The Origins of the Rapture

in the blink of an eye Millions

disappear and the world is thrown into

chaos cars crash planes fall out of the

sky and there are piles of clothes

everywhere that's the upshot of the 2014

movie Left Behind starring The One and

Only Nick cage cage is an airline pilot

whose co-pilot and many passengers

simply vanish in fact Millions have

vanished across the world those who

disappeared were Christians taken to

heaven and the unbelievers were well

Left Behind the Left Behind movie was

based on a best-selling series of books

that outline a scenario in which true

Christians are snatched up to heaven

right before the appearance of the

Antichrist this climactic moment is

called The Rapture the sudden physical

removal of all living Christians from

the world into God's presence while the

Left Behind franchise is probably the

most famous example within the prophecy

fiction genre for many American

Evangelical Christians the core idea of

the Rapture is not fiction at all they

believe that the Rapture will actually

happen Rapture theology as interpreted

by many American Evangelical Christians

has several principles first of course

the Rapture the sudden disappearance of

Christians at any moment but

specifically a pre-tribulation Rapture

meaning that this sudden removal of

Christians occurs before a time of

global hardship and suffering called the

tribulation during this period a human

foe called the Antichrist will rise to

power finally at the end of the

tribulation the second coming occurs

Jesus Christ will return resurrect all

believers and dispense Justice to the

Sinners he will defeat the Antichrist

imprison the devil and establish an

Earthly Kingdom that will last a

thousand years the so-called Millennial

Kingdom after the 1000 Years there will

be a final confrontation with Satan

before he's defeated and thrown into the

Lake of Fire for good Scholars call this

theology dispensational

pre-millennialism it's probably the most

common form of rapture theology among

American evangelicals but there are

other versions that we won't get into

pre-millennial refers to the belief that

Jesus Will effectively return twice once

before his Millennial Kingdom in the

Rapture and then again after the

tribulation to establish his kingdom and

dispensational refers to the idea that

God's relationship with Humanity has

undergone distinct phases or

dispensations throughout history each

dispensation is a unique stage in which

God relates to humanity in a certain way

for many dispensationalists history is

partitioned into seven dispensations and

we are living in the second to last one

on the cusp of the end of the world

while virtually all Christians believe

in the second coming of Christ most do

not adhere to this view of the end times

belief in the Rapture is not promoted

among Catholics the different branches

of Orthodox Christianity or the majority

of protestant Christians however it is

popular among American evangelicals as

one of the largest religious groups in

the United States American

evangelicalism has a high visibility in

the country both culturally and

politically so the support of rapture

Theology and the huge popularity of

Prophecy fiction like the Left Behind

series gives the impression that this

view of the end times is more widely

accepted than it really is but it has

been hugely influential one historian

describes dispensationalism as perhaps

the most resilient popular theological

movement in American history

dispensationalist beliefs such as the

Rapture have even influenced U.S foreign

policy as former Secretary of State Mike

Pompeo is a dispensationalist

Evangelical and has spoken openly about

his belief in the Rapture so where did

this idea of a pre-tribulation Rapture

come from proponents of rapture theology

look especially to one particular Bible

passage composed by the Apostle Paul

which they argue refers to a

rapture-like event first Thessalonians

chapter 4 verses 16 and 17. it's worth

quoting the whole thing for the Lord

himself with a cry of command with the

archangel's call and with the sound of

God's trumpet will descend from heaven

and the dead in Christ will rise first

then we who are alive who are left will

be caught up in the clouds together with

them to meet the Lord in the air and so

we will be with the Lord forever so what

does this mean first of all I need to

stress Scholars are not 100 sure it's

famously one of the most confusing

passages in the entire New Testament as

the scholars candida moss and Joel Baden

say desp despite the many many studies

on this passage the cultural and

intellectual context of being quote

caught up in the clouds together with

the Lord and the air has remained

obscure has remained obscure is an

academic way of saying we just don't

know what Paul means here but let's try

