"The Late, Great Planet Earth" (1970)

宗教非虚构作品

作者: 哈尔·林赛、Carole C. Carlson
首版: 1970 年
国家/地区: 美国
Open Library: 32 个版本

百科

这个词条暂时没有中文维基百科条目，下面是英文维基百科的内容（英文原文）：

The Late Great Planet Earth is a 1970 book by the American evangelical writer Hal Lindsey, with contributions by the American ghostwriter Carole C. Carlson, first published by Zondervan. The New York Times declared it to be the bestselling nonfiction book of the 1970s. Over 28 million copies have been sold and the book has been translated into 54 languages.

The book was first featured on a primetime television special featuring Hal Lindsey in 1974 and 1975 with an audience of 17 million and produced by Alan Hauge of GMT Productions. It was adapted by Rolf Forsberg and Robert Amram into a 1978 film narrated by Orson Welles and released by Pacific International Enterprises. Religion historian Crawford Gribben states that The Late Great Planet Earth "set a pattern for the shape of the political re-engagement of American evangelicals in the final third of the twentieth century" and "exercised enormous influence" in the Presidency of Ronald Reagan.

Description

The Late Great Planet Earth is a treatment of dispensational premillennialism. As such, it compared end-time prophecies in the Bible with then-current events in an attempt to predict future scenarios resulting in the rapture of believers before the Great Tribulation and Second Coming of Jesus to establish his thousand-year (i.e. millennial) kingdom on Earth. Emphasizing various passages in the books of Daniel, Ezekiel and Revelation, Lindsey originally suggested the possibility that these climactic events might occur during the 1980s, which he interpreted as one generation from the foundation of modern Israel during 1948, a major event according to some dispensationalist evangelical schools of eschatological thought. Cover art of the Bantam edition suggested that the 1970s were the "era of the Antichrist as foretold by Moses and Jesus," and termed the book "a penetrating look at incredible ancient prophecies involving this generation." Descriptions of alleged "fulfilled" prophecy were offered as proof of the infallibility of God's word, and evidence that "unfulfilled" prophecies would soon find their denouement in God's plan for the planet.

He cited an increase in the frequency of famines, wars and earthquakes, as major events just prior to the end of the world. He also foretold a Soviet invasion of Israel (War of Gog and Magog). Lindsey also predicted that the European Economic Community, which preceded the European Union, was destined (according to Biblical prophecy) to become a "United States of Europe", which in turn he says is destined to become a "Revived Roman Empire" ruled by the Antichrist. Lindsey wrote that he had concluded, since there was no apparent mention of America in the books of Daniel or Revelation, that America would not be a major geopolitical power by the time the tribulations of the end times arrived. He found little in the Bible that could represent the U.S., but he suggested that Ezekiel 38:13 could be speaking of the U.S. in part.

Although Lindsey did not claim to know the dates of future events with any certainty, he suggested that Matthew 24:32-34 indicated that Jesus' return might be within "one generation" of the rebirth of the state of Israel, and the rebuilding of the Jewish Temple, and Lindsey asserted that "in the Bible" one generation is forty years. Some readers accepted this as an indication that the Tribulation or the Rapture would occur no later than 1988. In his 1980 work The 1980s: Countdown to Armageddon, Lindsey predicted that "the decade of the 1980s could very well be the last decade of history as we know it".

The Late Great Planet Earth was the first Christian prophecy book to be published by a secular publisher (Bantam, 1973) and sell many copies. Twenty-eight million copies had sold by 1990.

Film adaptation

The book was adapted to film by Rolf Forsberg and Robert Amram. The film was narrated by Orson Welles and released in theaters in January 1978.

Welles opens by providing background information on the importance of prophets such as Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel and Amos in foretelling the arrival of Jesus as the Messiah. He also describes the visions of John of Patmos.

Hal Lindsey makes multiple appearances providing Biblical context to historical and then-current events, linking them to Biblical prophecy. He focuses on three key events prior to the arrival of the Antichrist:

The establishment of Israel in 1948.

Jerusalem's return to Israeli hands in 1967.

The restoration of the Temple of Solomon at some point in the near future.

Additional interviewees detail then-current and anticipated future crises facing humanity:

International relations

Aurelio Pecci; President, The Club of Rome

George Wald; Scientist, Nobel Prize winner

Norman Borlaug; Nobel Peace Prize winner

Emile Benoit; Economist, Columbia University

Desmond Morris; author of The Naked Ape

Natural disasters

John Gribbin; author of The Jupiter Effect