Eclipses and Red Heifers

April 12, 2024

Philip C. Johnson, Ph.D.

In my backyard in Little Elm, Texas, on April 8, things got really quiet as the moon began to move across the sun, eventually blotting her out and turning day into night, providing a total solar eclipse. And when I say “quiet,” I am not including the excited shouts and giggles coming from  the elementary school students across the street – all standing outside with their protective glasses on while teachers scold those who dared to look at the sun with their naked eyes. Chants of “you will be blind, you will be blind…” interrupted the excited oohs and ahhs from the other students. 

Photos by Daniel Lawma, McKinney, Texas, April 8, 2024

But there was a feeling of quiet – or perhaps it was more a feeling of reverence – the kind of feeling that comes over a group of people all watching a spectacular event at the same time. Innately, everyone knows that there is a God that created all of this – and who manages all of  it. 

While eclipses happen often enough in the world, I’ll have to wait until July 9, 2317 to see another total solar eclipse from my backyard here in North Texas. So this one was a pretty big deal. 

But it was not the ONLY deal people were talking about this week. A lot of people connected the event of this eclipse with end-of-the-world-prophetic hopes (or anxiety, depending on how you view the outworking of biblical prophecies).

Here are three things that got people chattering:

1.) NASA launched three rockets into space in hopes of gathering scientific data about how solar eclipses impact the Earth’s upper atmosphere. The name of the mission was “NASA’s Atmospheric Perturbations around Eclipse Path or: APEP. APEP also just “happens” to be the name of the Egyptian god of darkness and disorder and the enemy of the sun god, Ra. Well, if you’re going to name a space mission something like that, you’re just begging people to start speculating. No, don’t explain, NASA. We all know what you’re doing here. Excellent clickbait.

2.) CERN, the Center for European Nuclear Research fired up the old Large Hadron Collider (LHC) on the day of the eclipse. The LHC uses a 17-miles loop of superconducting magnets to smash sub-atomic particles at close to the speed of light. 

Folks on social media suggested a connection between the reboot of the world’s largest particle collider and the April 8th eclipse. Some were speculating that CERN was opening some new black holes or creating tears in the fabrics of space and time. Actually, none of this would surprise me. If I told someone in the year 1900 that in 2024 you’d be able to talk to people anywhere in the world on a handheld device, and that you could type a few words on that device and have anything delivered to your doorstep – well, I’d have been called a witch. And that’s before I even tried to explained AI and the robots that would eventually become our overlords. 

Arnaud Marsollier, head of CERN’s media relations, reminded the inquisitive that the solar eclipse on Monday had no link to the work of CERN. And CERN particle physicist, Clara Nellist insisted that CERN had already started the process of firing up the LHC in March and earlier in April. April 8th is just the “regular running that just happens to coincides with an astronomical event.” Okay then, nothing to worry about – they are NOT making any new black holes or harnessing the power of the sun. Trust the science. Or the scientists. That has always worked out. 

3.) RED HEIFERS are ready to be sacrificed on the Mount of Olives. This is a big deal in biblical prophecy circles. I’ve written about this issue before in the context of my personal meetings with the leadership of the Temple Institute in Israel, a nationalist organization that is working to rebuild the Jewish Temple – the third Jewish Temple to be exact. 

There is no Temple in Jerusalem now – the first one was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BC. The Second Temple, the one in existence during the time of Jesus, was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD. The only thing that sits on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem now are the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock – both very important to Muslims and their faith. 

Regardless, there are groups, like the Temple Institute who are preparing for the time when the Jewish Temple can be rebuilt, in its historic location, according to prophecy. But first things first, in order for Temple worship to take place again, you need a red heifer. The 19th chapter of the biblical book of Numbers, tells us that the Israelites sacrificed a red heifer in order to cleanse the priests and the people to make them ready for temple worship. 

Ever since the Second Temple was destroyed in 70 AD, there have been no red heifers born. No Temple – no need for red heifers. In recent years there have been efforts to “genetically engineer” the perfect, spotless, totally “red” heifer. And now that’s been done. In 2022, five “yearling” red heifers were donated to Israel by an evangelical Christian farmer from Texas. They were flown to Israel as “pets.” I am imagining that these young cows were disguised as “emotional support animals.” That’s logical, yes? 

Now in 2024, these heifers would be the perfect age for sacrificing on the Mount of Olives and gathering those much-needed ashes. One of the things I find interesting is that this movement is no longer just a “fringe” ultra-right nationalist movement. Those heifers could not have been flown into Israel without someone in the Israeli Ministry of Agriculture providing some method of approval. And according to reports from media outlet Al Jazeera, Netanel Isaac, the director general of the Ministry of Jerusalem Affairs and Heritage, actually gave a speech to welcome the heifers’ arrival back in September of 2022. So is the Israeli government on board? 

The building of the Third Jewish Temple looms large in the prophetic aspirations of some Jews and many Christians. (Ezekiel 40-48) For Jews, this will signal the coming of the Messiah. For many Christians, this signifies the final stages of the “end times.” For some reason, the timing of the total solar eclipse occurring in the United States and the coming of the Jewish Passover (April 22-30) is causing people to wonder if now is the time when the sacrifices will take place, and what that will mean. IF this is going happen, the odds are that it will occur sometime between Passover (April 22) and Pentecost (May 19). 

What will it mean? In the eyes of those supportive of rebuilding the Temple, it will mean that prophetic promises are being fulfilled and being fulfilled quickly. To others, it will be viewed as unnecessarily provocative at a time when additional provocations are most unwelcome. Muslim Arabs in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza view this whole red heifer issue as a “destabilizing religious myth,” and a threat to Muslim freedom of worship. That sentiment has only been heightened with Israel’s current efforts in Gaza to destroy the terrorist organization Hamas, the group  responsible for the horrific, unprecedented attacks on Israeli civilians on October 7, 2023 that took 1300 lives.  

Finally, I suppose we can make one more observation  – people are fascinated with the end of things – as if we are wired to know that there is something “next.” As if we know that we have not quite reached the end of anything. And surely, an end to human history, as lived out on this Earth, will eventually come. Not an unimportant thing to consider and prepare for.

“Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6)