Three Views on the Rapture

Rating:
Summary: Redundant Rebuttals
Review: I agree with the last reviewer on just about everything. It's helpful to have the three predominant views about the rapture side-by-side. The upside is that each view is presented by someone who believes it, so it gets a fair presentation. There's a downside to the format, too. Since each author offers a rebuttal to each of the others, and then later in the book presents his own argument, there's a lot of redundancy. Since there are three authors, there are always two rebuttals for each viewpoint, and sometimes they make the same counterpoints or wind up presenting the same point again when its their turn to express their view. The book would have been improved by heavier editing. (Something a writer does't usually argue for, but in this case I think authors writing rebuttals may not have known what the other guy was going to say in his rebuttal.)

Rating:
Summary: Great Variety of Premillennial Eschatological Views
Review: I really enjoyed reading this book. I was required to read it for a class on eschatology, and I found it refreshing to see that all three rapture views were based on solid biblical rationale. Obviously, only one (or none) of the views can be right, but the authors did a great job of outlining and explaining each view's weaknesses and strengths. I found myself sympathizing with whatever view I was reading, and agree with the general consensus that the rapture view is an inference from Scripture that does not necessarily have a set of proof texts to describe. A rapture position must be decided upon by looking at the Bible systematically, which enters in much human interpretation. I don't think the rapture issue is a very significant Biblical issue when compared to dozens of other doctrines and subjects that the Bible speaks of. But the Bible does mention being 'caught up' so we should study diligently to understand what this means. This book provides a scholarly examination on what the 'catching up' can possibly mean.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent book (if you're a well-studied premillenialist)
Review: It is interesting to read a defense of three main views on when the rapture will take place -- before, in the middle of, or at the end of the Great Tribulation. As with other books in the Counterpoints series, the language is very technical (especially for the non-theology-specialist) and the presentation is very thorough. A major weakness of this book was that all the authors presume a premillennial interpretation of the Bible, which is by no means a universally agreed-upon view. Unlike the other books in the Counterpoints series, I was unable to choose one author with whom I most agreed, because *all* of them assume (without even proving) premillennialism to be true. The doctrine of the Rapture is a Christian doctrine, not just a premillennial one, and so the book suffers from its restricted format. Also, the highly-technical exploration is difficult to follow at times, and the highly-detailed introduction to the book (on the history of Premillennialism) was far too lengthy for anyone without a specific, scholarly interest in just such a topic. Those who believe in a premillennial interpretation and who can handle the technical jargon in this book will probably find it a very welcome and thorough examination of the Rapture. As for me, I found it an interesting exploration into how some other Christians may think, but found little that I could apply to my own spiritual life or theology.

Rating:
Summary: Great Backgrounder
Review: The timing of the rapture is a matter of much debate these days, and in order to have a discussion in what I call "the James 3 tradition" (respect, love, humility, and grace), it helps to have an accurate understanding of what the other positions are and why others hold to them. As such, this book does a good job of describing three of the four main premillennial positions on this topic. I believe the omission of the emerging and rapidly mainstreaming prewrath position, however, was an unfortunate oversight that I hope will be corrected in future editions.

One of the most fascinating aspects of this book is its introduction that discusses the development of the pretrib, midtrib, and posttrib positions. When one understands how these positions developed and why one gained more steam and notoriety than others, one begins to understand why popularity alone does not determine orthodoxy.

Interestingly, the origination of the pretrib concept in the early 1800s and its rapid deployment throughout the evangelical circles in the 1900s had less to do with good practices of scriptural interpretation than a response to the amillennial interpretations that had dominated for centuries, combined with popular exposure to this position due to power and resources of its defenders during a time of relative scriptural ignorance among the general population. The midtrib and posttrib positions developed in the academic circles in response to the perceived error of rapidly popularizing pretrib position, but they came too late; pretrib had already become entrenched. Such background is fascinating and necessary for any student of the rapture and helps to put the positions themselves into perspective.

The presenters of each of the three positions covered in this book are well chosen, and they provide good, overall assessments of the academic proof-texting of each of these three views. The back-and-forth debates between the holders of each position expose the reader to the basic reasoning behind them, as well as the strengths and flaws in each argument. They also expose the fact that none of these positions can stand strong against critical scrutiny and holds firm only in isolation. Hence, my disappointment that the prewrath view was not included in this discussion.

I think this is a terrific book for anyone wanting to gain grace and understanding in the rapture debate. I do not recommend it because any of the three presentations are, in themselves, convincing (they are not). Rather, I recommend it as an important backgrounder and primer on three of the four primary positions from an academic (rather than popular) perspective and a good sense of how and why they developed.

-- H. L. Nigro, author of Before God's Wrath: The Bible's Answer to the Timing of the Rapture