Synopsis: This article starts with Isaac Newton’s biblical analysis. Go to “Witness #2 for the scientific analysis which reviews the solar nova scenario of Douglas Vogt. “Witness #3 is speculative in reference to Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein.
The Great Convergence and the Triple Witness
Witness #1 – The Signs of the Times
Can ye not discern the signs of the times? – Jesus, Matthew 16:3
On this website, we have been revisiting Isaac Newton’s inference that the year 2046 AD is the year in which the great eschaton occurs: the end of the world as we know it. He arrived at that conclusion from his analysis of the prophetic timetable in the Book of Daniel in the Bible. We respect his opinion on Bible prophecy because he took it just as seriously as he did science.
There is a vast collection of literature and commentary on almost every facet of Newton’s life and writings. Wikipedia sources are usually good for summation and bibliographies. The significance of 2046 AD is not something newly discovered, and is not necessarily an interpretation original with Newton. Numerous other theologians from his time, such as Jonathan Edwards, Robert Fleming, Moses Lowman and Phillip Doddridge – all Historicists – came to similar conclusions. In fact, it was from such contemporary interpreters that Newton was persuaded to change his calculation of 2060 AD to 2016 AD, based upon the dating of a historical event called the “Donation of Pepin” which formally bequeathed temporal power to the Papacy in 756 AD. Newton had originally dated it from 800 AD when Charlemagne became the first Holy Roman Emperor. The Donation started a prophetic time-clock of 1,260 years which ends in 2016 AD. How we get to 2046 AD will be explained below.
These calculations come from an interpretation of the visions of the Prophet Daniel. There are several timelines presented in his visions and scholars usually take them seriously because he seems to have calculated the exact years of the birth and crucifixion of Christ (i.e. the 70 weeks: Daniel 9:23-27). He also calculated the 70 years Captivity from Jeremiah’s prophecy and of course the famous prediction of the fall of ancient Babylon from the interpretation of the “writing on the wall”: “MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN” – which I can’t resist to translate: “money, money, tickles a parson.” (If you want the real translation, go to Daniel 5).
There are two periods from Daniel which pertain to our discussion: 1,260 days and 1,290 days. The prophetic use of “days” to equal years in the Bible can be found in places like Ezekiel 4:5-6, “I have appointed thee each day for a year.” It must be remembered, as we have pointed out in previous Peshers, that the prophets Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel were contemporaries – although living in different countries – and collaborated with each other in their interpretations.
The “1,260” days is not stated outright in Daniel, but comes from the expression, “time, times, and a half of a time” (7:25; 12:7). It is restated in the book of Revelation 12:14. Theologians calculate that a “time” equals one year, “times” equals two years, and “half a time” equals a half year – for a total of 3 1/2 years. A prophetic year is 360 days not our 365 days; so 3 1/2 years will equal 1,260 days. If we followed a year of 365 days, we would come to (with one leap year) 1,276. Add that to our 756 AD event cited above and we would come to 2032 AD.
To add to this numerological mess, we could say that the prophetic clock of 1,260 days should not start in either 756 AD or 800 AD, but from a solar event called “the Charlemagne Event” which involved a solar flash that was visible to the naked eye – an event which exceeded in scale the Carrington Event of 1859. This occurred circa. 774 AD and it was called the “Charlemagne Event” because King Charlemagne was supposedly fighting an important battle at the time and he took it as a good omen. 774 plus our 1260 years gives us a date of 2034 AD.
The 1,290 days mentioned above comes directly from Daniel 12:11,
And from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days.
The Preterists and the Futurists would not be looking at these “days” as years, but will take them as literal days during a 7-Year Tribulation Period. For the Preterists, the Great Tribulation has already occurred during the period from the martyrdom of James the Just in 63 AD to the Fall of the Temple in 70 AD. The Futurists, of course, wait for a Rapture to mark the beginning of the Great Tribulation.
The “days-as-years” interpretation only works for the Historicists. The “abomination of desolation” cited in Daniel 12:11 they take to mean the assumption of temporal power by the Papacy to fulfill the prophecies pertaining to the Beast/Babylon/Antichrist. The Historicist view fell out of favor when Italy gobbled up the last of the Papal states in the early 20th Century. However, Historicists will continue to argue that the power of the Papacy was not destroyed, but simply replaced and sublimated in what has been called “Mystery Babylon,” a system of world control through the international banking cartel.
