Balls Vladimir

Good luck with all that.

WinAce

Just curious, Magus--after 2000 years, are you open to the possibility that the early Christians were simply wrong in their apocalyptic expectations, much like many of the other groups throughout history that capitalized on such fervor--the Montanists, the Jehovah's Witnesses, etc...?

aikido7

Apocalyptic fantasies bely a hatred (which is always a "cover emotion" for fear) of the world.

According to many believers, the world is such a scary place that it is a good idea to stay in one's cave and make up stories about how "good" you are and how "bad" everyone else is....

SEF

Wouldn't the world be less scary though (for the rest of us) if they did just stay in their caves making up stories instead of coming out and trying to ruin it for everyone else by forcing their silly stories and prejudices onto us, wanting us all to join them in their primitive caveman lives and even planning to destroy the world so that no-one can go on having fun without them?

Suzume

But the question is: Does this happen before or after the time of troubles? And, more particularly, did anyone interprate this as happening before until Darby?

Biff the unclean

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aikido7

Great questions! Does anyone know the answers?

Magus55

Well, its debated when it will happen, although most Christians i've found accept a Pre-trib Rapture. Revelation and other Biblical verses seem to lean towards a Pre-trib Rapture over mid or post.

Suzume

Could you give references? Also, do you know anything about the history of the debate? The impression of the history of the debate that I get from above is that pre-trib was either only thought of or at least became a major idea only after Darby.

I was brought up RC, and although we never had much talk about the apocalapse (the church has waited for it for 2000 years, and so has learned not to expect it to be just around the corner), but to the extent it was, I got the impression that every beliver was in for the whole deal. No getting off easy. So to me the idea of getting out of the persecution seems a decedent Yankee idea.

SEF

I too suspect it of being a decadent yankee cop-out. The individual believers seem to be of the "I demand to be special; superficial perfect princess concealing ugly toad interior; I'm gonna be saved without having to do any worthwhile thing to help myself or anyone else while you burn just for being someone I don't like" type.

As for references, try Thessalonians I 4:14-17. There it twice refers to people who are alive who are left (ie after some event not detailed there) being taken up to join the dead who rise first. The lack of detail on what they have actually survived is because the passage is about the reassurance that people will be reunited with their families, since the dead will not be left but taken up to join god first before the remaining living people are. NB Sometimes the euphemism "asleep" is used for dead - including in this passage. Which is probably why a bunch of illiterate rapture believers got the idea they were going flying in their pyjamas.

For those of you who don't believe in books, there are many online versions of the bible, eg:
http://www.biblegateway.com/cgi-bin/bible
http://www.olivetree.com/cgi-bin/EnglishBible.htm