Like me, you’ve probably encountered many instances and “shares” of a claim that the path of the upcoming total solar eclispse that will be visible in part of the United States will pass across seven U.S. towns called “Ninevah.”
A poster to the Chinese spyware app TikTok with the account name @BryceJustChillen chillingly pointed out that the path of the total eclipse would cross seven towns in the U.S. named Ninevah. And “seven” is a biblically important number. And Ninevah calls us back to Jonah being sent by God to tell them to repent or face destruction. And Jonah points us to Jesus telling His disciples that the last days would be like the days of Jonah. etc, etc.
The video containing this stunning revelation was accompanied by this caption:
Wake up sheeple #lastdays #endtimes #jonah #bible #prophecy #bibleprophecy #solareclipse #2024 #eclipse #wakeup #jesusiscoming #judgment #fypシ #fyp #foryou #foryoupageofficiall #viralvideo #blowthisupforme #tribulation #christian #jesuschrist
Please note the hashtags #viralvideo and #blowthisupforme. This is a plea for attention. And @BryceJustChillen got it. Christian TikTok users repeated it and amplified it uncritically. It quickly seeped out of the cesspool that is TikTok and oozed out on to other social media sites.
There are few more effective ways to get a lot of attention online than to provide exhuasted and understandably freaked-out Christians an exotic reason to believe “the end is nigh.” And this did the trick.
When I encountered it, more than six decades of hard-won experience with eschatalogical prognasticators made me instantly skeptical. And as it turns out, as usual, my skepticism was justified. (By the way, what have we come to when you can’t trust an account called “BryceJustChillen” for sound analysis of current events from a biblical, prophetic perspective.)
Before I show you my work . . . first, a brief refresher course on total eclipses of the sun. They happen every year, often twice in a year, sometimes multiple times per year, but any single eclipse will only be visible from certain vantage points on the planet.
Fun Fact: In 1935 there were five total eclipses of the sun. That surely had to portend something, right? Let me take a shot at it. That year the Detroit Tigers defeated the Chicago Cubs in the World Series. The Tigers had been to the world series four times previously but lost each time. But in the year of five eclipses? . . . On their fifth appearance, they won? Coincidence? I don’t think so.
{The above, by the way, is an example of how easy it is to cherry-pick events and suggest some sort of causal link to other events. Before I close, I’ll give you a couple of other examples.}
As an eclipse seems to move across the face of the planet, it creates a 115-mile wide arc of what is called “the path of totality.” If you happen to be standing in this swath, you see, for a few minutes anyway, the sun completely obscured by the moon. If you are outside of this arc but in the same general part of the hemisphere, you see a “partial eclipse.” The farther outside of the path of totality you are, the smaller the “bite” the moon seems take out of the sun.
Now, back to the exhilarating (or terrifying, depending upon the disposition of your soul and/or your views on the Great Tribulation) claim by @BryceJustChillen, et. al., that the upcoming eclipse’s path of totality would cover seven “places” called Ninevah.
Here’s the thing. Not . . . exactly.
According to the website GeoTargit.com there are indeed seven “places” in the United States called Ninevah but, as the map below reveals, only two of them lie inside the path of totality. (The Ninevahs are the red dots.) A couple of them are pretty far outside of it.
Notice that I keep putting the term “place” in scare quotes. It’s because several of these seven aren’t towns. Take Ninevah, Texas for example. You won’t find a Wikipedia entry for it becuase it hasn’t been a town with a post office since 1966.
The Handbook of Texas, a publication of the Texas State Historical Society tells us:
In 1914 Nineveh had a population of fifty, a cotton gin, and a general store. By 1925 the population had grown to a high of 150, and it was reported at that level through the mid-1940s. In 1950 the town reported eighty residents and four businesses. The post office was discontinued in December 1966 . . .
https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/nineveh-tx
There is no existing town called Ninevah in Missouri either. That’s why the “seven Ninevahs” narrative talks about “places” not towns.
I work with data for a living. So I know that any 115-mile wide swath painted across the lower 48 would cover thousand upon thousands of cities, towns and “place names.” So I used the aforementioned site, geotargit.com, to perform a little experiment.
One of my favorite little Texas towns is a place in the Hill Country named Utopia. It’s the setting of a wonderful faith-based novel and movie: Seven Days in Utopia. So I searched to see how many places called Utopia are in or near the path of totality. The answer is five!
“Five” is the biblical number of grace. So, this clearly indicates, utilizing the logic of “seven ninevahs” that the eclipse portends that the United States is on the verge of becoming, by the grace of God, a utopia
Continuing my experiment, I searched Geotargit for the place-name “Orange.” I discovered at least 14 places in the U.S. with the name “Orange” that lie on or near the path of totality.
And 14 is double “7” which clearly indicates that Donald Trump (“Orange Man”) will win a second term in the upcoming election (and probably usher in a Utopia.)
Look . . . Much of this has been in fun. But it’s true that, as I’ve written repeatedly in my posts about critical thinking and cognitive biases, the easiest lie to believe is the one you need to be true. The one you hope is true. And if you start with flawed premises, it’s inevitable that you will reach logical conclusions that are false.
Yes, God gave astronomical events as “signs in the heavens.” (Genesis 1:14) But what those signs are signfiying is rarely clear until after the fact.