Whatever the case may be, 1,290 from 756 is 2046 AD. Curiously, Newton does not speak directly to the 1,290 days which is more explicitly stated in Daniel, but using Newton’s hermeneutical method of a “day=year”, we arrive at our year of 2046 AD. [But see recent posts on Newton’s Notes – 3/30/23 with discussion]
It must not be forgotten Newton’s respect for the Prophet Daniel. In his day, Daniel was the chief of the Babylonian astrologers, which would have allowed him access to the astronomical records of that ancient empire. Lacking the modern record of astronomical observations based upon scientific instruments, Newton scoured as many ancient texts as he could find for just such records to combine with his own observations and that of his contemporaries, such as Halley, Whiston, and Kepler. No doubt, he took Daniel’s calculations seriously because they were based upon astronomical observations and could be trusted in a scientific sense.
Even though Newton believed that most of prophecy was symbolic of human affairs – “the world natural as a figure for the world politic” – he was still a catastrophist in his cosmology and believed that the ancient symbolism was drawn from real celestial events. For example, while he might say that the “darkening of the Sun” would symbolize the “displeasure of a king” in prophetic language, he did believe that there was such a thing as star death and that the Sun can be darkened – not merely from an eclipse or atmospheric phenomenon, but from a diminishing of the Sun’s energy output.
In summary, we have years 2016 AD, 2032 AD, 2034 AD, 2046 AD, and 2060 AD to choose from. In any case, Newton was probably satisfied that a final date could not be known. A calculation to within a generation would have been sufficient.
Newton lived before the time of nuclear physics and even the harnessing of electricity. While volcanoes, lightning, and comets have been natural events throughout the history of man, understanding their exact causation would come later. Nevertheless, Newton and his Historicist colleagues believed that the end of Babylon would ultimately be caused by a conflagration from a super volcanic era or a cometary hail of fire. Had Newton been exposed to our modern scientific discoveries, he would have refined that causation into the nova scenario outlined below.
Witness #2 – The Signs of the Heavens
And great signs shall there be from heaven. – Jesus, Luke 21:11
Douglas Vogt, a long-time scientific analyst, has argued that the cycles of the Sun indicate that it will nova in 2046 AD when it reaches the next peak of the Gleissberg cycle. Why should this one be different? Two reasons: first, the peak of the last cycle (circa. 1958) was violent unlike any which had been observed before. The flaring, sunspots and general turbulence of the Sun was genuinely frightening to the scientific community. After that experience, space exploration became a top priority to better understand solar effects on the terrestrial bodies of the solar system.
Second, since then, the Earth’s magnetic fields have been in precipitous decline and are reaching the point of collapse. Scientists have noted that field collapse occurs just prior to the ice ages. Robert Felix has also noted that ice ages occur suddenly. Vogt says only a solar nova can produce the necessary antecedent factors for an ice age to occur. Novas are instantaneous events.
It is possible that some unknown natural law will cause a delay in this outcome, perhaps another 88-year Gleissberg Cycle. While Vogt’s analysis of the various dating methods can accommodate and even anticipate a 12,068 year nova cycle, there is no dating method which requires that we believe it is so. A nova event is not something which scientific man has experienced before, so we cannot say with absolute certainty that this cycle is the one.
However, there has been a convergence of indicators: the synchronicity of solar events between small 11-year cycles, the 88-year Gleissberg cycle, to larger more devastating events such as the Charlemagne and Carrington events mentioned above. Vogt believes that there has been an active program of suppression of information to the knowledge of these cycles – in academia, journalism, religion, and all the public institutions. It is done to prevent panic, although some actors might be trying to use this inside knowledge for purposes of social engineering, to facilitate the survival of “approved” social groups.
If stellar nova cycles – large or small – occur within a synchronous system, then such cycles should be discoverable and precise. Younger and more energetic men, such as Ben Davidson, have been following the day-by-day publication of scientific journals to glean the latest research. But it must not be forgotten, if any of us can remember the panic among public officials over the Y2K “bug” – daily chronicled by the curmudgeon and recently deceased, Dr. Gary North – reliable information from the so-called “experts” is a foolhardy quest. They are either duplicitous or dumb. Some Y2K alarmists were rumored to have profited quite well from this hand-wringing. That is what insider trading is all about.
Vogt claims that the appearance of the Sun will change, especially during an eclipse, prior to the next nova. This would be an observation available to everyone and will not require a dependence upon scientists or politicians for the information. Before the next nova, the Sun should swell such that the Moon will not cover the entire surface of the Sun as it does now during an eclipse. It will begin to look like a white-wall tire.
