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Post by lonelocust on Jul 17, 2009 2:00:30 GMT -5
I often hear people on FSTDT, as well as various non-fundie Christians, putting for that the Rapture is an invention from whole cloth and has no Biblical standing whatsoever. While the entire Book of Revelation tells a bunch of completely mutually exclusive stories if taken literally (you know, the whole world burns up, but then also there's stuff going on in the world, and everyone dies again, but then yet more stuff is going on in the world, etc.) I think there's certainly pluckable portions that talk about what gets interpreted as the Rapture. Even if no one believed in it until the 1800s (which they didn't), it was invented from cherrypicking verses (much like just about every Christian doctrine, including "accepting Jesus Christ into your heart as your lord and savior") rather than completely making shit up. (Well, completely ORIGINALLY making shit up. The Bible itself comes from completely making shit up.)
Rev 3:10 Since you have kept my command to endure patiently, I will also keep you from the hour of trial that is going to come upon the whole world to test those who live on the earth.
Rev 7:3-9 Do not harm the land or the sea or the trees until we put a seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God [and then says the people with said seal is 144000 Jews and..] "After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands... Then one of the elders asked me, "These in white robes—who are they, and where did they come from?" ...And he said, "These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb... [and they'll get to hump gods leg forever and shit]
Really it completely eludes me how anyone with half a brain can think that it's possible to draw any sort of coherent story from Revelation (Everyone will know it's God and confess and bow their knee! Also, then a bunch of plagues will happen, and people will die and there will be war, but they still won't admit it was God LOLWUT!) But the Rapture story isn't any more half-assed than any other reading of Revelation that isn't "Wow, crazy talk, and vague prophecies that could be fulfilled by just about anything."
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Post by Tiger on Jul 17, 2009 2:05:21 GMT -5
I thought the Rapture came from Ephesians?
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Post by lonelocust on Jul 17, 2009 2:14:29 GMT -5
Yeah, there's actually a bunch of verses that are quoted by fundies to support the Rapture idea. There's various places in the gospels and elsewhere around that have been conglomerated into the story. christianity.about.com/od/faqhelpdesk/a/whatisrapture_2.htmaddition: that page doesn't even hit any of the Revelation references. I've usually heard people who said that the Rapture was a pure fabrication that didn't use the Bible at all reference Revalation as not supporting it, though it really supports it as much as it doesn't support it since it's completely nonsensical and contradictory. |
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Post by mudflappus on Jul 17, 2009 2:21:53 GMT -5
See John Nelson Darby who is claimed to be the father of the modern "Rapture" movement. Oddly enough, the word itself is mentioned nowhere in religious texts.
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Post by Admiral Lithp on Jul 17, 2009 2:25:30 GMT -5
I see the Bible as basically a collection of fanfiction. Sure, the writers fit some things together, but most of the time, they fuck up really badly. However, there will still be rabid defense of it.
It even has your Mary Sues (Jesus, Moses, Noah, etc.) and your author avatars (with the claims that these pricks wrote the thing).
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Post by lonelocust on Jul 17, 2009 4:25:51 GMT -5
(Just to be clear, I don't believe the Bible is anything but a book, and I think discussions of what it "really says" are equivalent to discussions of what is "really cannon" in Star Wars. Given that, I argue that the Rapture is as well-supported a theological concept as any number that were introduced much earlier if arguing from the perspective that the Bible is true.) See John Nelson Darby who is claimed to be the father of the modern "Rapture" movement. Yes. In my original post I referenced that "no one believed in it until the 1800s." Well, it's not particularly odd that a term used heavily in Christian theology is not in the Bible. It's in the fine company of "trinity" and "sacrament" (though those have both been around faaaaar longer, they are just as much extrapolations as "rapture", and in the same fashion.) There's also an amusingly long list of such words that appear nowhere in the Bible, but I can't find a good list online, and those are the two standing out in my head. In this case, the original use was said to have come from the Vulgate Thesselonians 4:17 "deinde nos qui vivimus qui relinquimur simul rapiemur cum illis in nubibus obviam Domino in aera et sic semper cum Domino erimus" or "then we ourselves all who are living all who remain will be seized together into the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and thus we will be with the Lord always" (my translation) or "Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord." (kjv) The bolded phrases are the origin from which the term was invented, latin rapere/raptus - to seize/seized - or the act/moment of being seized (or "caught up) into the sky. (Fun fact - This etymological root of English "rapture" and "rapt" is shared with English "rape". Wikipedia also informs me that "rapt" retained its meaning of seizing/waylaying through Middle English.) So, anyway, much like most of Christian theology of various orthodoxies including evangelical fundamentalism, the Rapture idea was extrapolated from cherrypickings, but not invented whole cloth and unrelated to the Bible as I often see claimed on FSTDT. |
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Post by lonelocust on Jul 17, 2009 4:34:28 GMT -5
I see the Bible as basically a collection of fanfiction. Sure, the writers fit some things together, but most of the time, they fuck up really badly. However, there will still be rabid defense of it. It even has your Mary Sues (Jesus, Moses, Noah, etc.) and your author avatars (with the claims that these pricks wrote the thing). Heh, this is similar to my often-used comparison of arguing Biblical theology being like arguing Star Wars cannon. Though you probably have it more right - it's more like fanfiction than cannon, what with being written all over the place by lots of writers. |
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Post by mistermuncher on Jul 17, 2009 6:08:19 GMT -5
Difference being, unlike fanfic, or multi-author canon, there's a distinct lack of "word of God" appearing anywhere to set the disputes right.
