Unleashing the Beast

262 / U NLEASHING THE B EAST

T HE H ALE -B OPP C OMET The initial discovery of this large comet was on April 27, 1993. On the Hebrew calendar this was the 6 th of Iyar. Forty-five years prior, on the same day, the British Mandate over Palestine ended. On our calendar this date was May 15, 1948, the official day Israel was re-birthed as a nation. On August 2, 1995, the pre-discovery images were found on plates taken at the Anglo-Australian Observatory that showed the comet was active. It was spotted again on July 23, 1995 in the constellation Sagittarius, the half-man, half-beast constellation (perhaps a picture of the coming Antichrist). It was reported that the comet was 50 times brighter than Halley's comet. The Hale-Bopp comet was eventually seen by the human eye during the entire year of 1998. According to Christian astronomers such as Bob Wadsworth, the last time this comet was seen was when it passed by the earth about 4,200 years ago. This would be about the time Noah began building the ark. Bill Cloud, founder of Shoreshim Ministries, states that according to the Seder Olam Rabbah , an ancient Jewish text, a comet appeared in the heavens at the time that Noah was building the ark. Imagine, some 4,200 years later, seeing the same comet that was visible at the time when Noah was warned the flood was coming! Jesus said in Matthew 24:37-39, "But as the days of Noah were, so shall the coming of the Son of Man be." The cosmic sign of Noah's day was again repeated in our generation.