End of the World Prophesies

The movie 2012 makes a big fuzz of the so called Mayan end-of-the-world prophesy. Maya is a civilization that flourished from 250 to 900 AD in Central Amercia. Some people believe that the Mayan civilization used a calendar which ends at the year 2012 AD. From this, some people speculate that the world will come to an end in 2012. Scholars, however, believe that there is not much ground to the speculation.

Prophesies about all sorts of things, including the end of the world, are nothing new. In China we also have numerous prophesies, including the famous 《推背图》and《燒餅歌》. 《推背图》 was supposed to have been written in the Tang Dynasty (618 - 907 AD), and 《燒餅歌》 in the Ming Dynasty (1368 - 1644 AD). Both of them are said to predict a lot of the historical events since then, including the defeat of the Nationalist government by the Communists, and the future demise of the Communist government. But there are so many wildly different versions of these books, and the interpretations are so tenuous, that it is very hard to make sense of them.

The Bible, on the other hand, has been proven to be very accurate. It included a lot of prophesies on the Jewish people, Jesus Christ, and the world. Much of the prophesies have already been realized. The Jews had been exiled, the first time around 722 BC. Some have returned, and exiled again. The last time around 70 AD. Some have returned again, almost 2000 years after the last exile. After two thousand years of exile, persecution, and near-extermination, they re-established Israel as a country in Palestine in 1948. And it is still there, still one of the most powerful and prosperous countries in the region. But the story has not finished yet.

Jesus Christ’s birth, suffering, death, and resurrection had been predicted, hundreds of years before he was born. Numerous people have studied the Bible meticulously and numerous people are convinced of its accuracy. That, in fact, it is the word of God. The Bible says Jesus Christ will come back to earth, at the end of the world as we know it. But no one knows when it will happen. We have to reconcile ourselves with God before it is too late.

[This is a photo of the Mediterranean coast, somewhere in Lebanon, I believe - as close to Israel as I ever got.]