I was thinking with all this rapture buisness how come these people can't figure out they are wrong ? They talk about this thing but it never happens . I believe that most of revelation has a modern day fulfillment but there just isn't a rapture in revelation . I think it's thesolonians where the transfiguring is mentioned and the scripture they think means rapture because the word rapture isn't in the bible anywhere . This is not star treck where you just get beamed aboard the enterprise .
"Left Behind" Series Gets Left Behind
by Stephanus 30 Replies latest jw friends
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Elsewhere
"I don't know what science fiction he is reading," LaHaye said. "We believe the Rapture is going to come, not his nonsense that Christ came back in 68 A.D." Hanegraaff retorted, "I am reading the Bible, specifically Revelation -- it was written for first-century Christians. I am not relying on some wooden, literal interpretation that is unsupportable."
Damn... that sure does remind me of how a die-hard Star Trek fan will mock the "science" and "physics" of Star Wars.
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Leolaia
heathen....The modern belief in a "rapture" represents one harmonization and interpretation of motifs found in various independent apocalyptic texts in the NT. There is a rapture of the living in 1 Thessalonians 4:17 but it is not described and does not correspond exactly to any single modern notion of a rapture, which draws on other texts as well (such as Matthew 24:40-41, which actually describes a destructive "taking" and not a salvic "rapture, cf. v. 39). Indeed, there is no "rapture" of the living per se in Revelation, and neither is there any notion of a "millenium" in 1 Thessalonians. Each text presents an distinct view of the end-times (which may be compared with the apocalypses in the Didache, the Ascension of Isaiah, the Apocalypse of Elijah, the Sibylline Oracles, and so forth). It is likely that Paul's concept of a rapture in 1 Thessalonians (the earliest written book of the NT, dating to around AD 50) is simply the result of an expectation that the parousia would occur soon in his own lifetime, while his generation of Christians were still alive in the flesh (an idea also expressed later in Matthew 10:23, 16:28, 24:34). Other Jewish apocalypses take a different view: all humankind would be annihilated in the conflagration, after which all humankind would be resurrected in a "new heavens and new earth".
I think it's thesolonians where the transfiguring is mentioned and the scripture they think means rapture because the word rapture isn't in the bible anywhere .
It's not "transfiguring" in 1 Thessalonians, maybe you're thinking of 1 Corinthians 15:51-52 where Paul says that "we will not all sleep [i.e. experience death], but we will all be changed, in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed". This corresponds to the resurrection of the "dead in Christ" at "the trumpet call of God" after which "we who are still alive and are left will be caught away (harpagésometha) together with them" (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17). The word "caught away" or "snatched away" is pretty much the exact equivalent of "rapture". In the Latin Vulgate, the Greek word harpagésometha is translated with the word rapiermur -- from the same root rapere "to snatch, catch" -- the same root from which was derived English rapture. So saying that the word "rapture" isn't in the Bible is basically making a distinction without a difference; "rapture" (defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as "the act of seizing and carrying off") is pretty much what is meant by the word in 1 Thessalonians.
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Carmel
How is the rapture any more a rediculous concept than millions of people popping out of the ground to live again on earth? Resurrection has always been a mental trap for the literalists, and it IS mentioned repeatedly in the scriptures. That doesn't mean it is a physical phenomena. Even old Paul made it clear that the resurrection is a metaphysical event and a spirtual renewal.
go figure
carmel
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heathen
Leolaia --- It is my belief that what you said is erroneous . First off in revelation it talks about the great crowd inheriting the earth and to be caught away in the clouds does not have to mean actually leaving planet earth . Jehovah led the Israelites in a cloud back in moses day . An angel said when jesus left by floating up to heaven that he would return in like manner . Jesus would be in the clouds not human beings . You are correct tho in that the scripture there in 1st thessalonians does not mention being transfigured .
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Leolaia
heathen.....I'm not clear on exactly what it was I said that you feel is erroneous. I was saying, in agreement with you, that the modern concept of a rapture does not correspond exactly with what is in scripture but was also pointing out that 1 Thessalonians 4:17 does speak of a rapture (harpagésometha), or a snatching away of living Christians at the time of the resurrection. I did not address the manner of the rapture, as you do, and so I fail to see what you feel is erroneous.
With regard to the manner of the rapture, and in particular to the notion of a heavenly ascent, I would only quote 1 Thessalonians 4:17: "After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught away together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever." In contrast to what you just wrote about only "Jesus being in the clouds not human beings," the text would appear to plainly state that the "meeting" of the Lord with the "scatched"/"raptured" believers would be "in the clouds ... in the air". Moreover, Paul otherwise uses the phrase "being with the Lord" in 2 Corinthians 5:1-11 and Philippians 1:21-24 to refer a heavenly existence, being "clothed with our dwelling from heaven," and since Paul expected a future heavenly home (cf. "If the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven," 2 Corinthians 5:1; "Our citizenship is in heaven," Philippians 3:20), and since Paul otherwise uses the passive of the verb harpazó "snatch away, rapture" to refer to someone being "caught away to third heaven (tritou ouranou)" (2 Corinthians 12:2), the evidence would strongly support the view that 1 Thessalonians 4:17 refers to a heavenly ascent (as would possibly 1 Corinthians 15 too, in referring to those being "changed" at the "last trumpet" to the "likeness of the man of heaven").
