

What the Christian Should Do

References

About the Author

Dedication

Dedicated to

Richard Luman

late chair of the

Department of Religion

Haverford College

Requiescat in Pacem, Magister et Amice

Introduction

In the spring of 2011, television and the Internet were abuzz with news about predictions concerning the imminent Day of Judgment. For quite some time, a man named Harold Camping has been teaching through radio shows produced by Family Radio of Oakland, California that the Rapture of the righteous into heaven would occur on May 21, and that the end of the Earth and the universe itself would occur on October 21, of 2011.

A tremendous effort was made by Family Radio to publicize Harold Camping’s predictions. For example, Family Radio sponsored Project Caravan, where believers in Mr. Camping’s predications travelled from city to city to warn of the coming Judgment Day; I believe that I saw some of these people myself at the Time Warner Center in Manhattan, on May 14, and they had earlier been sighted in Washington, DC (Rosenwald, 2001). The Los Angeles Times reported that Matt Tuter, long the producer of Mr. Camping’s radio show, thought that $100 million is a conservative figure for the money Camping has spent to publicize his predictions about May 21 (Goffard, 2011, para. 13).

And then it didn’t happen.

As the Los Angeles Times reported on its blogs early on May 21st in the Pacific Time Zone, as of 6 p.m. local time in New Zealand, none of the predicted devastation had occurred (Garvey, 2011).

And so it went around the world: no rapture was reported, and the apocalyptic earchquakes and destruction predicted by Harold Camping simply did not come to pass.

At this writing, it is still to early to tell what Harold Camping’s response is likely to be. My sense of the situation is that he will claim that his mathematical calculations were off in some fashion (much as he did when his prediction of the end in 1994 did not come to pass). Some of his pre-May 21 followers will accept this, and