Editing Rapture (section)

==== Pretribulational premillennialism ====
The pretribulation position advocates that the rapture will occur before the beginning of a seven-year tribulation period, while the second coming will occur at the end of it. Pretribulationists often describe the rapture as Jesus coming ''for'' the church and the second coming as Jesus coming ''with'' the church. Pretribulation educators and preachers include [[Jimmy Swaggart]], [[Robert Jeffress]], [[J. Dwight Pentecost]], [[Tim LaHaye]], [[J. Vernon McGee]], [[Perry  Stone (minister)|Perry Stone]], [[Chuck Smith (pastor)|Chuck Smith]], [[Hal Lindsey]], [[Jack Van Impe]], [[Skip Heitzig]], [[Chuck Missler]], [[Grant Jeffrey]], [[Thomas Ice]], [[David Jeremiah]], [[John F. MacArthur]], and [[John Hagee]].<ref>{{cite book |last= Lindsey |first= Hal |author-link= Hal Lindsey |year=1983 |page= [https://archive.org/details/rapturetruthorco00lind/page/25 25] |title= The Rapture: Truth or Consequences |publisher= [[Bantam Books]] |isbn= 978-0553014112 |url= https://archive.org/details/rapturetruthorco00lind/page/25 }}</ref>

[[John Darby (evangelist)|John Nelson Darby]] first solidified and popularized the pretribulation rapture in 1827. Despite vague notions of this view existing in a few [[Puritans|Puritan]] theologians prior to Darby, he was the first person to place it into a larger theological framework .<ref name="r-Bray-1982" /><ref>Cf. Ian S. Markham, "John Darby", The Student's Companion to the Theologians, pp. 263–264 (Wiley-Blackwell, 2013) ("[Darby] simultaneously created a theology that holds the popular imagination and was popularized very effectively in the margins of the Scofield Bible."), https://books.google.com/books?id=h6SHSAjeCrYC .</ref><ref>Carl E. Olson, "Five Myths About the Rapture," Crisis pp. 28–33 (Morley Publishing Group, 2003) ("LaHaye declares, in Rapture Under Attack, that “virtually all Christians who take the Bible literally expect to be raptured before the Lord comes in power to this earth.” This would have been news to Christians — both Catholic and Protestant — living prior to the 18th century, since the concept of a pre-tribulation rapture was unheard of prior to that time. Vague notions had been considered by the Puritan preachers Increase (1639–1723) and Cotton Mather (1663–1728), and the late 18th-century Baptist minister Morgan Edwards, but it was John Nelson Darby who solidified the belief in the 1830s and placed it into a larger theological framework."). Reprinted at http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=5788 .</ref><ref name=":2">{{Cite book |last=Watson |first=William C. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1mryrQEACAAJ |title=Dispensationalism Before Darby: Seventeenth-century and Eighteenth-century English Apocalypticism |date=2015 |publisher=Lampion Press, LLC |isbn=978-1-942614-03-6 |language=en}}</ref> This view was accepted among many other [[Plymouth Brethren]] movements in England.<ref name="r-Blaising-Bock-1993" />{{Page needed|date=December 2022}} Darby and other prominent Brethren were part of the Brethren movement which impacted American Christianity, especially with movements and teachings associated with Christian eschatology and [[fundamentalism]], primarily through their writings. Influences included the Bible Conference Movement, starting in 1878 with the [[Niagara Bible Conference]]. These conferences, which were initially inclusive of [[Historicism|historicist]] and [[Futurism|futurist]] premillennialism, led to an increasing acceptance of futurist premillennial views and the pretribulation rapture especially among Presbyterian, Baptist, and Congregational members.<ref name="r-Blaising-Bock-1993" />{{Rp|page=11}} Popular books also contributed to acceptance of the pretribulation rapture, including [[William E. Blackstone]]'s book ''Jesus is Coming'', published in 1878,<ref>{{Cite book  | last = Blackstone  | first = William E.  | author-link = William E. Blackstone | title = Jesus is coming  | publisher = [[Baker Publishing Group|Fleming H. Revell Company]] | edition = Third |year= 1908 | isbn = 9780825496165 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=encXAAAAYAAJ&q=Jesus+is+Coming |orig-year=1878| oclc= 951778}}</ref> which sold more than 1.3 million copies, and the [[Scofield Reference Bible]], published in 1909 and 1919 and revised in 1967.<ref>{{cite book |editor-first= C. I. |editor-last= Scofield |editor-link= C. I. Scofield |title= [[Scofield Reference Bible]] |orig-year=1909 |year=1967 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-527802-6}}</ref><ref>''The Scofield Bible: Its History and Impact on the Evangelical Church'', Magnum & Sweetnam. pp. 188–195, 218.</ref>