First off in revelation it talks about the great crowd inheriting the earth
Where does Revelation say this? The phrase "great crowd"occurs only in Revelation 7 and 19, and in the first instance they "stand before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple" (7:15), and the "temple" is otherwise located in "heaven" (cf. "God's temple in heaven" 11:19, "the temple in heaven" 14:17, "in heaven the Temple ... was opened" 15:5, etc.) and in the second the reference is to "a great crowd in heaven" (19:1), so I honestly find your statement to be quite erroneous. The earth is not described in either case as the inheritance of the "great crowd" and instead they are located rather clearly in heaven (contrary to what the WTS claims).
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LittleToe
Ah, but Leo, then the Starship "New Jerusalem" comes back down to the new earth with all the happy campers (Rev.21:1,2)
I'm very much of the opinion that if it happens it happens, whenever it happens. I've not read or seen the "Left Behind" series (I've heard of it and seen the books and videos, but have no desire to look at them), and frankly am turned off by what I see as "end times propoganda".
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Leolaia
LittleToe....Yes, that's right, or rather a descent to a new earth which replaces the current earth. The "passing away" of the heavens and earth was conceived in Jewish apocalypse and proto-apocalypse to be a feature of the divine theophany at the Final Judgment that includes mountains melting, cosmic upheaval, and the heavens being rolled up (Psalm 97:5, 102:25-27; Isaiah 51:6, 65:17, 66:22-24; Micah 1:3-4; Matthew 24:35; 1 Enoch 1:4-9; Testament of Levi 4:1), and under Stoic influence, a final conflagration that consumes and destroys everything (2 Peter 3:5-13; Sibylline Oracles 2:196-226, 4:171-192, 6:118-131; 4 Ezra 7:26-36; Apocalypse of Elijah 5:22-30, 36-37), with even the very stoikheia "elements" melting (2 Peter 3:12). The dissolution of creation to its primeval state, followed by the appearance of Paradise and Gehenna, is described well in 4 Ezra 7:26-36. The Apocalypse of Elijah also gives an interesting description of a rapture of the righteous that precedes the cosmic conflagration:
"On that day Christ will pity those who are his own. And he will send from heaven his sixty-four thousand angels, each of whom has six wings. The sound will move heaven and earth when they give praise and glorify. 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. Then Gabriel and Uriel will become a pillar of light leading them into the holy land. It will be granted to them to eat from the Tree of Life. They will wear white garments and angels will watch over them. They will not thirst, nor will the Son of Lawlessness be able to prevail over them. And on that day the earth will be disturbed, and the sun will darken, and peace will be removed from the earth. The birds will fall on the earth dead. The earth will be dry. The waters of the sea will dry up...It will come to pass on that day that the Lord will hear and command the heaven and earth with great wrath. And they will send forth fire. And the fire will prevail over the earth seventy-two cubits. It will consume the sinners and the devils like stubble. A true judgment will occur....On that day, the Christ, the king, and all his saints will come forth from heaven. He will burn the earth. He will spend a thousand years upon it. Because the sinners prevailed over it, he will create a new heaven and a new earth" (Apocalypse of Elijah 5:2-9, 22-24, 36-38).
As far as Revelation is concerned, what has passed away is the "first heaven and first earth" (v. 1), so that there is "no more sea," and no sun or moon or divisions between day and night (v. 23, 25). This may mean that the heavens containing the luminaries have passed away (with the Temple being in the highest "heaven of heavens," cf. 1 Enoch 60:1-3, 71:5-10; Testament of Levi 3:1-4, which also describes the lower two heavens as containing the "fire, snow, and ice" used on Judgment Day and the armies of angels dispatched to execute vengence on Judgment Day), but the text is not clear. The overall conception in Revelation depends on the haggadaic notion that before the Flood, the Garden of Eden was lifted up to heaven and preserved and would be again revealed at the end-times. Revelation modifies this concept with an eschatological New Jerusalem built in the Paradise (or which contains the Paradise), a concept of "New Jerusalem" found in the Qumran writings and especially in Hebrews 12:22: "But you have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly". As for the "great crowd" of martyrs, they are assembled in "heaven" before the last vision of the heavenly New Jerusalem descending (in a sort of dissolution of the distinction between heaven and earth), so I suppose one could say they first enter heaven to the Temple and Throne and then descend with the city and Temple to the new eschatological earth, though this again is not explicit. Paul, on the other hand, has no concept that the future heavenly home would be brought down to a "new earth".
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Princess
I'm thinking of displaying a banner, readable from the church, on the back of my home:
AFTER THE RAPTURE, PARTY AT MY HOUSE!
Perhaps this is why my younger brother and his wife prefer to hang out with her family instead of ours. They look at those books as an extension of the bible and he about had an asthma attack when I pointed out a few inconsistancies with the story. I read the first nine.
I need a "Kiss my Left Behind" bumper sticker.
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Swan
You know, I think I heard most of this over and over again in countless sci-fi stories.
IF the rapture does happen, then Dick Cheney will be POTUS. His re-election campaign would be very difficult because almost all of the red states would probably become blue states overnight. But he probably won't be worrying about that as he will be too busy fighting off the Chinese. Or getting drunk on all the cheap beer; we should have quite a surplus with all of the rednecks gone.
Tammy