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Loading...In my forthcoming book on Revelation (Title: Armaggedon: What the Bible Really Says About the End; to be published on March 21), I discuss how evangelical Christians in the 19th century came up with the idea of a “rapture” — that Jesus was soon to return to heaven to take true believers out of it before the horrible seven-year “tribulation” began. Here is a funny story about belief in the rapture from my younger days.
At the time I was still a churchgoing Christian. The church I was attending was evangelical, but I was moving away from a conservative theology and its strict, literal interpretation of the Bible. I was becoming socially quite liberal, and was starting to take a more liberal view of the Bible. I still thought that in *some* sense it was the Word of God, but I did not think that it was infallible or true in every way. I had already come to see that parts of it contradicted one another, that there were historical implausibilities, and mistakes of various kinds.
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For me at that stage, the Bible was not so much the words God had given his human authors as it was a book that was written with real religious insight by special authors whose words were a medium through which God could deliver his message to humans. It wasn’t the only way God spoke to people, but it certainly was one way, and a cherished way. Still, not all of it could be taken as literally true.
At that point I had come to realize that the whole idea of a “Rapture” in which the dead would rise to meet Jesus and then the living believers in Jesus would be taken up to meet them all in the clouds was a metaphorical description of how in the final analysis, however the end comes, God will make right all that is wrong in this world. The passage is ultimately about how God is sovereign. This world may be a cesspool of misery and suffering now, but God will overcome all that is evil and will repay all who do it, and he will reward his faithful, somehow or other. It was a passage meant to inspire hope, not a passage that was meant literally as a indicating a calendrical event that was to occur sometime next Thursday.
I had a bunch of intellectual Christian friends in Princeton at the time (I was working on my Masters degree), and all of us had come up through fundamentalist circles. One of them invited us over for a pool party; she and her husband were house-sitting at a gorgeous place off in the country outside of town, where they had a very nice pool, tennis court, and other niceties. And as happens in groups like that, we all started telling stories about our fundamentalist pasts, having a lot of very good laughs about how we used to be. (Included in the group were two people who were to go on and also to be publishing academics, one a philosopher and another a historian.)
As we talked we eventually got around to our former ideas that there would be a rapture. The conversation took on a specific topic. We had all been influenced by, and at one time had loved, a fundamentalist movie that had been popular in the mid 1970s, called “Thief in the Night.” This was obviously many, many years before the “Left Behind” books and films, but the movie was a kind of earlier incarnation of all that.
It was about a liberal Christian minister who, because he was heretically liberal, did not believe in the literal meaning of the Bible, including and especially the view that Jesus was literally coming back from heaven to take his followers out of the world before the tribulation appeared. The minister, obviously, was the bad guy. And then something happened. In fact, the rapture happened. Suddenly millions of people disappeared from earth. Completely vanished. They had been raptured. But not the liberal minister. He had been left behind.
The movie is about the tribulations that then hit the earth as catastrophe after catastrophe struck. And this liberal minister had to live through them. He of course came to realize (whoops, too late…) that the Bible *is* literally true, and he had a life-transforming change of heart, repenting of his sin of thinking that human reason can be used to understand God’s holy word.
So we’re at this pool party, and we start talking about this movie and having a good laugh about it, reminding each other of this scene and that scene and so on and laughing about the idea of this one guy in particular being left behind. One of our friends wasn’t saying much though (he was one of the ones that later became an academic) (I’m not mentioning his name. He’s actually a well known scholar). When we were finished talking about it, someone asked him why he wasn’t saying anything.
He replied that his father was the actor who had played the liberal minister.
Yikes!
I remember “Thief in the Night” very well. Let’s also not forget the theme song “I Wish We’d All Been Ready” by Larry Norman, which rather jumpstarted the Contemporary Christian Music genre. CCM has mutated into an industry that now regularly outsells the Classical, Jazz and Blues genres combined!