our best this verse comes from a letter

that Paul wrote to a church that was

worried that the return of Christ had

not happened yet especially because some

members of the congregation had already

died without experiencing the second

coming that's not supposed to happen

they're supposed to witness the

inauguration of a new kingdom not simply

die so Paul is offering an

interpretation of what will happen to

those that had already died and ends the

passage with therefore encourage one

another with these words he was trying

to comfort a bunch of Christians who

thought the return of Christ should have

happened by now the dead in Christ will

resurrect don't worry the New Testament

scholar helmet Kester argued that

ancient Imperial military imagery is

bubbling under the surface of this

passage the text says the Lord himself

with a cry of command and with the

Angel's call and what the sound of God's

trumpet will descend from heaven this

description can be seen as echoing the

imagery of an emperor visiting a colony

or Province who would be escorted by

trumpets and other symbols of authority

when Paul says they will meet the Lord

in the air that word is translating the

Greek word apontesis which is a

technical term for the act of going out

to meet a dignitary or Monarch from

another city so according to kester's

interpretation which is shared by other

Scholars such as Bart Ehrman the people

meeting Christ and the clouds are

basically an imperial delegation of

emissaries going out to meet the emperor

Kester argues that there's no sense at

all that they will stay up there in the

clouds but rather will promptly return

to Earth escorting Jesus to establish

his new kingdom just as a delegation of

emissaries would escort the emperor into

the city Kester concludes that it is not

possible to understand this passage as a

statement about the Rapture of the

Believers into heaven in their study on

this passage Dr Moss and Dr Baden offer

another complementary interpretation

arguing that Paul may have been

influenced by ancient Jewish ideas that

God's chosen people will literally gain

the ability to fly at the end of days

the key text here is Isaiah chapter 60

verse 8. who are those who fly like a

cloud like doves to their coats although

this is a reference to the white sails

of a ship bringing the Israelites back

from diaspora later Jewish theologians

interpreted this text apocalyptically

those that fly like a cloud are

literally people who will fly at the end

of the world for example a passage in

the rabbinic text called the talmud says

in the future the Holy One will lift

Jerusalem three parasangs High unless

you think it is painful to go up to it

scripture teaches who are those who fly

like a cloud like doves to their coats

so according to this the end of days

Jerusalem will be a floating city but

fortunately you can reach it because you

will fly this idea is repeated in

multiple rabbinic texts not just the

talmud it's worth mentioning that these

texts are much later than the letters of

Paul but moss and Baden theorize that

the ideas found in these texts might

stretch back to the lifetime of Paul and

that these people being taken up in

first Thessalonians 4 may be viewed as

traveling via Cloud to reach the end of

days Jerusalem floating in the sky

do they stay up there well Scholars

don't know the phrase so will be with

the Lord forever might imply that they

remain up there in the clouds though as

we saw with Scholars like Dr Kester

others argued that Paul would have

likely assumed that these people then

returned to Earth regardless this

passage is not describing a Rapture Paul

is describing the resurrection event at

the end of days the same event he

describes elsewhere like in First

Corinthians 15 when he says that our

bodies will be transformed into Immortal

bodies in an instant but now he's

describing it with a colorful metaphor

of escorting Jesus like an emperor into

the city the notion of being Zapped away

like in the Left Behind movies would

have been Unthinkable to Paul proponents

of rapture theology have interpreted

this passage alongside other apocalyptic

passages in the gospels Matthew 24 says

then two will be in the field one will

be taken and one will be left two women

will be grinding meal together one will

be taken and one will be left keep awake

therefore for you do not know what day

your lord is coming these verses are the

partial inspiration for how the Rapture

has been depicted in film sudden

disappearance but in this verse it's a

bit vague as to who's being taken and

who is being left are the Believers

taken or the unbelievers the verse is

not entirely clear a parallel passage in

Luke 17 is more explicit on that day no

one who is on the roof of his house with

his Goods inside should go down to get

them likewise no one in the field should

