A friend recently sent me an article with the overblown and click-baity title of "Birth of first red heifer in 2000 years fulfills Bible prophecy and signals end of days". He asked me what I thought about this. In reply, I told him I’m probably the most un-fun Bible scholar to play this game with.
This absurd article is based on an obscure read of Numbers 19 where it says “This is a requirement of the law that the Lord has commanded: Tell the Israelites to bring you a red heifer without defect or blemish and that has never been under a yoke. … This will be a lasting ordinance both for the Israelites and for the aliens living among them.” [verses 1–2, 10]
Some sects of fundamentalist Christians interpret it this way: Jesus cannot return until the Third Temple is built in Jerusalem; The Third Temple cannot function unless there are Red Heifers to sacrifice there; Therefore if and when a Red Heifer is born, it will trigger the building of the Third Temple, which will trigger the return of Jesus. Don't blame me for the logical holes in this: I'm just reporting what a subsection of a subsection of a subsection of Christians believe.
Here are some of the many reasons why this interpretation is problematic...
I simply don’t think that social collapse or “end of days” is triggered by an event that is extrinsic to the social system that is collapsing. I think the signs of collapse are all intrinsic consequences exhibited by the system. What I mean by extrinsic and intrinsic is this: Extrinsic signs are events without any natural causal or consequential relation to another set of events. And intrinsic sign is an event that is naturally a cause or consequence of another set of events.
In regard to looking for "signs" of the "end of days", I think it is always an absurd mistake to predict the “end” based on extrinsic, exotic “signs” like a red heifer, or a blood moon, or an alignment of planets, or a four armed baby being born, or seeing the sign of the Beast appear in Gorbachev’s birthmark. In fact, empirically speaking, it is the worst bet in history to try and predict the “end” based on extrinsic signs. 100% of the people who have ever made such a bet, in any culture, based on any Scripture, from any religion, have always been wrong. Every time. And yet credulous people and swindlers keep betting on these signs, and gullible people keep following them.
Instead, there is a strong alternate tradition in most religions, and in the Bible itself, of looking for signs of social collapse in consequences intrinsic to the social system. For instance, check out Isaiah chapters 1-3. He prophesies the destruction of Judah based on the rampant injustice and corruption and oppression of the poor found in that society. Or check out Revelation chapters 17-18. Using fantastic symbols and names such as “Whore of Babylon” the prophet predicts the collapse of a social system that oppresses and destroys the vulnerable for monetary gain. In fact, it reads like an accurate description of the ravenous global Consumerism we live under now, as much as it once read as a warning to the degenerate and oppressive Roman Empire of the first century.
In this way of reading religious prophecy, we find that predictions of the “end of the world” are really about the end of OUR world: The destruction of our civilization, the demise of our way of life, the extinction of our horizon of understanding and imagination. We find that the "world" has ended many times, and there are worlds that are ending even now. The sack of Jerusalem and destruction of the Temple, the collapse of the Roman Empire, the invasion of the Mongols, the fall of Constantinople, the end of Imperial China, World Wars I and II, the collapse of the Soviet Bloc, and the future collapse of the Western World. All of these are the "end of the world" for the people living through these events. And we haven't even touched on lesser disasters, such as the Armenian genocide in 1917 or the brutal persecution of Christians by ISIS in 2017, or a hundred other such events in between.
When we look for "signs" of impending societal collapse, we need to follow the Biblical tradition that calls us to be aware of signs that are intrinsic to social collapse itself. The Biblical tradition can be incredibly helpful in pointing out signs of oppression and injustice. But also we can look to other indicators of social health, governmental transparency, income inequality, and cultural vitality. These intrinsic signs describe the natural consequences when a culture or social system degenerates into injustice and corruption. Every culture that slides into oppression and vice is bound to destroy itself from the inside before it is eventually put to death by invaders or events from the outside.
So, when it comes to trying to predict the future through extrinsic signs— whether those signs are drawn from the Bible or Buddhism— I shrug and ignore. But I do pay a great deal of attention to the intrinsic signs of social decay, economic injustice, totalitarian hedonism, endless warfare, and systemic oppression in the world around us. It isn’t the birth of a Red Heifer that would cause alarm for me, but rather the social and economic trends I see in my newsfeed daily.
And if you do find someone who is trying to convince you that some extrinsic sign is THE harbinger of doom or guarantor of the end of days, just know that they are probably either trying to control you through fear, or get the money out of your pocket.
If you want a more a realistic and in-depth primer on Biblical prophecy and the "end of the world", you can link HERE to "A Primer on the End of the World".
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