Did Nostrodamus Predict the End in 2012?

Written by eric francke

Tuesday, 08 September 2009

The History Channel recently produced a special that purported that Nostrodamus had predicted, along with the Mayan calendar, that there would be some type of transformational change, possibly the end of the world as we know it, slated for December 21st, 2012. The only problem is that there is nothing at all in Nostrodamus' writings that would in any way correlate to the year 2012.  As a matter of fact, unless one is willing to do more twisting than a contortionist from Cirque Du Soleil, it must be noted that Nostrodamus has almost NOTHING specific that he was correct about.  Most of the quatrains (series of 4 poetic lines) are so obscure, that little meaning can be rendered from them.  There were a few cases where he was specific, with dates and events.  Here is one of them. The year 1999, seventh month, From the sky will come a great King of Terror: To bring back to life the great King of the Mongols, Before and after Mars to reign by good luck. (Century X, 72 Quatrain) Okay, we have July 1999.  A "King of Terror" descending.  The "King of the Mongols" (Some one like Ghengis Khan) comes back to life.  And "Mars to Reign" is generally accepted as an idiom meaning that there would be a major war breaking out at this time.    Since July of 1999 was over ten years ago, we can evaluate fairly easily how accurate he was.   We can say authoritatively that Nostradamus struck out with a startling ferocity.  He wasnt even close.  There is no amount of rationalization that can make a single line of this verse to find any meaningful fulfillment.  The same thing can be said about every other prophecy of his that was date specific. Why then, do so many people put such stock in Nostrodamus?  Perhaps because we all want to feel some type of control over the future, and people achieve that by ascribing some type of foretelling power to writers like Nostrodamus. Others believe in horoscopes, or tea leaves or runes as having some type of prophetic ability.  The truth is, however ,that only the prophetic sections of the Bible have ever been accurate in foretelling any world events with any accuracy.  Although the Bible has been, and is still accurate about the future of the world, no where does the Bible say when the end of the world will be.  Jesus said that "No man shall know the day or the hour". (Mark 13:32).   So one cannot appeal to the Bible to support the idea that the world is going to end in 2012.  Instead, we are encouraged by the scriptures to always "be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him." (Luke 12:40).