go back for anything remember Lot's wife

which is a reference to the woman in

Genesis who looked back at the burning

city of Sodom while escaping turning her

into a pillar of salt because proponents

of rapture theology read these passages

alongside first Thessalonians they

assume that the one being snatched away

in Matthew and Luke is the lucky one the

one escaping Calamity but in these texts

the metaphor is surviving a Calamity in

Matthew 24 the disaster is specifically

a flood so the one being snatched away

is The Unlucky One Swept Away by the

flood the person who pauses to try to

save their belongings are the ones Swept

Away to judgment while those who are

Left Behind are the ones to be saved

without the context of first

Thessalonians no one would assume a

Rapture is being described in these

passages although the New Testament does

speak of a second coming of Christ these

and other verses taken by themselves do

not point to the end time scenario of

the sudden disappearance of Christians

these ideas developed over time and like

the belief in the Antichrist are a

Pastiche of ideas drawn from multiple

different biblical passages passages

that were not originally intended to be

interpreted side by side so if it's not

in the Bible where did the idea of a

pre-tribulation Rapture come from if

you've looked into the subject before

you may have heard that the Rapture was

invented in the 1800s by a man named

John Nelson Darby and as we'll see in

the next section that's definitely when

the precise Contours of

dispensationalist theology were first

developed systematized and popularized

but there are some possible hints that

Christians starting in the late antique

period believed in a pre-tribulation

rapture-like event even if that event

does not resemble the dispensationalist

version of the Rapture scene today now

I'm using the qualifier possible hints

because the evidence we're dealing with

are not well-developed theological

treatises the evidence I'm about to show

you are passing references in a small

handful of Fringe ancient and medieval

texts moreover these passages have been

analyzed almost exclusively by Pro

Rapture Evangelical theologians people

who may be motivated to prove that this

idea was taught by the early church more

research is needed in this field

conducted by more critical Scholars but

I'm sharing these passages as potential

evidence that problematizes the idea

that a pre-tribulation Rapture was

invented in the 1800s first let's

consider a document called The

Apocalypse of Elijah a text that was

circulated among Egyptian Christians

around the 3rd Century CE the document

outlines a scenario in which an

antichrist-like figure called the

Lawless one is persecuting Christians

when God sends an army of angels to

rescue them

on that day the Christ will pity those

who are his own and he will send from

Heaven his 64 000 Angels now those upon

whose forehead the name of Christ is

written and upon whose hand is the seal

both the small and the great will be

taken up upon their wings and lifted up

before his wrath archangels then lead

the rescued Believers into a liminal

Place simply called The Holy Land it's

unclear if the author specifically means

the land of Israel but it's a logical

conclusion the text draws imagery from

the book of Exodus in which the

Israelites follow a pillar of fire but

in this case the archangels Gabriel and

Uriel make a pillar of light once they

arrive in the Holy Land the text says

they will neither hunger nor thirst nor

will the Lawless one have power over

them the next chapter describes the

decline of the Earth the trees are

uprooted wild beasts and farm animals

will die in catastrophe birds will fall

on the ground so here we see a possible

early example of Jesus rescuing

Christians from experiencing the

destruction of the Earth but it's

nothing like the Left Behind Rapture

mainly there's no indication that

they're transported to heaven but rather

remain on Earth in a safe place the Holy

Land another example comes from a sermon

probably composed in the 7th or 8th

centuries called The Apocalypse of

pseudoefram pseudoephram because it

seems to have been forged in the name of

the Syrian Church Father Ephraim the

text describes a tribulation at the end

of the world you know the drill Wars

disasters diseases then the Antichrist

arises and rules of the world from

Jerusalem in this text is a passage that

appears to some Modern Evangelical

theologians as a rapture-like event for

all the saints and elect of God are

gathered prior to the tribulation that

is to come and are taken to the Lord

lest they see the confusion that is to

overwhelm the world because of our sins

this seems pretty straightforward but

it's more complicated than that Scholars

have described the end times theology

