Nowhere in the Bible is there anything about the rapture.

[chaska]

Heard this the other day on the radio. Can someone confirm this? I think this is a good point to have in our arsenal of arguments.

[LynneSin]

1. Not really

The rapture is almost created out of a hodgepodge of stuff found in Isaiah, Daniel and Revelations that never quite put together the story that rapturists have created. But if you asked for specific bible verses that discuss the rapture, well, even I don't know where they are!

Here are some of the scriptures but none of them are all together.

[GreenPartyVoter]

2. Well it's all about interpretation. There's a book on this

listed on my site somewhere. It'll be a yellow link on the Christianity page. General religious resources or progressive Xian ones, I think.

[MissMarple]

19. That's quite a site you have there, GreenParyVoter.

And yes the reference is about a quarter of the page down on the Christianity page. The reviews of the book are are interesting, the last one is actually sort of... funny.

[GreenPartyVoter]

20. Thanks. :^) And yeah, what a mixed bag of reviews!

[NAO]

3. Rapture in the Bible: 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

The word "rapture" is not used, but there is talk of the dead rising up from their graves (ala Dawn of the Dead) and believers rising up in the air to meet the Lord.

[dogday]

5. The Dead In Christ Shall Rise First and Then The Living

That is what they interpret to be the "Rapture"

[atreides1]

10. Also Mark 13:26-27

"And then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with
great power and glory. And then shall he send his angels, and shall
gather together his elect fgrom the four winds, from the uttermost
part of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven."

This appears to be a brief reference. But there is nothing that says
that the dead will regain their bodies or that people will rise unaided.

But then again, both St. Paul and St. Mark were wrong about when this was to take place. Both believed and preached that it would occur in their lifetimes, both were incorrect.

There are so many conflicting beliefs, that it's very difficult to tell which, if any are real.

[Malva Zebrina]

4. there us no such word in the bible as "the rapture" nt

[myrna minx]

6. The rapture was invented by a 14 year old Scottish girl in

the 19th century. It was peddled around by a snake oil salesman John Nelson Darby.

Here's a link to frontline.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/apocalypse/explanation/amprophesy.html

This is a great book debunking the Left Behind snake handler's view of the end of days.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0813391563/002-0183770-9627246?v=glance

The Rapture Exposed: The Message of Hope in the Book of Revelation
by Barbara R. Rossing "THE RAPTURE IS A RACKET..." (
Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Ordained minister Rossing is ready to do battle with evangelicals both within and outside of her Lutheran Church camp. Rossing, who teaches New Testament at the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago, begins her sparring by taking on the widely popular Left Behind series and all it presumes to communicate about the future of the world. Claiming that the Left Behind authors' interpretation of prophetic biblical verses is "fiction," Rossing firmly asserts that the Book of Revelation has a completely different purpose than to predict upcoming world uprisings and the eventual end of the earth. Instead, Rossing believes that this biblical vision is meant to inspire humanity to seek out "repentance and justice." Rossing also maintains, somewhat unfairly, that rapture enthusiasts extol a careless, abusive attitude toward God's created world, since rapture theology declares that the followers of Christ are soon to be removed from it. More significant is Rossing's belief that Revelation does not offer a prophetic look at Jerusalem as the inevitable battleground between good and evil, but rather extends the promise of a New Jerusalem that will open its arms to all nations in peace. While Rossing's scholarly work is well organized and obviously carefully thought out, evangelicals may take issue with the blanket statement that "most Christian churches and biblical scholars condemn Rapture theology as a distortion of Christian faith with little biblical basis." This book will likely upset Christian conservatives while appealing to many in mainline denominations.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Arguing against the dispensational theology of Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins' Left Behind novels, Rossing advances an alternative view of the Revelation of St. John, a text that has fascinated biblical scholars and lay readers--beginning, no doubt, with those to whom it was first addressed--for almost 2,000 years. Although a professional New Testament scholar, Rossing writes for a popular readership, including Left Behind fans. She places the Revelation in a tradition of apocalypse and prophecy that has less to do with violence or prediction than with vision. In so doing she argues powerfully against the fascination with violence characteristic of much dispensational thinking. For Rossing, the Revelation is "a rapture in reverse"--God raptured, so to speak, into the world as Immanuel, God-with-us. That, she says, is a vision of a new Jerusalem, a beloved community--a vision of peace and justice that has inspired a host of good stories and still inspires persistent hope in the face of oppression and violence. Steven Schroeder
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

[Orrex]

7. Not a specific cite, but...

http://www.biblestudysite.com/saved.htm">Here's an interesting take on it:

I told him that the Rapture 'doctrine' is a lie strait from satan's camp, and we went on to have a thirty minute discussion about Bible verses and the doctrines of men. I gave him some of the many many scriptures that document that there will be no Rapture, and every time he brought up one of the scriptures that satan's false teachers had twisted and misinterpreted into the "fly away" Rapture doctrine, I explained the truth of the particular verse giving corresponding scriptural documentation.