I too was a fundamentalist. My church regarded Jerry Falwell as liberal, if that gives you any sense of how *fundamentalist* we were. Fundamentalist teachings have profound effects on younger children, and it deserves more attention. Being a bit younger than you, “Thief in the Night” for me was terrorizing. A question that haunted me was how you could *know* with certainty you were actually *saved.* I was so worried my experience didn’t “take” that I many times repeated the sinner’s prayer privately and re-baptized myself in the bathtub. I couldn’t bring myself to go through the humiliation of *going forward* publicly again.
On one occasion I was separated from my mother in a store, and I grew quite frantic, thinking the rapture must have occurred: I’d been left behind. I found her, but that moment of extreme panic is forever seared into my memory. In college, I followed an arc similar to yours in my development (mine mercifully briefer) and rather quickly evolved from an ardent fundamentalist Christian to an agnostic/atheist. In retrospect, I have come to view these aspects of my upbringing as abusive, and I have a hard time forgiving the folks who do this to children.
Wow, quite a story. When I was at Moody we thought Falwell was milquetoast….
You will like the Influence Continuum podcast by Steve Hassan on Spotify.
Wow! I mean, situations like this are common in conversations, but who in the world saw this one coming? That poor friend really must have felt left behind!
Haha! Didn’t see that coming! Nice twist!
As you mention, my understanding is that the Rapture concept is less than 200 years old, certainly not going back to the early church. But do any early Christian writers suggest this idea? (I’m not referring to the few verses in the NT that Rapturists use out of context.) Isn’t it funny how a relatively recent innovation like this has come to be gospel truth for so many believers? It’s a bizarre concept: for the past 2000 years God has let so many Christians be martyred and yet at some point in time He’s going to rescue those believers who happen to be alive at that specific point in time so that particular group doesn’t suffer. Very odd in my opinion.
Nope, I don’t think anyone came up with it until John Nelson Darby. But of course those who believe in it say it’s right there in Scirpture. I’ll be talking about that a good bit in my book on Revelation.
Church Fathers – Pre-trib Rapture
“When in the end that church will suddenly be caught up from this, then it is said, ‘There will be tribulation such as not been since the beginning, nor will be.”
Irenaeus 130 – 202 AD
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 will overwhelm the world because of our sins.
— Ephraem 306 – 373 AD
“His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and His circuit unto the end of the heaven: there is no one hid from the HEAT thereof.” Psalm 19:6 64b
By heat he means the conflagration. And Isaiah speaks: “Come, my people, enter thou into thy chamber, and shut thy door: hide thyself for a little moment, until the indignation of the Lord be overpast.” Isaiah 26:20
— Hippolytus 170 – 235 AD
I replied to fishician above about quotes from early Church fathers. The web page kept telling me my word count was over 200, even though I whittled it down to 197 and then 185 and it still told me I was over. So I copied my comment to my word processing application and it said my comment was 165 words–so something is wrong with its accuracy in counting words.
I wanted to include the fact that my quotes of early Church fathers were taken from Dr. Ken Johnson’s book, End Times by the Ancient Church Fathers, but couldn’t do so because the counting feature wouldn’t allow me to include it, although it should have allowed those 11 words.
OK, thanks. I’m afraid Johnson’s book is not reliable.
Well…Bruno Ganz plays a fulminating Hitler in ” Downfall”, and has a son… who is also an actor. But what a coincidence ! It must have been awkward.
Good to know the ” Rapture” is espoused by evangelicals ” only” ( there are lots of them, though), and that it came so late in history. The spectacular success of this strange belief in such a short time might shed more light into how Christianity itself spread so quickly .
I personally was always fascinated with ” the number of the Beast”, as I am very familiar with Hebrew gematria, a tradition still very much alive today. It’s the reason Jews overwhelmingly make gifts of multiples of 18, a number which ” spells” Life (Khay חי, 10+8 ).
Was 666 Nero Caesar? – in Hebrew- or Domitian? – in Greek- Another? Knowing this would help determine the time of writing and the author. But for some reason I don’t know , it seems that the year of writing Revelation has been already determined.
How does the horror of the Last Days square with Christian love and forgiveness?
