88 Reasons

Edgar Whisenant predicted that Jesus would return to rapture His church sometime between September 11th and September 13th 1988. The rocket engineer turned prophecy teacher’s claim found its way into the hands of 200,000 pastors nationwide. His claim was published in a booklet entitled, “88 Reasons Why the Rapture Could Be in 1988.” 3.2 million copes were made.

Despite the booklets amazing popularity, September of 1988 came and went without the world ending, or anything truly significant occuring. Whisenant’s prediction was wrong. Dean C. Halverson sheds some light on Whisenant’s mistakes in his article for the Christian Research Journal, “88 Reasons: What Went Wrong?” Halverson says, “in at least one instance Whisenant incorrectly interprets a biblical symbol, and then proceeds to build his predictions upon the shaky foundation of that faulty interpretation.” He uses the example of Whisenant’s seventh reason, in which he uses the symbol of a blooming fig tree incorrectly.
Whisenant received a lot of attention for his 88 reasons, and even went on to write another similar booklet entitled, “On Borrowed Time.” But despite all his reasons, the world is still turning and no rapture has occurred.