2004 日本本州[名勝]之旅 

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CONCLUSION

A number of prophecy teachers say that a pronounced increase in frequency and intensity of earthquakes has occurred in the latter part of the twentieth century, a worldwide trend fulfilling a prophecy made by Jesus. Contrary to these prophecy teachers, no obvious trend is found indicating an abnormal increase in the frequency of large earthquakes during the last half of the twentieth century. Neither is there a noteworthy deficiency of earthquakes in the first half of the century. Graphical plots of global earthquake frequency indicate overall a decreasing frequency of earthquakes through the century. The decades of the 1970s, 80s and 90s experienced a deficit of larger earthquakes compared to earlier decades of the century. The 70s, 80s and 90s are precisely those decades that many prophecy teachers suppose, erroneously, show a dramatic surplus of larger earthquakes. Regional earthquake data from California and Japan also do not argue for increasing earthquake frequency in the latter decades of our century.

At the time of Christ the Jews had a heightened anticipation that wars, famines, pestilence and earthquakes communicated signs having apocalyptic significance. Jesus responded to apocalyptic expectations in the Olivet Discourse. Whether one interprets Matthew 24:4-14 as (1) events which will occur during the tribulation period, or (2) general signs of the present age, there is no clear scriptural warrant for the claim that earthquakes will increase dramatically prior to the return of Christ. In the former interpretation, these earthquakes would be part of the tribulation period and so of little significance for any increase in earthquakes during the present Church age. In the latter interpretation, earthquakes are seen as recurring catastrophic events common to the present age - events that must not be misinterpreted as "signs" of an immediate end. It is ironic that a passage that intentionally teaches that earthquakes are not indicators of the "end of the age" should be so frequently interpreted as teaching exactly the opposite.

Jesus' statement, "all these things are merely the beginning of birth pangs" (Matt. 24:8), has been misunderstood to imply that pain would increase steadily in time. The birth image associated with such signs does not point (necessarily) to an increase in pain with time. Paul's understanding of creation's pain (Romans 8:18-25) is not that pain will grow steadily worse, but that the present period of suffering provokes eager longing for the new birth and the consummation of the coming age. The author of Hebrews sees a similar hope, not in anticipating a future "sign" of increasing earthquake activity, but in the coming of a sudden cosmic cataclysm producing a "kingdom which cannot be shaken" (Heb. 12:28).