Nuclear attack in New York on June 9 or 10?
The Lord's Witnesses press release is headlined: "Bible scholars predict an 85 percent probability of a nuclear terrorist attack on the UN complex in Manhattan on June 9 or 10"
Robert Duncan
Robert Duncan
June 6, 2006
If it wasn't enough worrying about all the baby anti-Christs being born today, now there is religious group claiming that a nuclear attack could be launched on New York before the weekend.
"The Lords' Witnesses in all seriousness therefore beg everyone in NYC of any religious or anti religious persuasion whatsoever, who has faith that God can predict the future, to leave NYC before the second weekend in June and, if interested, to read all about our great Biblical understandings from some other place! And more to the point, at some time after that weekend," a press release from The Lord's Witnesses reads.
The Lord's Witnesses press release is headlined: "Bible Scholars Predict an 85 Percent Probability of a Nuclear Terrorist Attack on the UN Complex in Manhattan on June 9 or 10."
There are various flavors of End Time theology, stressed to a certain degree more by some Evangelical Protestants, and much less so by Orthodox and Catholic Christians. That said, there are other Doomsday Cults that take the Protestant-tinged End Times theology to a different level.
End Time's Theology, and in particular belief in The Rapture, is a historically "modern" Protestant theological interpretation dating to the 1830s, that Christ will raise born-again Christians bodily into the heavens, to avoid entirely or partially the Tribulation. The Rapture should not be confused with the Second Coming of Christ. It should be noted, that for some Christians, such as Catholics, the End Times began with the death and resurrection of Christ. In that sense, they would argue that we are already living the Tribulation.
There has been much talk among End Time aficionados over the fact that today is the sixth day of the sixth month of the sixth year, or 666, the sign of the Beast (and never mind that the number is rounded up from 616) and taken from the New Testament book Revelations. It's reported that many women actually had their pregnancies brought forward so as to avoid giving birth today.
For what it matters, the Catholic Church — and most mainline Christian faiths — have said such bunk is pure superstition.
Interestingly enough, however, trying to decipher supposed "Bible Code" in a Cabalistic manner is related to Christian Zionism and Christian Nationalism, and which it could be argued aims at ultimately bringing about the battle-to-end-all-battles, Armageddon, and usher in the End Times.
In this case however, it would appear that this "Bible Code" press release is from a fringe group, rather than any particular Christian Nationalism related organization or mainline Christian denomination.
First off, the "Bible Scholars" quoted in the press release are people who belong to the same group that issued the press release — The Lord's Witnesses, and who in fact run the True Bible Code website — a quick glance of which informs us that "there will be 7 nuclear terrorist bombs before Armageddon."
How is this known? From reading the secret codes inside the Bible, according to this group.
According to the Lord's Witnesses, "The Bible is written in a symbolic code. But it is not the New York Times best selling Hebrew Letter Skip code of Michael Drosnin and it is not the hollywood (sic) blockbusting fictional Da Vinci code of Dan Brown. It is the symbolism of Daniel's visions, Joseph's Dreams and Jesus' parables. It applies to the whole Bible, Old and New Testaments. The Bible is end times prophecy written as history. This code research has been sent to 200 academic statisticians around the world for their opinion. So far none of them have been able to refute it."
One might argue that none of the statisticians probably even bothered to try — and instead round-filed the whole thing.
How bizarre can theories get when trying to read Bible code? Well according to the Lord's Witnesses, the dates for the New York nuclear attacks are worked out as following:
"They have found that all Bible accounts obey certain grammatical rules. In particular the number of nouns which act as nouns in every Bible account is divisible by the number of meanings that the account has, and the total number of both distinct nouns acting as nouns and distinct possessive noun chains (which contain a noun acting as a noun and other nouns acting as possessive adjectives) in each account is likewise divisible by the number of meanings of that account. They have discovered that every Bible account has encoded within it the number of extra symbolic meanings that the account has. Some bible accounts have no extra symbolic meanings, others have as many as 6 extra symbolic meanings," reads the Lord's Witness note.
According to the Lord's Witness note, which is designed to look like a regular press release, "They have verified the two noun counting rules which they believe every Bible account obeys for the first 227 little =Bible stories in the four gospels of the new testament and found them to be true in each case."
Who Are The Lord's Witnesses?
If you haven't noticed yet, there does appear to be a similarity between the Lord's Witnesses and the Jehovah's Witnesses, if for no other reason than the name.
And that's where things get a bit interesting. According to Reachout Trust, the Lord's Witnesses aren't just another Bible code site, but in fact they are a group that has splintered off the Jehovah's Witnesses.
"After studying the site from one end to another, which is no mean feat as it is well over 300 pages all bigger than A4 in size, I have come to the conclusion that I have found another break off from the Jehovah's Witnesses. They call themselves "The Lord's Witnesses," and hold public meetings every Tuesday at 7:30 at the Churchill Hotel, Portman Square, London W1 (usually in Boardroom 1) and have even recently started to distribute 10,000 730-paged books containing all their information," according to an article on the Reachout Trust site by Shaun Aisbitt.
Aisbitt further notes that, "The leader/prophet is a man called Gordon Ritchie who believes he has been sanctified to unseal the book of Daniel and believes he has been divinely inspired to reveal the world will end on 14 Nissan 2008 (21 March 2008). Their web site along with the new glossy covered book appears to be the vehicle they intend to use to attract prospective converts."
According to Aisbitt, the Lord's Witnesses deny the possibility of the Trinity, and claim that there was a pre-Adamic and Eve race, that Jesus' body was inhabited by the archangel Michael, and John the Baptist's body was inhabited by the angel Gabriel.
Aisbitt also says the Lord's Witnesses believe that Jesus was created from God the same way as Eve was from Adam's side, that the Jehovah's Witnesses are now apostate, God is married to the Holy Spirit who is female, that Jared and Methuselah were sons of God like Jesus and that Pentecostals are brainwashed.
I wonder why they have it in for the Pentecostals?
Relatedly, according to a post by "Melancholymuse" at the E-Jehovah's Witness online website, the Lord's Witnesses "mix some Mormon, Jehovah's Witness, and other doctrine into a very strange belief system. For example, they believe that if you use a condom during unmarried sex then it is NOT fornication (they believe the semen has to be actually deposited into the woman and left there). IF you are with another man's wife, it isn't adultery either, so long as the condom works. If the condom breaks, then it is adultery AND implied homosexuality (because the guy is uncovering the skirt of the husband)"... amongst other beliefs.
In other words, the Lord's Witnesses cannot by either the Apostles Creed nor the Nicene Creed standard be declared to be a "Christian" organization.
With that in mind, I suggest instead of fighting a traffic jam leaving New York this Friday, that people sit back and worry about much more important things, such as the opening ceremony of the World Cup.
Besides working for many years as a journalist, including a stint as a bullfighting photographer, Robert Duncan is an executive board member for Spain's oldest and largest foreign press body, the Club Internaciónal de Prensa. He is also honorary vice-president for the Organización de Periodismo y Comunicación Ibero-Americana, as well as the editor for Spero News. He blogs at Pelican Press.
© Copyright 2006 by Robert Duncan
http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/duncan/060606