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Post by ostravan on Jul 17, 2009 6:40:59 GMT -5
Some bibles have Revelation and others don't.
Basically, the "christians" who believe in the bible with Revelation refer only to quotes from the OT and Revelation, whilst totally ignoring the contents of the NT (except for the ones that suit their agenda at the time).
As Revelation was written many decades after the compilation of the NT by a goat-sodomising hermit high on hallucinagenic mushrooms, I doubt its relevance to anything other to a drunk suffering from the DT's.
It wasn't until the bible was re-written in plain(?) English for King James VI of Scotland (aka King James I of England) that Relevation was added, in an effort by the church - who actually ran the country at the time - to cure King James of his homosexuality.
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Post by lonelocust on Jul 17, 2009 7:15:27 GMT -5
Difference being, unlike fanfic, or multi-author canon, there's a distinct lack of "word of God" appearing anywhere to set the disputes right. Does anyone but J.K. Rowling get around to doing that anyway? George Lucas refuses to give us new revelations on whether various characters were gay. And Tolkien has to go and be DEAD. Maybe it's like the Xena: Warrior Princess producers who had a fanfic author write a few episodes of the last season. :-9 |
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Post by The_L on Jul 17, 2009 7:22:37 GMT -5
In this case, the original use was said to have come from the Vulgate Thesselonians 4:17 "deinde nos qui vivimus qui relinquimur simul rapiemur cum illis in nubibus obviam Domino in aera et sic semper cum Domino erimus" or "then we ourselves all who are living all who remain will be seized together into the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and thus we will be with the Lord always" (my translation) or "Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord." (kjv) The bolded phrases are the origin from which the term was invented, latin rapere/raptus - to seize/seized - or the act/moment of being seized (or "caught up) into the sky. (Fun fact - This etymological root of English "rapture" and "rapt" is shared with English "rape". Wikipedia also informs me that "rapt" retained its meaning of seizing/waylaying through Middle English.) I can't get over the hilariously wrong connotations of this. Does this mean the RR crowd is ready to be raped by Jesus? But seriously, I don't get the whole pre-trib rapture idea. It tends to go Rapture -> Tribulation -> Second Coming. Which is hilarious to me, because the events generally described as "the Rapture" are basically the Second Coming. So Jesus appears in the sky, bad things happen for seven years, then Jesus returns again and calls it the Second Coming instead of the Third for no good reason. I remember enjoying the movie A Thief in the Night as a kid, before I realized how cruel the idea really is. But the idea of the Rapture as a separate event from the Second Coming goes against the Christian theology I was taught as a child. Most Christians believe that Jesus is destined to come to this world exactly twice: Once in 1 AD, as recorded in the Bible, and once at the end of the world. |
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Post by lonelocust on Jul 17, 2009 7:40:17 GMT -5
Some bibles have Revelation and others don't. True. That's fairly in agreement with my personal experiences. What compilation are you referring to? Revelation is accepted by Iraneus before Origin was even born, and Origin was the first alleged canonical compiler. Reasonable speculation. I'm pretty sure I agree with you, though I don't know what the DT's are, so I should probably somewhat withhold judgement. This is completely historically false. Revelation is in the oldest extant New Testiment text (The Codex Sianaticus, 4th century), in the Vulgate (4th century), was accepted by Origin (discussed above, 2nd century who also included books since removed from accepted cannons), and was accepted (albeit with much debate) by every Catholic synod that decided such things until the time of Luther, who did want to remove it along with several other books. |
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Post by secularskeptic on Jul 17, 2009 8:07:53 GMT -5
This doesn't deal with the rapture specifically, but with Bible prophecy surrounding the so called 'end times' that RR is so enamored with. There's also a smack in the face to Hal Lindsey in there, which is the one the RR crowd worships almost as much as Jesus.
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D Laurier
Full Member
Paying for cable (or satalite) TV, is like hiring sombody to projectile poop all over your brain
Posts: 196
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Post by D Laurier on Jul 17, 2009 8:21:41 GMT -5
The Rapture originated in the diseased mind of Ellen White. A 19th century mental patient who was unloved and lonely.
She took to throwing herself on the church floor and making animal noises as a way to get people to notice her.
Eventualy she started raving about something she called "the rapture". This got the attention of the church authoritys, who decided that her assorted barkings and mooings were "prophecy"
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Post by yojetak on Jul 17, 2009 9:18:07 GMT -5
I discuss those rapture retards with my boyfriend quite often. He's a christian and finds the whole rapture doctrine rather silly.
From what he told me, the passages that the rapturites get their doctrine are from "apocalyptic" books. Not meaning "end of times" but that they are books that use codes and parables. None of it should be taken literally.
I quip back that no one should take any of the Bible literally. Then we both laugh and have crazy monkey sex.
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