found in this text as confused

contradictory and muddled for example in

the very next section it says that

during this terrible time neither

Christian nor heretic neither June or

Pagan will have time to bury their dead

a few sections later the text says that

the tribulation will overwhelm all

people just an unjust which suggests

that the author assumes that Christians

are still there on Earth to experience

the tribulation they're not all gone The

Scholar David Malcolm Bennett one of the

few researchers to study this text says

that these pre-tribulation theologians

are imposing their own theology on the

text since pseudoefram seems to assume

that Christians are still on Earth

during the tribulation Bennett concludes

what is probably intended by those

comments is that the Saints will be

protected by God within the tribulation

rather than removed from it left

behind's rigid literal interpretation is

clearly alien to the thought of Ephraim

whose method was much Freer and more

imaginative

fast forward to the turn of the 14th

century a document dating to around 1307

called the history of brother dulcino

mentions a rapture-like teaching among a

renegade monastic order called the

apostolic Brethren led by a friar simply

known as dulcino this group was

violently persecuted by the Catholic

church and his leaders were burned at

the stake the text says that the members

of the apostolic Brethren will be caught

up into heaven three and a half years

into the reign of the Antichrist and in

this way they will be preserved unharmed

from the persecution of antichrist after

the death of the Antichrist brother

dulcino himself would return to Earth as

pope now it's worth mentioning that this

text was composed by an opponent of the

apostolic Brethren so we should be

skeptical that the text accurately

reports their theology but whether or

not dulcino held to this belief some

pro-rapture theologians in recent years

have held this up as an example that the

idea of a pre-tribulation Rapture was

held by at least some Christians before

the 1800s though with some important

changes notice that the text says

dulcino and his followers would be

transferred into Paradise not the whole

of Christianity only dulcino's followers

and there's little to indicate that

Jesus Christ is doing the Rapture and

returning here it's brother dulcino who

returns to earth judging from texts like

The Apocalypse of pseudoefram the idea

that God will rescue some or all

Christians and spare them from the

tribulation may have been held by some

Christians but these texts do not mirror

what we see in modern Rapture theology

two of our three examples seem to

suggest that Christians remain on Earth

during the tribulation and the third

example only describes a small group of

one man's disciples so how do we get to

the left behind style of the Rapture the

complete sudden removal of Christians

from Earth for that we need to turn to

this guy the Englishman John Nelson

Darby known as the father of

dispensationalism Darby was an

influential preacher Theologian and

Bible translator Who Rose to prominence

in the 1830s originally in Anglican

priest in Ireland he eventually grew

disillusioned with the church and

resigned his position in the 1820s and

30s he became associated with a

Christian Movement called the Plymouth

Brethren named for the fact that one of

their largest congregations was based in

the port city of Plymouth and Southwest

England

the Plymouth Brethren were a group of

anti-establishment Christians who

rejected professional clergy were very

critical of established churches like

the Church of England and claimed to

read the Bible literally now to say that

Darby invented dispensationalism in

general and the Rapture specifically is

probably an overstatement the concept of

dispensations predates Darby and at the

time pre-millennialism was already an

idea held by some Anglican Christians in

English and Irish intellectual circles

though more on the margins of those

intellectual circles moreover a Baptist

Theologian named Morgan Edwards who was

active decades before Darby throughout

the 1700s seems to have taught a version

of The Rapture that also placed it

before the tribulation so while Darby

was not inventing ideas out of whole

cloth we can definitely say that he

systematized and popularized the idea of

the Rapture within his complex

theological system that went on to get

very popular and we can trace a direct

line of influence from Darby To the Left

Behind series here in the 21st century

Darby argued that history tree is

divided into dispensations which we

defined at the start of this video as

discrete ages during which God relates

to humanity in different ways later

popular formulations divide history into

seven dispensations the first begins

with creation and ends when Adam and Eve

