Vacation Plans?

Tetragrammaton - 1109 A.D. work Dialogi Contra Iudaeos ("Dialogues against the Jews") by Petrus Alphonsi 

Anyone planning to book that long awaited vacation or cruise next year might hearken to the words of noted soothsayer Harold Camping and not wait too damn long. According to the biblical expert, it is possible that the earth and existence as we know it, will soon lay in ruins!

So saith Camping, a Bay Area biblical scholar and numerologist.  The 88 year old Camping, according to this article in the San Francisco Gate, who was trained as a civil engineer, believes that every word of the bible has special numeric significance and that he has uncovered the rosetta stone that portends the doom of mankind in the holy book.

Now, I am not going to necessarily buy into any of this mumbo jumbo but as a prudent person you still might want to get your library books returned before May 21, 2011. That is the day that Camping says the third planet will meet its ultimate demise. He has been doing some serious biblical number crunching for going on 80 years and his recipe for earth's swan song runs thusly:


"Christ hung on the cross April 1, 33 A.D.," he says. "Now go to April 1 of 2011 A.D., and that's 1,978 years."
Multiply 1,978 by 365.2422 days - the number of days in each solar year, not to be confused with a calendar year.
Note that April 1 to May 21 encompasses 51 days. Add 51 to the sum of previous multiplication total, and it equals 722,500.
Camping realized that (5 x 10 x 17) x (5 x 10 x 17) = 722,500.
(Atonement x Completeness x Heaven), squared.
"Five times 10 times 17 is telling you a story," Camping said. "It's the story from the time Christ made payment for your sins until you're completely saved.
"I tell ya, I just about fell off my chair when I realized that," Camping said.

Now I am a naturally cynical person but how can you argue when you run into something as irrefutable and rock solid as this higher math stuff?

Of course, this is not Camping's first swing at the apocalyptic pinata. In 1994, Camping and his cadre of true believers holed up inside Alameda's Veterans Memorial Building to await the return of the messiah, an event he had foreseen for several years. His minions awaited for their e-ticket to the rapture for an entire night, freshly washed and dressed in their sunday best, only to sheepishly return to their daily lives after the end of the world failed to fire, an occurrence Camping blames on a mere mathematical error.

But now he is confident that he has gotten the numbers right and that the mayans are all wet with this 2012 business. I trust that each and every one of you will you his or her remaining time wisely.