Nero. Some Greek manuscripts say 616 instead of 666. Spell Kaiser Nero in Hebrew letters, it’s 666. IF you include the final nun (NERON). Without the nun, it’s 616. I’ll be dealing with all that including whether this is a text that is “Christian” in my book coming out in March.
People are more familiar with 666 as the mark of the beast than 616.
Dear Bart,
Hope you are doing well. I’ve heard you say that you are planning to write a book about the moral transformation (charity, helping the poor, etc.) that Christianity brought to the ancient world. Is that still an active option?
If it is, I would be glad to help you with your research. For example, I could help you collect the relevant (primary) sources relevant to the topic. I’m about the finish my Ph.D. and I have a chapter there about that. I’ve read most of the secondary bibliography as well. I don’t know if you are aware of that but Hendrik Bolkestein’s “Wohltätigkeit und Armenpflege im vorchristlichen Altertum” is the first study that observed the moral transformation Christianity brought to the ancient world and the fact that the category of ” helping the poor people” didn’t exist in the mindset of Romans.
Anyways, I would be happy to help in any way I can if you are still planning to write a book about that. Needless to say, I’m not looking for any credits or money. I just love the research and I would be happy to help.
Kind regards from Zagreb!
Thanks — that’s very generous of you. Let me think about it. I obviously do my own research, but there are things I can sometimes use help on, usually technical. Why don’t you write me a private email?
Yes indeed, I know Bolkestein well. What is your PhD on, and where are you doing it?
Ph.D. is on the relationship between the Great Church (or “proto-orthodoxy” ) and Valentinian Gnostic School. In it, I’ve tried to show key social and theological characteristics that influenced the marginalization of Valentinians and the triumph of the Great Church. My educational background is pure history (My bachelor’s degree s in history, and my Master’s degree is in ancient history).
Since the Ph.D. is practically over (I’m waiting for the term so I can defend it), I’ve slightly moved towards the late-antique monasticism in Egypt (especially Pachomian monasteries) where I’m doing research on the narrative topos in the Vita Pachomii that reflect the shaping of the “orthodoxy” in the 4th century Egypt. I’m doing that with the help of Albrecht Diem (Syracuse University) with whom I’ve worked together on the workshop in Zagreb this year.
I can read Greek pretty well, and I’m solid in Latin (wouldn’t consider myself an expert!). Besides that, I can read English and German.
I supposed that you do your own research, but anything else you need – I’m more than happy to help. I’ll contact you via mail.
Kind regards from Croatia!
Marko
Thanks. Do you know my colleague Zlatko Plese? Brilliant gnostic scholar, also from Zagreb!
I know about him and I know several people who have studied with him. He did his master’s degree at the same faculty where I’m doing my Ph.D. We are years apart since I think he moved to the USA when I was still in elementary school 🙂
Sooo, was the well known scholar still waiting for the Rapture at that point, and what about his quiet son? Anything interesting happen after the Yikes? I also get the impression, then, that pretty much all of you at that time had shed much if not all of your evangelical fervor. Do you ever sit back, now and then, and just give your head a shake? As for the ones who don’t shed these beliefs, do they ever make it through the same sort of educational institute, or do they go elsewhere? Have to say, on the side, I remember being gobsmacked when I read Paul’s “rapture” vision. I figure he meant every word – literally!
Oh no, he had moved on. And as I indicated, he is an erudite and famous scholar of modern religion today. And yup, I shake my head a lot. Often I’m frustrated over how badly I was educated in college; and often I’m so glad that … I was educated the way I was. (Since I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing now otherwise)
That’s a really hilarious real story. It seems many American scholars of your generation from the Bible Belt had to go through a fundamentalist phase in their youth. It seems this era is coming to a close, as America becomes more secular, certainly less religiously fundamentalist. In your youth, it was harder to access and locate academic books and articles which would readily demolish fundamentalist beliefs about the Bible and creationist views. Now any smart youth, including those from a fundamentalist family background, could look up publications and online resources which render fundamentalist beliefs untenable.
