So, what if the rapture actually happened, and we didn’t know anybody who made the first cut?

An old gent named Harold Camping predicted that the rapture would occur on May 21, 2011 so I did myself some figuring and we had a little fun on Facebook. So this one’s not a sermon.

OK, so what if the rapture actually happens today? But just suppose that the number of the righteous included, is not everyone who has an I ❤ Jesus bumper sticker, but just the old number from Revelation, 144,000. Let’s take Mr. Camping’s span of 7000 years since Noah as when righteous people might come from. Assuming, for the sake of staying away from higher actuarial/exegetical mathematics than I am comfortable with, that there is an even distribution over time, there would be 1440 righteous people alive at any given time, if you use 70 year generations (i.e. 100 generations over 7000 years) and only 823 if the generation is figured at 40 years (175 generations).

Thus, there would only be between 750 and 2000 people disappear in this rapture gizmo OVER THE ENTIRE WORLD. Thus something like 1 or 2 people out of 10 million. That many people go quietly missing for a while everyday, and usually it’s not reported (cause many people don’t care and others know the people will show up again)–So maybe there was a rapture and none of us know anybody who made the first cut.
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Anne Lane Witt, Ronald Young and 2 others like this.

Andrew Kadel
May 21, 2011 at 4:05pm · Like

Jean Mornard Whoa! That’s some bodacious math you’ve got there, Drew!
May 21, 2011 at 4:21pm · Like

Robyn Barnes this may be the best rapture I’ve heard of
May 21, 2011 at 4:25pm · Like

Michael E. McCue Oh, how silly of me, I just thought that 144,000 was a numerical metaphor. 12 tribes of Israel 12×12=144. That is a gross by the way. if that is not bad enough some of my parishioners(I mean inmates) are students in the Family Radio School of the Bible and I have unknowingly helped them with their enrollment. But then again, how many free Bible Correspondence programs are there that lead to an unaccredited ARE degree. That is Associate of Religious Education. If there was a free unaccredited Episcopal Bible Correspondence program with free cassette tapes that the men could do in their cells I would steer them toward it. Well I am still here, the world seems to be still here, maybe I had better prepare a sermon for tomorrow after all.

May 21, 2011 at 4:42pm ·

Andrew Kadel @Michael McCue – you know the line from the old spiritual “Everybody talkin’ ’bout heaven ain’t goin’ there…” I’m just sayin, maybe it’s even less than that– which, ironically can be good news to some of those inmates who have consistently been told that they are the ones going to hell. …I think that a decent exegetical case could be made (at least in the context of unnaccredited correspondence courses) that the ONLY ONES to be saved would be 144000 inmates. Let’s think about that. I was talking with one of ours that graduated this week, and she is preparing to be a prison chaplain. I thought about you.

May 21, 2011 at 4:50pm · Like · 1

Michael E. McCue Thanks Drew, by the way, since we made tobacco contraband and only have non-fat milk in the chow hall(no more 2%) the convicts may be the healthiest people in California. Who is this student who is going to be a prison chaplain, I’d like to talk to her.
May 21, 2011 at 4:57pm · Like