PENSACOLA, Fla. -- If you're going about the business of living as usual Saturday, either you were not chosen to be lifted to heaven or the 'rapture' did not occur as predicted by a former NASA engineer.
In 'The Final Shout: Rapture Report 1989,' retired NASA engineer Edgar Whisenant used clues from the Bible in claiming that 40 million born-again Christians will be lifted to heaven Friday.
The pamphlet has been a big seller at three area Christian bookstores, even though Whisenant was proven wrong last year when his first pamphlet predicted a rapture date in September 1988.
In his current book, Whisenant says he miscalculated the date in his earlier book because he failed to consider that the modern Gregorian calendar counts only 99 years in the first century.
That error put his prediction off by a year, he said.
'We sold out,' said Rose Rhymes, manager of the Gospel Lighthouse Bible Book Center in west Pensacola, who said 'several hundred' copies of the $2 pamphlet have been sold at the chain's threeeoutlets in Pensacola and Foley, Ala.
The chain's last book was sold Thursday. Rhymes said the bookstore has ordered several hundred more copies that were expected to arrive Friday or Saturday -- the day of and the day after the predicted rapture.
Rhymes said buyers did not necessarily believe the rapture would occur on the date Whisenant predicted, but she said many of her customers 'like to use his book as reference.'
In his first book, 'On Borrowed Time; 88 Reasons Why The Rapture Is In 88,' Whisenant predicted the rapture would occur Sept. 11-13. One believer in Pensacola put up billboards proclaiming Jesus' arrival.
Both books are about the rapture, a 170-year-old doctrine held by some Christians who believe the followers of Jesus -- living and dead - will be removed from Earth -- body and soul -- before mankind is plagued by catastrophies.
The doctrine claims non-believers left behind will go through seven years of war, fire, death and pestilence under the leadership of the anti-Christ. The troubles end when Christ and his followers return to rule for aemillenium.
The belief is not universally held among Christians. And predictions of the start of the 'end times' have been made multiple times in the past, religious experts said.