It is actually quite scary for Christians who believe they are saved but then are confronted with the reality (the reality within this fictional religious world) that they aren’t, and are “left behind”. YouTube has a full video of “A Thief In The Night (1972)”. I haven’t watched it before, but from skimming some clips, I can understand why it became a classic within American evangelicalism for decades.
I also remember an LP album (33 rpm, on vinyl) that dramatized the rapture – mostly news broadcasts and dialog between a couple of characters. I don’t remember the name of the record – maybe some other readers do. But we played it at youth group gatherings – this had to be in the early to mid 1970s.
one of the main reasons i left the church in my teens was the thought of a “God” who would create a human being for no reason other than to torture them forever and ever. My christian friends couldn’t understand that there were people on the earth, even today, who simply never heard of Jesus and the way to salvation, so those people by default were bound for hell. It really made the whole religion out to be quite sadistic to multiply the number of folks living today who have never heard of Jesus by all those people who have ever existed on the planet EVER who also lived in the wrong part of the world. Billions of people born to only then die and have eternal punishment for not ever having heard of Jesus. That is not a god that I would ever want to worship for sure.
I really like the Orthodox Jewish view of the future Kingdom of God on Earth. All righteous Jews and Gentiles welcome! Belief is secondary.
very amusing story. 🙂 I doubt that most readers of the Left Behind series of books have realized the implications of the rapture. I had some fun reviewing the first book of the series here: https://www.librarything.com/work/18919387/reviews/142117602
Wow, that ending was not quite what I thought it would be. I was expecting you to say, “and then all the water suddenly got sucked out of the swimming pool”, or something to that effect. Still, loved that dramatic opening!
I recently met someone who grew up in a fundamentalist household. He said he’s still traumatized by his mother telling him when he was a little child to not be surprised if she suddenly vanishes and he’s left behind. As for the story, something strikes me as odd about atheists choosing religion as a career, and holding religious beliefs as shameful.
I watched such a movie (or perhaps a pseudo-documentary) on TV when I was in Atlanta, Georgia, on postdoctoral fellowship in 1993. I don’t remember much from the movie.
What I remember best is that, during the period of hardships, the (evil) people in power made all their followers wear wristbands marked
110
110
110
Those not wearing these wristbands were considered enemies by those in power, and wearing this was required to obtain certain advantages.
Now, 110 is the number 6 written as a binary number, so the marking meant 666, the number of the Beast.
Anyone who knows what movie that is? Anyone who watched it?
I meant to comment yesterday, but got busy. Interesting coincidence: I sing in the choir of a UCC congregation in Newport, KY. Sunday we sang a medley of spirituals all relating to the Second Coming. “I’ll Fly Away”, “It’s gonna be a gettin’ up morning”, etc. UCC being a liberal denomination, I doubt that any of our folk believe this stuff (I don’t!), but it is fun music. Bits of this medley have been going through my head since last Thursday when we practiced it. And some of those words were in my mind when I logged into the blog Tuesday morning. As I said, interesting coincidence!
Providence!
I am reading a book, The Discovery of King Arthur, by Geoffrey Ashe. It is not a new book; it was written in the 1980s, but I had not run across it before. I’m not far into the book, so am not sure where he is going with it. The chapter I’m reading right now discusses some older works that were sources for Geoffrey of Monmouth in writing about Arthur. After discussing items from one work that Monmouth used, Ashe says he “not only enlarges them but changes their order, proof of his readiness to rearrange things to suit himself.” It struck me to wonder if the same comment could be applied to Luke or to the other Gospel writers for that matter. Luke refers to many other Gospels, and we know he used Mark, Q, and other material. So it seems that Ashe’s characterization of Monmouth fits Luke too. What do you think?
Roughly yes. And Matthew.
I have heard the song by KISS called ‘Thief in the Night’. Maybe they took this doctrine and made it their own!
