A San Francisco evangelist has set a firm date for the Rapture: May 21, 2011.
Harold Camping lets out a hearty chuckle when he considers the people who believe the world will end in 2012.
“That date has not one stitch of biblical authority,” Camping says from the Oakland office where he runs Family Radio, an evangelical station that reaches listeners around the world. “It’s like a fairy tale.”
The real date for the end of times, he says, is in 2011.
That gives everyone 16 months to get their affairs in order. Camping bases his prediction on a complicated system of biblical code he developed himself, and (he says) on the 722,500 days between the crucifixion of Jesus and 5/21/2011.
One problem: Camping also predicted the return of Jesus Christ on September 6, 1994. (He now says he “may have made a mathematical error.”) But his followers are confident that this time he’s got it right.
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