Rating: 
Summary: I HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT!
Review: I recommend Dr. Rossing's book for ALL who DO seek peace and good will to ALL PERSONS! I agree that this Rapture thing WAS MADE UP! I have heard about this last-days ca-ca for QUARTER OF A CENTURY! She told of how this doo-doo Cyrus Scofield who was a crook who abandoned his wife DISTORTED the Bible. I am convinced that God LOVES the world too much to allow the Rapture to come, which would cause TOO MUCH CHAOS AND BEDLAM! Nor would
God allow the world to be under TOTAL CONTROL OF EVIL FORCES for SEVEN LONG YEARS, much less an ARMAGEDDON to destroy iy. there is NO mechanism known to science to UN-DESTROY the WORLD AFTER it has been destroyed. I had a friend who said if I do not believe all this, "Go to another church". NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
I do not trade liberty for security!
Rating: 
Summary: Leave this one behind
Review: Another example of a liberal "Christian" on a self-righeous crusade against anything in sight.
The least Barbara could have done is read the Bible before writing a speculative book about it.
Anyone who investigates the End Times in the Bible sees that the area is about as vague as you can get in the Bible. Nobody ever said that the Left Behind series is exactly what's going to happen, it's just one of the popular theories embodied in story form.
Unless you want to listen to an environmentalist tell you that God won't kill animals, do yourself a favor and don't read this book.
Rating:
Summary: Top-notch scholarship that's easily readable
Review: Barbara Rossing joins a growing number of scholars that are writing for a broader public. At last, the work of serious life-long scholars of the Bible is being made available to more people. A wonderful, lucid expose of the theological roots of the Left Behind series.
Rating:
Summary: The Rapture vs. Emmanuel
Review: Excellent book. I found it riveting and read it in one day. It is a clear and easy read. It outlines how there is no "Rapture" found in scripture. This is a false theology invented 170 years ago by piecing together unrelated biblical texts and then tossing in some extra stuff. It's not even a literal interpretation of the Bible. Yet one of the challenges of the theology is its impact on foreign policy and the environment today. Having a true interpretation of endtimes, as actually found in scripture, will correct many hurtful and sinful policies currently practiced by those who adhere to the Rapture theology. Rossing also opposes the violence associated with a Rapture interpretation of the book of Revelation. She then goes on to give a very comprehensive and persuasive argument for what Revelation actually says. Violence is of mankind; "Lamb power" and testimony are of God. Jesus is "Emmanuel," Hebrew for "God with us." God does not take us up from Earth, Rapture the faithful away, but comes down to Earth, to be with us and heal our wounds. I think this book is recommended reading for anyone who has ever read the Left Behind series. It will also be helpful for church Bible study and discussion groups.
Rating:
Summary: The Rapture vs. Emmanuel
Review: Excellent book. I found it riveting and read it in one day. It is a clear and easy read. It outlines how there is no "Rapture" found in scripture. This is a false theology invented 170 years ago by piecing together unrelated biblical texts and then tossing in some extra stuff. It's not even a literal interpretation of the Bible. Yet one of the challenges of the theology is its impact on foreign policy and the environment today. Having a true interpretation of endtimes, as actually found in scripture, will correct many hurtful and sinful policies currently practiced by those who adhere to the Rapture theology. Rossing also opposes the violence associated with a Rapture interpretation of the book of Revelation. She then goes on to give a very comprehensive and persuasive argument for what Revelation actually says. Violence is of mankind; "Lamb power" and testimony are of God. Jesus is "Emmanuel," Hebrew for "God with us." God does not take us up from Earth, Rapture the faithful away, but comes down to Earth, to be with us and heal our wounds. I think this book is recommended reading for anyone who has ever read the Left Behind series. It will also be helpful for church Bible study and discussion groups.
Rating:
Summary: FINALLY
Review: FINALLY someone with good credentials debunks the left behind novels!!! I have tried to read the Left Behind novels and found them extremely problematic as they promote a theology of fear. However I had actually been ridculed for taking this particular point of view in some of the Christian circles i ran in during college
I was releived when I heard that Rossing, a good friend of the family, was working on this particular piece. It provides some good, solid points and basically shows how the rapture does not fit in well with Lutheran Theology. I have been pleasantly surprised at the amount of attention that this particular book has gotten as well. My autographed copy of this book makes me feel confident about being a minister in the ELCA with my particular points of view. I can not wait to be a student at the Lutheran School of Theology knowing that professors like Rossing are there!!
