"I believe the times in which we're living, are what we could call the end of the beginning." Reverend James Britt is the chaplain at "the medical center of bowling green." He believes today's fighting between Lebanon and Israel was specifically predicted in the first verse of the first chapter of Zechariah. "'Open they doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may devour thy cedars.' These refer to the leadership. I think it's significant that this was written centuries before the coming of Jesus, and yet Lebanon is addressed directly here, and we see the fire is coming there."

United Baptist minister, Jerry Patton, agrees. "John the Revelator wrote Revelation, and specifically talks about the days we are in today, and the unrest we're seeing over there, and what the final battle will be in the Jerusalem area."

Doctor Joseph Trafton teaches religious studies at Western Kentucky University. Just last year he published a commentary on "the book of revelation." "What I encourage people to do, is try to understand Revelation for what it claims to be. What it claims to be is a prophecy, and a prophecy is NOT the prediction of the future, which is what our culture thinks, and the way it's often understood. But prophecy in a biblical sense, means simply communicating a message from God."

Father Jerry Riney ministers Bowling Green’s "Holy Spirit Catholic Church." "As far as the book of Revelation for me, it was written for the people of that time and course they thought the end of time was happening right then, but the Lord did not come in glory, so I think to apply that to what's happening in the Middle East today, for me it's a long stretch."

So here we have four learned biblical scholars with varying degrees of belief when it comes to applying scripture to today's eruptive events in the Middle East.

"I think Israel is the chosen people of God. And at the end of all this, I think we're gonna see the final battle. The Battle of Armageddon will be fought around Israel at the end of time."

"Oh this is happening, then this, and there are 7 events and 3 of them are down. I don't see anything like that. Jesus is going to return, yes. There will be judgment. The world as we know it will end. But I don't see harbingers of those events."