The Late, Great Planet Earth

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The Late, Great Planet Earth is the title of a best-selling 1970 book co-authored by Hal Lindsey and Carole C. Carlson, and first published by Zondervan. The book was adapted in 1979 into a movie narrated by Orson Welles. Originally ghost-written by Carlson, later printings credited her as co-author, and Lindsey and Carlson went on to write several sequels, including Satan is Alive and Well on Planet Earth and The 1980s: Countdown to Armageddon.

1 Premise and plot
2 Place in popular culture
3 See also
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Premise and plot

The Late, Great Planet Earth (LGPE) is a popular treatment of literalist, premillennial, dispensational Christian eschatology. As such, it compared end-time prophecies in the Bible with then-current events in an attempt to broadly predict future scenarios leading to the "rapture" of believers before the "tribulation" and Second Coming of Christ to establish his thousand-year (i.e. millennial) Kingdom on Earth. Focusing on key passages in the books of Daniel, Ezekiel and Revelation, Lindsey originally suggested the possibility that these climactic events might play out in the 1980s, which he interpreted as one generation from the foundation of modern Israel in 1948, a pivotal event in most evangelical (especially conservative evangelical) schools of eschatological thought. Cover art on the Bantam edition boldly suggested that the 1970s were the "era of the Antichrist as foretold by Moses and Jesus," and called the book "a penetrating look at incredible ancient prophecies involving this generation." Descriptions of alleged "fulfilled" prophecy were offered as proof of the infallibility of God's Word, and evidence that "unfulfilled" prophecies would soon find their denouement in God's plan for the planet.

Like many previous books, LGPE postulated an Antichrist ruling over a ten-member or ten-nation European confederacy. He belived that what was then the six-member European Economic Community (now the twenty-seven member European Union) could be a forerunner of this confederacy, which he considered to be a revival of the Roman Empire. He also foretold a Russian invasion of Israel, as well as an increase in the frequency of famines, wars and earthquakes, as key events leading up to the end of the world. He found little in the Bible that could represent the United States of Amercia, but he suggested that Ezekiel 13:13 could be speaking of the United States in part.

Although Lindsey did not claim to know the dates of future events with any certainty, he suggested that Matthew 24:32-34 indicated that Jesus' return might be within "one generation" of the rebirth of the state of Israel, and the rebuilding of the Jewish Temple.

Lindsey asserted that "in the Bible" one generation is forty years. Some readers took this as an indication that the Tribulation or the Rapture would occur no later than 1988. In his 1980 work The 1980s: Countdown to Armageddon, which was essentially an updated version of LGPE, Lindsey predicted that "the decade of the 1980s could very well be the last decade of history as we know it."

[edit] Place in popular culture

Although preceded by hundreds of similar Christian prophecy titles, Late, Great Planet Earth broke new ground with its popular treatment of a complex subject and its breezy style. Such books often enjoyed high sales volume in the Christian market, but were typically overlooked in mainstream reviews and the wider popular culture. LGPE was the first such book to be picked up by a secular publisher (Bantam, 1973) and break through to megaseller status. It was the "nonfiction" bestseller of the 1970s with over 9 million copies sold by 1978. Always remaining in print, despite some increasingly dated content, 28 million copies had sold by 1990.

The sequel The 1980s: Countdown to Armageddon, also published by Bantam, was on the New York Times bestseller list for over twenty weeks. With its unprecedented popularity LGPE set the stage for both greater awareness of end times scenarios in the last decades of the 20th century, and the growth industry in Christian popular eschatological works such as Tim LaHaye's Left Behind series of novels.