sin against God the next one is the

anti-diluvian dispensation or the time

before the flood which goes from Adam to

Noah and ends with the great flood

described in the Book of Genesis the

second to last is the age of the church

and the final is the millennial Kingdom

now Darby's exact divisions are not

quite so clear-cut he seems to have

divided history like this on screen

starting with Noah and ending with the

final dispensation that begins with the

Rapture Darby argued that these

dispensations were a boom and bust cycle

always ending in tragedy always with

humans failing the fall of humanity into

sin Noah's flood the Babylonian exile

disaster after disaster after disaster

like later formulations Darby believed

that we are living in the second to last

dispensation the age of the church but

even this dispensation is headed for

ruin like other Plymouth Brethren he

thought that most established churches

in this era have fallen into apostasy he

believed that only a small remnant of

Christians were truly destined to be

saved Darby taught that the church

dispensation would end with the Rapture

a two-stage return of Jesus first Jesus

would appear in the clouds and

Christians would rise to him as

described in first Thessalonians chapter

4 then seven years of tribulation then

Jesus would return physically to Earth

after the tribulation establishing his

1000 year Rule and commencing the final

dispensation as we said these ideas were

not 100 novel The historian Daniel

Hummel who wrote the most recent and

comprehensive history of

dispensationalism says that Darby was

not making entirely novel contributions

on any of these points but he was

shaping a new type of Christian identity

that bundled a condemnation of

established churches a pre-millennial

eschatology and a dualism Between Heaven

and Earth so how did Darby's theology

get so popular well the Plymouth

Brethren went abroad throughout the

mid-1800s Plymouth Brethren preachers

started to bring their ideas to North

America where they found a bunch of

people already obsessed with predicting

when the second coming of Jesus would

occur William Miller whose followers

would later form the Seventh-day

Adventist denomination taught that the

second coming of Christ would occur in

1843 or 1844 when this prediction failed

others stepped in with their own

predictions so the Plymouth Brethren

found a very receptive audience in the

U.S Darby himself also traveled to North

America visiting seven times between

1862 and 1877. he spent most of his time

in the American Midwest and New England

between several major cities and urban

evangelicals started to adopt his ideas

most importantly a man named Dwight L

moody moody was a Revival Preacher based

in Chicago at the time though he had

some disagreements with Darby he started

teaching pre-millennial ideas in his

sermons spreading far and wide the idea

that a pre-tribulation Rapture was about

to happen any day Moody thought he was

living in the final days he wrote I look

on this world as a wrecked vessel God

has given me a Lifeboat and said to me

Moody save all you can but Rapture

theology really exploded in the U.S

thanks to this guy Cyrus Schofield he

was a confederate soldier turned Union

sympathizer turned politician and lawyer

who converted to Evangelical

Christianity in the late 1880s launching

a second career as a theologian and

preacher he was part of the whole to

White L Moody movement and he started

preaching within the local Moody network

of congregations where he adopted

dispensationalist ideas he went on to

publish the Scofield reference Bible in

1909 a King James version of the Bible

with commentary explaining the text from

a dispensational pre-millennial

perspective so for example right here at

the beginning in the Book of Genesis the

Scofield bible has a subheading above

Genesis chapter 1 verse 28 calling it

the first dispensation below the text in

the footnotes it provides a helpful

definition of what that is and in a note

under the all-important passage first

Thessalonians chapter 4 verse 16 the

Scofield bible takes the two-stage

Resurrection narrative for granted

explicitly saying that the passage

describes the first resurrection so by

using footnotes and subheadings the

Scofield reference Bible basically

builds a pre-millennial

dispensationalist framework around the

entire Bible and as a study Bible it

presents itself as a scholarly Authority

using scholarly academic language to

disregard competing interpretations

especially rejecting critical biblical

scholarship and darwinian evolution

which made it a very popular bible

within fundamentalist circles and it was

very popular it sold one million copies

within a decade and exceeded 2 million

copies by the end of World War II the

Scofield bible thus spread

dispensationalist ideas like the Rapture