Some pretribulation proponents, such as Grant Jeffrey, maintain that the earliest known extra-Biblical reference to the pretribulation rapture is from a 7th-century tract known as the [[Apocalypse of Pseudo-Ephraem|Apocalypse of Pseudo-Ephraem the Syrian.]]<ref>Ephraem the Syrian, JoshuaNet, 27 July 2010. http://joshuanet.org/articles/ephraem1.htm & © 1995 Grant R. Jeffrey, Final Warning, published by Frontier Research Publications, Inc., Box 120, Station "U", Toronto, Ontario M8Z 5M4.</ref> Different authors have proposed several different versions of the text as authentic and there are differing opinions as to whether it supports belief in a pretribulation rapture.<ref name="r-Tim-Warner"/><ref name="r-note-pseudo-epraem"/> One version of the text reads, "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."<ref name="r-Missler-1995"/><ref name="r-bpo-pseudo-ephraem"/> In addition, ''[[Apocalypse of Elijah|The Apocalypse of Elijah]]'' and ''[[Fra Dolcino|The History of Brother Dolcino]]'' both state that believers will be removed prior to the Tribulation.{{Cn|date=July 2023}}

There exists at least one 18th-century and two 19th-century pretribulation references: in an essay published in 1788 in Philadelphia by the Baptist [[Morgan Edwards]] which articulated the concept of a pretribulation rapture,<ref name="r-Marotta-1995"/> in the writings of Catholic priest [[Manuel Lacunza]] in 1812,<ref name="r-Hommel"/> and by [[John Nelson Darby]] in 1827. Manuel Lacunza (1731–1801), a [[Jesuit]] priest (under the pseudonym Juan Josafat Ben Ezra), wrote an apocalyptic work entitled ''La venida del Mesías en gloria y majestad'' (''The Coming of the Messiah in Glory and Majesty''). The book appeared first in 1811, 10 years after his death. In 1827, it was translated into English by the Scottish minister Edward Irving.<ref>{{cite book |title=Catalogue of the Theological Library in the University of Edinburgh|publisher=A. Balfour & Co|location=Edinburgh|date=1829|page=113|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QZNPAQAAMAAJ}}</ref>

During the 1970s, belief in the rapture became popular in wider circles, in part because of the books of Hal Lindsey, including ''[[The Late Great Planet Earth]]'', which has reportedly sold between 15 million and 35 million copies, and the movie ''[[A Thief in the Night (film)|A Thief in the Night]]'', which based its title on the scriptural reference {{bible verse || 1 Thessalonians|5:2|KJV}}. Lindsey proclaimed that the rapture was imminent, based on world conditions at the time.

In 1995, the doctrine of the pretribulation rapture was further popularized by Tim LaHaye's ''[[Left Behind]]'' series of books, which sold close to 80 million copies and was made into several movies and four real-time strategy video games.<ref name="booksite">{{cite news|title=Tim LaHaye, Evangelical Legend Behind 'Left Behind' Series, Dies At 90|date=July 25, 2016 |publisher=[[NPR]] |url=https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/07/25/487382209/tim-lahaye-evangelical-legend-behind-left-behind-series-dies-at-90|access-date=April 11, 2021}}</ref>

According to Thomas Ice a belief in the imminence of Christ's return, key to modern pretribulation theology, can be found in various Church Fathers and early Christian writings.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Ice |first=Thomas |date=May 2009 |title=Myths of the Origin of Pretribulationism (Part 1) |url=https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1113&context=pretrib_arch |journal=Liberty University Article Archives |volume=114 |pages=1–2 |via=Liberty.edu}}</ref>