Harold Egbert Camping

Harold Egbert Camping (born July 19, 1921) is a Christian radio broadcaster and president of Family Radio, a California-based religious broadcasting network that spans more than 150 outlets in the United States of America as well as a website.

Camping's trademarks include his deep, sonorous voice coupled with a slow cadence. He has also used Bible-based numerology to predict dates for the end of the world. His most recent end times prediction was that the Rapture would occur on May 21, 2011 and that God would subsequently completely destroy the Earth and the universe five months later on October 21. He had previously predicted that the Rapture would occur in September 1994. Both of these predictions have been proven incorrect by the continued existence and sustainment of Earth's Human population.

In 1970, Camping published  Biblical Calendar of History , in which he dated the Creation of the world to the year 11,013 BC and the Flood to 4990 BC. This was in contrast to Bishop James Ussher's famous chronology, which placed creation at 4004 BC and the Flood at 2348 BC. Camping argued that Ussher's dates "agree neither with the Biblical nor the secular evidence" and thus Ussher's methodology was flawed.

Camping surmised that word in the Old Testament scriptures "begat" did not necessarily imply an immediate father-son relationship, as had been assumed by Ussher and others who hadn't fully studied the biblical timeline according to incomplete information. Camping noted the use of the phrase "called his name" (Hebrew qara shem), found three times in Genesis 4-5, which he characterized as a "clue phrase" to indicate an immediate father-son relationship. Despite the fact that this "clue phrase" does not occur regarding Noah naming Shem, Camping maintains that there is enough evidence to otherwise conclude that they did in fact have an immediate father-son relationship. He also points out the use of qara shem in Isaiah 7:14, where we are told, "Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

Camping assumes that since qara shem implies an immediate father-son relationship (e.g., Adam-Seth, Seth-Enosh and Lamech-Noah), all other relationships between the Antediluvian patriarchs (except Noah-Shem) are of ancestors and their distant descendants. That is, when one patriarch died, the next one who is mentioned was not his son but was actually a distant multi-great grandson who was born in that same year, thus Camping's concept of the "reference patriarch," i.e., various events are referenced to a specific year of a particular patriarch's life as a means of keeping an accurate chronological record (in much the same way we reference historical events by year to the birth of Christ). Despite the fact that there is no evidence that any ancient civilization kept track of time in this way,Camping uses this concept as the backbone of his chronological view of Biblical history.

Harold Family Radio

In 1961, Family Radio began the Open Forum program, a live weeknight call-in program that Camping hosts. Listeners call in primarily with questions about the meaning of certain passages from the Bible, and Camping answers them by means of interpretations, often with reference to other Biblical passages. Occasionally the questions pertain to general Christian doctrine, such as the nature of sin and salvation, and to matters of everyday life conduct, such as marriage, sexual morality, and education. This program has continued to the present time and is broadcast on the more than 150 stations owned by Family Radio in the United States. The Open Forum is also translated into many foreign languages and together with other Family Radio programming is broadcast worldwide via shortwave station WYFR, a network of AM and FM radio stations, a cable television station, and the Internet.

Family Radio runs various programs on its radio stations. Programs that do not conform to Camping's understanding of the Biblical principle of comparing scripture with scripture (1 Corinthians 2:13) are normally removed from programming upon discovery. Before Camping started teaching that the "Church Age" had ended, programs produced outside of Family Radio were welcome provided they did not accept any "extra-Biblical revelation", and were associated with teachings accepted by the historic Christian faith. Now Camping refuses any ministry associated with the organized church. These programs can be heard by radio, satellite, television, short wave and Internet broadcasts.

His organization also utilizes numerous low-power television signals, for example WFME-TV digital television channel 66 in the New York City area. As of April, 2009, that transmitter has been configured to send out ten separate subchannels, with the first (66-1) carrying the main video at a low quality 480i, the second and third (66-2 and 66-3) sending out a blank video image and, respectively, carrying the audio of "Family Radio East" and "Family Radio West". The other seven have no video and are a mix of different audio content, mostly of a religious nature, and NOAA Weather Radio on 66-9.

Silent as Judgment Day hours tick

Harold family Radio, the Christian stations network headed by Harold Camping which had spread his message of an approaching doomsday, was on Saturday playing recorded church music and devotional messages unrelated to the apocalypse.

Camping previously made a failed prediction Jesus Christ would return to Earth in 1994.

In his latest pronouncement, he had said doomsday would begin in Asia, but with midnight local time come and gone in Tokyo and Beijing and those cities already in the early hours of May 22, there was no sign of the apocalypse.

The Oakland, California, headquarters of the network of 66 U.S. stations, which has international affiliates and had posted billboards around the country warning of a May 21 Judgment Day, were shuttered with a sign in the door that read "This Office is Closed. Sorry we missed you!"

The headquarters, which appears to be normally closed on Saturday, was also shuttered on Friday.

"If it will be"

It was a sunny day in downtown Ferndale when I was first introduced to Family Radio by a rather conspicuous mobile billboard with a rather casual message: "Save the date, May, 21, 2011, Judgment Day." It was the largest invite I had ever received and I did not plan on attending – I had to work.

And I know what you are thinking because I am thinking it, too — why Saturday? Why not Monday morning or Tuesday afternoon, or even Sunday morning when I will want the world to end anyway because of my massive hangover. But according to Bible scholar Harold Camping, Judgment Day waits for no one.

Camping, 89, is the president of the nonprofit Christian religious radio network Family Radio, based in Oakland, CA. He is responsible for discovering – and being very vocal, if I may add — about a theory extrapolated from the Bible that the rapture will take place May 21, 2011.

The rapture is a Christian belief that the faithful will be carried into the air to meet with Christ as the end of the world unfolds.

"That is a very, very serious admonition 'cause that is the nature of the believer," said Gunther Von Harringa, 59, about the thought-provoking advertisements. "God tells us to do it."

The need to spread the word to the masses through a media campaign of fliers, billboards and even motorcade is fueled by the belief that if you know of impending doom and you do not warn others, you are just as responsible for their ill fate.

Ohio-based Harringa is the international director of Bible Ministries and a big follower of Camping's theory. This is the second end of the world prediction for Camping – he also predicted the end of the world in 1994 – but maybe the second time's a charm.

"I would not say it is his belief," Harringa said. "It is more like what the Bible says and what it says he(God) will do.