Rating:
Summary: Finally, the truth!
Review: I am so thankful for Dr. Rossing's excellent book exposing the rapture theology for the fabrication that it is. As a young child, I was taught this frightening and complicated attempt piece together a way to predict the end times. Would that Dr. Rossing had been my teacher back then.
This book will make an excellent study for church book clubs and adult forums.
Rating:
Summary: Don't read LEFT BEHIND series without reading this first!
Review: If you want to be entertained with an exciting, but very whacky story, then read the LEFT BEHIND series. But if you want to be able to separate solid biblical interpretation from something that has been made up out of whole cloth and then has served as a basis for a money making machine and some very questionable political positions, then read this book first. It is good, solid, scholarly biblical interpretation. I'm just afraid that those who are persuaded that the LEFT BEHIND series is based in "truth" won't bother to read Rossing's book and be thoughtful about this issue. Great book which deserves a lot of attention!
Rating:
Summary: A Waste of Money
Review: If you want to read a critique of the Left Behind Series, from one individuals point of view and bad mouthing of repritable Christian Authores, then this book is for you. If you want to read and understand the truth, read God's Word for yourself. Be very careful what you read when your searching for truth.
Rating:
Summary: No passage in the Bible uses the word "Rapture."
Review: In "The Rapture Exposed," theologian Barbara Rossing uses the verb "fabricate" to examine the "Left Behind" series of novels by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, and brilliantly refute their distortion of God's vision for the world. "The Da Vinci Code," another fabrication masquerading as truth, can easily be de-coded by checking out the Opus Dei and Priory of Sion Hoax sites, or taking a class in "Da Vinci 101," but recruiting people into believing they will be spirited up to heaven "any day now" and citing the Bible as evidence is not even biblical. Jesus himself says in Matt 24:36 that the world's end will come at a day and hour not even the Son knows.
"THE RAPTURE IS A RACKET" proclaims Rossing in her Chapter 1 opening sentence, then continues, "In place of Jesus's blessing of peacemakers, the Rapture voyeuristically glorifies violence and war." LaHaye's fictional output surpasses that of fellow Rapturist Hal Lindsey, whose 1970 "Late Great Planet Earth" saw the Cold War as an indication of end times. Lindsey found the Antichrist first as Soviet, but now as Muslim. Of particular interest is Rossing's Chapter 3: "The Rapture Script of the Middle East."
Rossing points out that no passage in the Bible uses the word "Rapture" -- as LaHaye and Lindsey admit -- and traces this distortion of Christian faith to John Nelson Darby, a 19th century evangelical preacher, who invented "dispensations" -- seven intervals of time that he said were God's grand timetable for world events. Darby's scenarios were based on three verses from Daniel 9:25-27.
Rossing's chapter, "Prophecy and Apocalypse," refutes the Rapturists'claim that John's Book of Revelation (or Apocalypse) gives us God's play-by-play prophetic script for the future. She reminds us that, contrary to the association of the word with disaster, apocalypse means "unveiling," and was a popular form of ancient literature. Visionary journeys, such as the one John describes, were not fortune-telling, but calls to repentence and faithfullness, much like Scrooge's visions of the Past, Present and Future changed his life.
In Rev 19, Rapturists consider an armed Christ returning to earth to do battle as the culmination of his reappearance, but Rossing considers the Chapters 21 and 22 visions of a New Jerusalem far more revealing. The picture of life together in a new world where God comes down to earth to "wipe away every tear," is the spiritual promise of Revelation. She writes, "The New Jerusalem vision is meant to be God's vision by which we live our lives right now.... First we go in to worship, to the throne of God...to see the Lamb's vision of true power and life and salvation. Second, we return back home to the world, with our
vision transformed in a new way, transfigured in light of the Lamb." This is the message of hope referred to in Rossing's subtitle: God comes down to dwell with us, we are not selectively snatched up.
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