Also, if the words of Jesus Christ are of scientific value here – and scientifically, even if He were not the son of God, as an Essene, He would have been a Pythagorean – “the sun will be darkened” (Matthew 24:29). We can interpret that to mean that the debris field and the crustal shell will begin to block the light from the Sun just prior to its explosion.
Again, not ever having experienced a nova event before, the scientific community will have difficulty dating the next one. But research continues in the observation of stellar novas in the galaxy and perhaps, we will get sufficient warning soon.
Witness #3 – The Sign of the Son of Man
Then shall appear the sign of the Son of man. – Jesus, Matthew 24:30
A third witness can be offered in the words of Jesus from His Olivet Discourse on the end of the world (Matthew 24, et al), He said that the “signs in the heavens” occur in the generation of those who witness “the parable of the fig tree” (24:32). Many theologians – mostly of the Dispensationalist persuasion – have claimed “the parable of the fig tree” is language referring to the future restoration of the House of Israel to the land of Palestine. They usually mark the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 as a fulfillment of this prophecy.
Theologians have debated how long “a generation” might be. The “Hal Lindsey” school of prophecy believed that a generation was 40 years. He believed everything would wrap-up in 1988 – hence, the best seller: The Late, Great Planet Earth. Well, we are long past that date, obviously, so revisionists have thought that maybe a generation is 70 years – the length of a normal lifespan – which would take us to 2018. Or, maybe it is 80 years (Psalm 90:10).
But there is evidence that it is 100 years. In Genesis God tells Abraham that the Egyptian captivity will last “four hundred years” (15:13). Three verses later in the same encounter, God equates “four hundred years” with four generations (15:16). Jesus also lived in the Roman world, and for the Romans, a century was considered a generation. So now we have the prospects that 2048 might be the year of fulfillment.
Except, that is not the year, 2046. But if we mark the beginning of the State of Israel, not from 1948 but rather from when “the decree went forth” (cf. Daniel 9:25) by the Truman Commission that occurred in the summer of 1946, then a generation from that date would be our 2046 – a convergence of the triple witness.
There has been much speculation as to what this “sign of the Son of man” might be. The expression “the Son of man” is used by Jesus to refer to Himself as a cosmic figure and a second Adam.
Fundamentalist commentators usually take “the sign” of the Son of man to mean that it is the “appearance” of Jesus Christ Himself in the “clouds of heaven.” Others believe that it might be a cosmic or astrological event signaling His reign.
Christ’s first coming was heralded by the “star in the East” which led the Magi to Bethlehem. It is reasonable to believe that the appearance of a new mysterious star or comet would herald Christ’s “second” coming. If we want to believe that the nova scenario described here is meant to coincide with Messianic destiny, then there should be plenty of astronomical “signs” leading up to it.
NASA has announced a new comet which is considered to be the largest ever observed that will make a spectacular encounter with the planet Saturn. Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein – “a thousand times more massive than other comets” is due to arrive about 2031.
James McCanney was among the first to claim that both Jupiter and Saturn are not planets, but rather are radiation-emitting small stars, and with their moons, are mini-solar systems. He has also claimed that – at least until very recently – NASA scientists have erroneously understated the size of comets because they use a comet’s albedo (light reflection) for measurement. Because comets are not “dirty snowballs,” they are dark and not reflective. Their albedos should measure a much larger scale of magnitude and size.
To the ancients, Jupiter was Zeus (which means “savior”). In Hebrew it was called “Zedek” (or Sedeq) and was considered the Messianic Star. Some scholars believe that Jupiter was the Star of Bethlehem. Saturn was Kronos (or Cronus), the evil counterpart. Consult Immanuel Velikovsky’s Worlds in Collision for a discussion of the ancient planetary legends.
Speaking speculatively, perhaps at the birth of Christ, the Magi followed a comet which they knew, by astronomical calculations, that it would make an encounter with the planet Jupiter causing it to “nova” at the time they arrived in Bethlehem. If such a comet would come again to cause the same phenomenon in either Jupiter or Saturn (Jupiter being the symbol of salvation and Saturn being the symbol of destruction), then we certainly would have an astrological “wonder” in the heavens which could be called “the sign of the Son of man.”
Stay tuned.
— James Stivers, March 27, 2022