There's a ton of similar refutations out there, but this one struck me as useful because it's not one of us Pointy-Headed Liberals throwing stones at the bibble; instead, it's by an apparently passionate believer in the Word holding forth on the subject.

I haven't read much of the site beyond this bit, so I can't give any warnings about what you'll find if you stray too far. Nor can I specifically endorse even the writer's view the subject at hand, other than to say that it seems relevant starting-point for your question.

[Bridget Burke]

8. Here's one viewpoint...

It is widely believed that fundamentalist Christian denominations only believe that which can be read verbatim from the Bible. Not surprisingly, this is not necessarily the case. The end times theology dealing with the Rapture, Tribulation, and the other specifics around which the Left Behind series revolves is relatively new on the scene. In fact, the term "rapture" was not used until the mid-1800s.

Before that time, all Christians -- Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant -- believed that the event known today as the "rapture" would take place right before the Second Coming. It was believed that this event would actually end a long period of persecution.

Interestingly enough, it was a member of a sect known as the Irvingites, who, in 1830, claimed that the rapture would occur before the period of persecution. What is even more interesting is that this claim was made while the man was in a trance.

Eventually, this view was adopted by John Nelson Darby, an early leader of a Fundamentalist movement, and his view of the rapture was then picked up by another gentleman, who taught the view in the footnotes of his Reference Bible. The Scofield Reference Bible was widely used in England and America, and many Protestants simply accepted what its footnotes said. Thus it was that the pre-tribulational view of the rapture -- the belief that the rapture will occur before the tribulation -- became very popular very quickly... even though no one had heard of it during the previous 1800 years.

www.parishwebmaster.com/archives/cc/catechism_20020721.htm

The writer is Catholic but I believe I've seen (true) Fundamentalist Protestant arguments against The Rapture.

Of course, the "Left Behind" books are the modern source for Rapture Theory. Co-author Tim LaHaye is big in Dominionist circles.

[Melodybe]

9. It came about in the 1830's by a defrocked Spanish Priest

In 1812 he wrote a book called "The Coming of Messiah in Glory and Majesty."

In 1880 it was brought to America by Irishman John Nelson Darby, he was successful largely due to wealthy America investors, happy to hear that their own sins did not matter.

And yes it is no where in the bible.

[On the Road]

11. Paul's Letters Say That

"¹⁶For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. ¹⁷After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever." 1 Thessalonions 4

That's pretty much how evangelicals describe the rapture, although nowdays they de-emphasize the dead. But the term "the rapture" also refers to one event in a very specific storyline about the end of the world. This whole sequence of events is not spelled out in the Bible per se and was not constucted until the 18th or 19th century. In the evangelican timeline, the rapture is followed by a seven-year period of suffering and violence ("the tribulation"), after which Jesus returns a third time to establish and earthly kingdom and judge the living and the dead.

The storyline is put together from passages like:

Daniel http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=34&chapter=8&version=31

Revelation http://tinyurl.com/a3n39

and the Gospels http://tinyurl.com/dagva

If you believe that all those passages are true prophecies which have not yet been fulfilled, you have no choice but to try to reconcile them with each other. However, if you do this, you end up with a mish-mash which really doesn't represent any of them. That's the evangelicals' problem.

And that's why you hear conflicting things about whether the rapture is in the Bible.

[uhhuh]

13. God doesn't believe in the rapture.

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=33&chapter=13&version=9&context=chapter


The relevant passages:


18And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Woe to the women that sew pillows to all armholes, and make kerchiefs upon the head of every stature to hunt souls! Will ye hunt the souls of my people, and will ye save the souls alive that come unto you?

19And will ye pollute me among my people for handfuls of barley and for pieces of bread, to slay the souls that should not die, and to save the souls alive that should not live, by your lying to my people that hear your lies?

20Wherefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against your pillows, wherewith ye there hunt the souls to make them fly, and I will tear them from your arms, and will let the souls go, even the souls that ye hunt to make them fly.

