To many, "Edgar Whisenant" has recently become a household
name. Whisenant, a former NASA rocket engineer turned prophecy
teacher, became famous through a booklet that included two of his
works: _88 Reasons Why the Rapture Could Be in 1988_ and _On
Borrowed Time._[1] In this booklet, Whisenant predicted that
Jesus would return to rapture His church sometime during the
Jewish holiday of Rosh-Hashanah in 1988, which was from sunset,
September 11, to sunset, September 13. Before those dates, The
World Bible Society, which published the booklet, printed 3.2
million copies[2] and distributed 200,000 of them to pastors
throughout the United States.[3]
When the September prediction failed, Whisenant updated the
time to October 3. Now that date, too, has fallen through.
Whisenant nevertheless remains undaunted: "The evidence is all
over the place that it is going to be in a few weeks anyway."[4]
What has been the response to Whisenant's predictions?
Thousands took the booklet seriously, some even quitting their
jobs to prepare for the rapture. Attendance increased in some
churches.[5] Many Christians shrugged the booklet off as being
part of a fanatic fringe. Many others, though, while not
accepting the specific predictions, praised the booklet for
reminding them of the imminence of the Rapture. Norvell Olive,
Executive Director of the World Bible Society, used just such a
reason to justify publishing the booklet: "One cannot deny the
complacency of so many, and nothing brings about the purification
of His people more than the expectation of His eminent [sic]
return."[6] Olive further makes the incredible estimate that
100,000 people have been converted as a result of the booklet.[7]
(We might also estimate that a great majority of these supposed
converts will lose their faith if 1988 fails to bring the
Rapture.)
However they responded, it sadly appeared that most
Christians were unable to discern _why_ Whisenant's reasoning was
biblically unsound. In the following pages we will see that
Whisenant misinterprets several key verses that have bearing on
whether or not we can predict the date of Jesus' second coming,
wrests biblical phrases out of their contexts, and builds his
predictions on shaky assumptions about symbols and dates....
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