Wormwood: Is the bible refering to Chernobyl, Planet X or nuclear war?

Interpretations of Revelation 8:11

[edit] Historist interpretations

Various religious groups and figures, including Seventh-day Adventists and the theologians Matthew Henry and John Gill,[5] regard the verses of Revelation 8 as symbolic references to past events in human history. In the case of Wormwood, some historist interpreters believe that this figure represents the army of the Huns as led by king Attila, pointing to chronological consistencies between the timeline of prophecy they have accepted and the history of the Huns' campaign in Europe.[6] Others point to Arius, the emperor Constantine, Origen or the ascetic monk Pelagius, who denied the doctrine of Original sin.[5]

Another interpretation leads some researchers to conclude that the events of Revelation are in mid-progress. For example, the name for a specific type of wormwood is translated in Ukrainian to "Chernobyl" (or "Чорнобиль")[7]. Therefore, the meltdown of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in A.D. 1986 could be interpreted as the verses in Revelation referenced above that state, "When the third angel blew his trumpet, a large star burning like a torch fell from the sky. It fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water. The star was called "Wormwood," and a third of all the water turned to wormwood. Many people died from this water, because it was made bitter"[8].

[edit] Futurist interpretations

Commentators favoring a naturalistic interpretation of Revelation 8:10 relate it to the last days, seeing Wormwood as a meteor fated to strike the earth and cause environmental calamities.[9] Others, while not specifying a precise method, see in the verse a "personification of something God threatens to do to [His] people when they allow themselves to be deceived by false prophets."[10]

[edit] Alternative interpretations

A number of Bible scholars consider the term Wormwood to be a purely symbolic representation of the bitterness that will fill the earth during troubled times, noting that the plant for which Wormwood is named, Artemisia absinthium, is a known Biblical metaphor for things that are unpalatably bitter.[11][12]