SENTINEL WATCH March 6, 2006 Issue

ABOUT ARMAGEDDON

Frederick R. Andresen

"IT'S CLOSER THAN YOU THINK" was the tag line of the 1998 sci-fi disaster movie, Armageddon, in which a doomsday asteroid was heroically diverted from hitting the earth by oildrillers dressed like astronauts. Led by determined super-hero Bruce Willis, they drilled a hole in the approaching asteroid (boom, boom, boom, hear the music throb?) and blew it apart with a nuclear explosion. Somehow the suspension of disbelief required in the first few minutes of any film failed to ignite, at least for most I suspect.

But an impending end-of-time mythology by whatever means persists today, as it has forever. Why? History records that in 70 A.D. the Roman army gathered near Mount (Har) Megiddo near Haifa, Israel, in preparation for the eventual destruction of Jerusalem. Hence the Hebrew word Armageddon (relating to the name of the mountain on the Megiddo plain), which appears in the Bible (see Rev. 16:16). This word has come to mean the climax of an assured universal doom and destruction.

Supported by selected Biblical and mystical references, the fear of a coming global doomsday is perpetuated today. It is only one of many such disastrous predictions in both Western and Eastern early cultures. Over time, the countdowns have come and gone with little apology. But there is always tomorrow, right?