Garrison Keillor, when he was host of “A Prairie Home Companion” on public radio, dramatized a story about the Rapture. A reporter heard that the Rapture was happening, and called the 700 Club, Oral Roberts University, and Jerry Falwell, but they knew nothing about it. He then called the Unitarian Universalists in Boston (a largely humanist denomination), and got their answering machine — with a message in which you could hear them all ascending into the heavens!
Ha!!
One of the things I noticed about the few ex-Christians I have known is that they are all kind and moral people. They would pass for followers of Jesus’ teachings except they didn’t believe in God. One became much less judgmental after he left the faith so he was a better person in Christian terms (Matthew 7:1) than he was before. Is that outcome your experience with ex-Evangelicals as well? For instance, is the excellent charity you run through your blog a vestige of your days as an Evangelical? Do ex-Christians have to find a new basis for morality as they adjust to a world without a Supreme Being? Does a moral life have an appeal independent of religion? I’m an atheist and I don’t know why I spend so much time worrying about what’s the right thing to do.
Yes, I’d say that was / is a definitely a motivation for me. When I left the ministry my first thing I wanted to do was to get involved ih social work (I started teaching Englaish to a Cambodian refugee family), to do “some good” in the world.
Wasn’t the notion of the “Rapture,” although it was not referred to as such, part of Christian doctrine long before the 19th century, i.e., when 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 became part of the Canon?
Nope. That’s not about the rapture, as I’ll be explaining in my book. Maybe I should post on it.
A funny (to me) TV episode on “Six Feet Under” a few years ago was about the rapture. Each episode began with the death of someone, whose funeral became a focus of the episode, with various subplots. One episode opens with a pickup truck loaded with life-size blowup human forms. The helium-filled blowups were tied down in the back of the pickup. As the truck goes down the street, the tie-down rope begins to come loose. Just as the blowups start escaping the truck and flying up in the air, a woman a block away is walking out of a grocery store carrying her groceries. Upon seeing the human images ascending into the sky, she believes it is the rapture and drops her groceries, never taking her eyes off of the blowup human images. She is oblivious to anything else and runs into traffic, becoming the death focus for that episode.
Dear Bart,
Your friend’s father who played the pastor in ” A Thief in the Night” was also the producer, writer and maybe the director of the movie. He produced and acted in a series of Christian movies.
Why do I know this? I researched “The Blob”, a movie I enjoy. He was the producer and director of that one.
By the way, I don’t watch Christian films and won’t until one comes along where Jesus and Judas are are in the same scene and you have to ask,” Which one is Jesus.”
That being said, there is a rapture film I recommend: “A Day Without a Mexican.”
I can’t resist a mystery (the identity of the academic), and you seem to have left plenty of clues:
1) Child of the actor who played the liberal minister in 1972 “A Thief in the Night”
2) An academic published in one or more of history, philosophy, religion.
3) Probably went to Princeton at some point or at least lived in the area.
4) Probably a man.
“This will be cake,” I think to myself, congratulating myself for my cleverness. (I wasn’t going to out anybody–just doing it because I thought I could.)
The problem is, based in his obituary, the actor who played the liberal minister in the movie had four children (all sons): One died in infancy, two (twins) went into medicine (one is a DO and one is an MD), and one went into film. As far as Google tells me, none has published anything in history, philosophy, or religious studies.
Now I really want to solve this.
Good luck. THere’s a curveball in there I didn’t reveal. (Or maybe “spit ball” is a better analogy)
Hi Dr. Ehrman
Since I’ve started reading your works, especially Jesus the Apocalyptic Prophet, I have a question. I was interested to know if there was any proof or serious investigation into the possibility that Jesus was a cabalist or a mystic Jewish rabbi in the vein of Gammaliel or Hillel.
Yes indeed. Most everyone agrees that we can’t transfer later Jewish mystical traditions (Kabbalah) back to the days of Jesus; and I’m not familiar with Gamaliel or Hillel being principally thought of as mystics in teh later sense — but if you know of references, let me know.
Ty! I have heard some things but I wanted to know if you recommend any sources to investigate that specific topic.