21Your kerchiefs also will I tear, and deliver my people out of your hand, and they shall be no more in your hand to be hunted; and ye shall know that I am the LORD.

22Because with lies ye have made the heart of the righteous sad, whom I have not made sad; and strengthened the hands of the wicked, that he should not return from his wicked way, by promising him life:

23Therefore ye shall see no more vanity, nor divine divinations: for I will deliver my people out of your hand: and ye shall know that I am the LORD.

[On the Road]

15. That's a Bizarre Passage

Do you know what it refers to? I assume some kind of pagan divination ritual?

BTW, I don't believe in the rapture either. Just pointing out that Paul's letters do say that Christians will be caught up in the air with Jesus. And most of the other elements are there in some form or other. They're just not sequenced in this particular way.

Personally, I think if you're going to believe in the Bible and all its prophecies, it's much easier to make sense of if you're a preterist, namely one who beleives that the second coming has taken place already, and that it was a coming in judgment on Jerusalem in 70AD.

It's hard to find Christians who support this view today, but historically it has a very good pedigree:

http://members.aol.com/pilgrimpub/primer.htm
http://www.apocalipsis.org/preterism.htm#_Toc466462216

[uhhuh]

16. Well

I would interpret it like this:

There are those who would decieve the people by giving them false comforts (pillows) and hide the truth (kerchiefs over their heads).

They will hunt the souls to make them FLY.( Into the air)

They will be told they need not give up their wicked ways. They will still be saved.

That's what I got.

[On the Road]

17. This is the Best I Could Find

They mimicked the true prophets, by giving signs for the illustrating of their false predictions (as Hananiah did, Jeremiah 28:10), and they were signs agreeable to their sex; they sewed little pillows to the people's arm-holes, to signify that they might be easy and repose themselves, and needed not be disquieted with the apprehensions of trouble approaching. And they made kerchiefs upon the head of every stature, of persons of every age, young and old, distinguishable by their stature, Ezekiel 13:18. These kerchiefs were badges of liberty or triumph, intimating that they should not only be delivered from the Chaldeans, but be victorious over them. Some think these were some superstitious rites which they used with those to whom they delivered their divinations, preparing them for the reception of them by putting enchanted pillows under their arms and handkerchiefs on their heads, to raise their fancies and their expectations of something great.

http://www.studylight.org/com/mhc-com/view.cgi?book=eze&chapter=013

Not that it's the final word. Still not very convincing. I just don't remember ever reading this passage at all, even though I must have at some point. Good find.

[chaska]

12. Wow, ya'll quick.

[Abelman]

14. It's ruling through fear

This is my main problem with much of the RW Fundementalist teaching, they utilize ideas like the Rapture to scare people into following their way of thought. As you go up the ladder, you find people who truly believe this stuff and are ruling with fear because the fear controls them. But above them, there are often people devoid of fear who know how to use the fear to get what they want. Generally, these are the people controlled by greed.

This is one reason I've become politically liberal. For the most part, when it comes to this type of issue, liberalism is less about ruling and more about inspiring. Inspiring people with hope and vision for a better world, a world closer and closer to heaven. Which is what I think Jesus was getting at, but that's opinon.

It's where we run into trouble, if I may get off topic. The RW rules with fear about the intangible, but lies about the tangible - that the environment is okay, that the war is okay, that it's going to be okay for you with the stuff you can touch. We, on the other hand, can come across as downright apocalyptic about the tangible - we're destroying the earth, we won't be able to sustain life soon. People seem less likely to change their ways and more likely to ignore actual problems and try to "solve" intangible problems.

But all their intangible beliefs can be shot down quite easily because they don't have any real faith or hope, just fear.

[geniph]

18. You know what really drives some of the End Times believers nuts?

Nowhere in the Bible is there anything that can be interpreted to refer to the New World. In other words, the good old U.S. of A. has no role to play in the Rapture. Oh, you'll hear 'em wriggle and squirm and justify, but there simply is no way to reconcile that with what they claim to believe about the prophecy of Revelation and End Times mythology.

Many very serious fundamentalist scholars reject the entire End Times idea as non-Biblical and perhaps even blasphemous. My husband's father, who was a Pentecostal minister, never could get behind all the "Late Great Planet Earth" Hal Lindsey crap popular in the 70s and 80s, and were he still living, he certainly wouldn't buy into the apocalyptic nonsense of LaHaye and Jenkins. That's probably why he never had more than a storefront church with a dozen congregants - he'd actually studied the Bible and knew what was really in it instead of selectively focusing on only what fit his preconceived notions.