to millions and millions of conservative

Evangelical Christians effectively

solidifying dispensationalism as a part

of American Evangelical culture for the

rest of the 20th century so by the mid

20th century capture and other

dispensationalist beliefs had become a

staple of end times thinking among

conservative American Evangelical

Christians and it reached new heights of

popularity during the Cold War when many

began to look for a religious

explanation for current events like the

rise of the Soviet Union and the

establishment of the modern state of

Israel a new generation of Evangelical

authors started to interpret geopolitics

through the lens of dispensationalist

thinking most importantly Hal Lindsey

I'm speaking to you today from the last

Battlefield on planet Earth

Hal Lindsay was an author who sparked a

cottage industry interpreting current

events as fulfilling biblical prophecy

many people think that because this

man's called the Antichrist that he'll

appear to be evil but Satan's no fool a

graduate from Dallas Theological

Seminary he published a book in 1970

called the late great planet Earth it

was basically an explainer of

pre-millennial dispensationalism

packaged for a popular audience blending

prophecy spirituality and geopolitics

and it was a mega bestseller it became

the best-selling non-fiction book of the

1970s with 10 million copies sold in the

1970s and 28 million sold by the year

2000. the historian Daniel Hummel says

that the book entered the bloodstream of

American culture making the word rapture

a household term the book also

kick-started Decades of people

monetizing dispensationalist Theology

and Rapture predictions in books radio

shows movies and later on social media

notably one of these authors was Tim

lahaye the Baptist Minister who would go

on to co-write the Left Behind series in

the 1990s but he got his start in the

1970s soon after Lindsay published his

book though lahaye's first book was

nowhere near as popular as the Left

Behind series which sold 80 million

copies perhaps no other work is more

responsible for belief in the Rapture in

other words the idea was spread not by

theologians but by popular media and

here we see an interesting phenomenon

here in the 21st century tension between

the Evangelical Intelligentsia and

popular Evangelical belief Dr Hummel

argues that we're witnessing a collapse

in dispensationalist theology here in

the 2020s in the early 2000s

conservative American evangelicalism

swung toward what some have called new

Calvinism led by figures like the

Baptist Theologian John Piper Piper

explicitly rejected the concept of a

pre-tribulation Rapture as did NT write

an Anglican Theologian and Scholar who

became very popular among certain

segments of American evangelicalism

Wright explicitly attacked Rapture

theology in his 2008 book surprised by

hope Evangelical universities founded by

dispensationalists such as Biola college

and Gordon College ditched the theology

as well as did some Evangelical

denominations in 2019 the Evangelical

Free Church of America removed

pre-millennial theology from its

statement of faith so while Rapture

theology remains very popular today it

draws most of its inspiration from pop

dispensational writings like the Left

Behind series some historians go so far

as to call it a form of folk

evangelicalism as the theological muscle

backing the belief has diminished as

Evangelical theologians and institutions

have turned away from it all this to say

belief in the Rapture started on The

Fringe of Evangelical theology but it

may be headed to The Fringe once again

as we talked about in this video Rapture

theology draws a lot of inspiration from

first Thessalonians a text composed for

a congregation that was very concerned

that Jesus had not returned yet as the

decades and centuries went on Christians

started to Grapple with this delayed

return in writing developing new

theological Frameworks to make sense of

it one of these texts is the Gospel of

Thomas which has passages that describe

the coming of the kingdom of God as an

internal event rather than an external

political event I'll be teaching an

online webinar about the Gospel of

Thomas on Monday July 31st starting at 6

30 PM U.S east Coast time tickets cost

whatever you want I don't want cost to

get in the way think of this webinar

like a guided close reading of a very

complicated text I'll walk us through

the major themes in the Gospel of Thomas

some key passages and the scholarship on

what the text actually means if you

can't make it during that exact time

slot don't worry afterward I'll send out

a recording of the webinar to everyone

who signed up just head on over to

religion for breakfast.eventbrite.com to

join so again that's religion for

breakfast.eventbrite.com thanks everyone

hope to see you there