The magazine quotes French sources as saying that Chirac was so confused by the conversation that he reached out to Thomas Römer, a professor of theology at the University of Lausanne to try to figure out what Bush was talking about. This report is supposedly confirmed in Chirac’w own book.
According to the report, Bush lobbies Chirac in 2003 with quotations from the Book of Revelation and told him that the Biblical creatures Gog and Magog were at work in the Middle East and how they must be defeated. The bible states:
7. And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, :8. And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.
9. And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.
Gog is known to dwell to the north of Israel.
Evangelicals and Bible literalists often discuss the battle foretold by prophet Ezekiel in Ezekiel 38 and 39 as key to the 1000 reign of Christ — working on the precise timing indicators from the Bible to plan ahead.
The report says that Bush told Chirac that the fight in the Middle East was “willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people’s enemies before a New Age begins.”
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