I came in late, but watched a documentary show on the National Geographic Channel about the "apocalypse". It was, as is usually the case, skewed toward a liberal interpretation of Scripture, even though there was at least one conservative commentator. He however, was not allowed to really explain why he believed his interpretation of Scripture. At least not that I saw.

One has to wonder at why, with all of the resources at their disposal, that apparently the research staff didn't do their homework. For one thing, they put forth in a re-enactment that the concept of a Biblical rapture, wherein believers are taken out of the world before a seven-year tribulation period had never existed before 1830, when a Scottish teenager named Margaret McDonald claimed to have had several visions about the end times. She is said to have passed that information along to her pastor and subsequently it was seized upon by John Darby, who created the Dispensationalist movement. They followed that by saying that the word, "rapture" is not to be found in the Bible.

Well, I do know that Darby was the father of Dispensationalism, but what I also know is that I have not met one single Christian who ever told me that they believe in a pre-tribulational rapture because "Margaret McDonald said so." They believe the concept because it is Biblical, and because the meaning of the term, "rapture" is to be found in the Bible.

The Latin Vulgate was translated by Jerome in the early 400s. It's still the main translation for the Roman Catholic Church today. In his translation, Jerome translated from Greek manuscripts. In 1st Thessalonians 4:17, Paul used the Greek verb, "harpazo," and Jerome translated it into "raeptius." This word has the same meaning as the Latin word "rapio." It means "seize, snatch or take suddenly and forcefully away."

In most English translations, the word is translated as, "caught up." It shouldn't be a shock to anyone who tries to find out that the word we use today is, "rapture." It was simply developed by the common knowledge that "caught up" came from the original Latin. What's the big deal there? In any case, the meaning of the word is in the Bible. The word itself is in the Latin Vulgate. Wasn't hard to find that out.

It wasn't hard either, to find out that Ephraem the Syrian, a Byzantine Christian poet and theologian taught and wrote of the removal of the faithful before the gap between the 69th and 70th weeks of Daniel's 70th week prophecy could be closed. His belief in a gap or parenthesis between the 69th and 70th week is very significant, as he wrote about it in 373 A.D..

It wasn't hard either, to find out that this gap was written of by Hyppolytus around A.D. 220, or in the Epistle of Barnabus in A.D. 110. Those dates are just a wee bit before 1830. I found this stuff out pretty easy. I'm sure that the research staff for National Geographic is better educated than I am, and has by far and away much better resources than I do. One has to wonder why they couldn't find this out, and if by chance they regard the sources I found as speculation, that should be laid to rest simply by a plain reading of these men's writings.

Ephraem wrote; "Because all saints and the Elect of the Lord are gathered together before the Tribulation which is about to come and are taken to the Lord, in order that they may not see at any time the confusion which overwhelms the world because of our sins."

Seems plain to me.