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Back of the Envelope Calculations
Estimates for the
“Last
Day” A little arithmetic can be instructive as to what may or may not be plausible. Is Earth Big Enough? The present world population is close to seven billion. If all the people who have ever lived is sixty billion (probably within a factor of two of reality), would the Earth be overcrowded? The mean radius of the earth is R = 6378 km; so the surface area is (4πR2 =) 510 million km2, which corresponds to 118 people/ km2, or nearly ½ person/acre. The land area is about 20% of the total surface area; so if we assume only 15% is readily inhabitable, then resurrecting all of the world’s population that have ever lived would still leave only about 3 people per acre. How Long Might the Resurrection Take? How fast could the Earth’s resurrection take place? We may get some idea from the rate at which Jews have been returning to Israel (in spite of adverse surroundings). Since this return began in the Autumn of 1878, a Jewish population of about 8,000 had grown to around 800,000 at Israel’s independence in May of 1948 and has now grown to about 5.9 million. The rate of growth was therefore (Ln(N2/N1)/(t2-t1) =) 6.6% before independence, and 3.1% since independence. (By way of comparison, in about 45 centuries since the Flood the world population has grown from 8 people to nearly 7 billion (thousand million), corresponding to a growth rate averaging 0.46% per year.) Even if Armageddon could reduce the world’s population to only one billion, a growth rate of only 2% per year would require just ((1/0.02) Ln(60B/1B) =) 205 years to bring everyone back from the dead. At 3.6% per year it would be finished in just 115 years. A 24-Hour Judgment Day? In one common concept of the Judgment Day, God will sit as judge, while each person’s sins will be read from a book, and then God will pronounce acquittal or sentence. A single day consists of 86,400 seconds. Dividing by a population of sixty billion, Time (per person) = 86,400 / 60 x 109 = 1.44 x 10-6 second = 1.44 microseconds That is too little time for even a single syllable to be spoken or understood. Even in a thousand years there would be only about ½ second per person. How Long is Christ’s Appearing? If Christ’s return is literally to be like his ascension (Acts 1:11), he would not likely be more than 6 feet tall, thus not identifiable from more than a kilometer. If at that distance he could be recognized in as little as 2 seconds, then for Jesus to traverse the Earth’s surface so that every eye would see him would require 10.3 years. (Time = (510 x 106 km2/πkm2) x (2 seconds/3.1557 x 107 second/year.) Even omitting the oceans, it would require just over two years for Jesus to traverse just the land. That span of time is longer than most Christians have been considering. Notably, two different Greek words are commonly translated “see:” blepo usually stresses physical sight, while horao may be used of either physical or mental vision. The words are readily distinguished in Matthew 13:14 (see also Mark 4:12, Acts 28:26), “seeing ye shall see, and shall in no wise perceive;” blepo is translated “see” (both times) and horao is translated “perceive.” {1} It is horao that is used in Revelation 1:7, “Behold, he cometh with the clouds; and every eye shall see him.” Thus, this latter text need not even imply physical sight. (The text refers to Zechariah 12:10 (ASV), “they shall look unto me whom they have pierced,” which still less implies physical sight.) __________ (1) Horao implies perception, rather than simply physical sight, in Matthew 9:4 (“knowing”); Acts 2:17 (“see visions”); Acts 2:27, 31; 13:35, 36,37 (“see corruption”); Acts 15:6 (“consider”); and Revelation 22:9 (“See thou do it not”) (ASV). |