Blending into One: The “Left Behind” Movie, the Book of Revelation and the Rapture
Michelle Fletcher
July 25, 2020
56 Comments
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The new Left Behind movie (2014) depicts the Rapture, which is often assumed to be clearly explained in the Bible, especially the book of Revelation. It’s more complicated than that, says author Michelle Fletcher.
It’s a day like any other, and then—bam!—everything changes. Millions of people disappear in an instant and all that’s left are piles of clothes, iPods and wallets. Panic and terror break out. This is the scene that viewers are faced with in the new Left Behind movie, directed by Vic Armstrong, and it’s Nicolas Cage’s job to find out what’s happened. But the viewers already know the answer: it’s the Rapture, of course! The Biblical prophecies have come true.
Or have they?
The Rapture is now commonly understood to refer to a time when believers will be snatched up to heaven by Jesus to escape the time of tribulation about to engulf the earth during the reign of the Antichrist. This chain of events has become so integral to some Christian eschatologies (end-time theories) that it’s often assumed they’re clearly explained in the Bible, especially the book of Revelation. But in fact it’s all slightly more complicated than that.
The idea of a “pre-tribulation” Rapture, where believers disappear and everyone else is left on earth to suffer, is actually a rather new one. This type of Rapture was first made popular by the work of John Nelson Darby in the late 1800s. It then spread with the release of the Scofield Reference Bible (1909), and Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins sent it viral through their best-selling Left Behind book series. However, prior to this, “rapture” had referred to the second coming of Christ in general, rather than the supernatural escape from troubles as portrayed by Left Behind.
So how did this version of the Rapture come about?
The mention of an event where believers are “taken up” into the sky in the Bible primarily comes from Paul’s First letter to the Thessalonians. In 1 Thessalonians, Paul is dealing with the fears of believers whose loved ones have died and who are afraid of what will happen when Christ returns. After telling them that the dead shall rise, Paul offers them this:
Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever.
1 Thessalonians 4:17
Sky yes, but no tribulation, no Antichrist.
Other passages from the Bible are seen as supporting this idea, for example, Matthew 24:40–1 and Luke 17:34–35, which speak of one person being taken and another left behind. However, these passages discuss the second coming of Christ (the Parousia), not an escape from the world. The “blink of an eye” idea is taken from is 1 Corinthians 15:51–52. But none of this is from Revelation. And none of it lays out a clear Rapture, tribulation, Antichrist plan.
The book of Revelation does not specifically mention this pre-tribulation Rapture prior to the Antichrist’s reign, either. Revelation 3:10 is the text most cited as describing it:
Because you have kept my word of patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world to test the inhabitants of the earth.
Revelation 3:10
However, this occurs in a letter to a specific church, Philadelphia, rather than as part of the visionary material. References to this having any connection to “the Rapture” in scholarly commentaries are few and far between. And Revelation 3:10 doesn’t mention being taken up into the sky or the Antichrist.
Actually, the book of Revelation doesn’t use the term Antichrist at all. That term comes from 1 and 2 John. The beasts of Revelation are taken by many to be the Antichrist, as thought to be predicted in Daniel 7. But none of them is called Antichrist.
Other ascents to heaven by certain figures are mentioned in Revelation (John the Seer, the two witnesses, the child of the woman clothed like the sun), but these do not describe huge groups disappearing prior to the plagues, sufferings and terror which inflict the earth.
For more on Hollywood movies, read “Excruciating Exodus Movie Exudes Errors,” “Rock Giants in Noah” and “The ‘Gods of Egypt’ Movie: A Mess of Anachronisms and Exoticization.”
By this stage it becomes clear that the Rapture is far from an obvious and widespread concept in the Biblical text. Indeed, creating the idea of the Rapture, let alone its timeline, involves harmonizing many disparate parts of the Bible and presents the Bible as a prophetic tool. It involves reading the book of Revelation in relation to other texts, rather than reading what is contained in Revelation.
John Nelson Darby first popularized the idea of a “pre-tribulation” Rapture.
Left Behind’s Rapture, then, is more a product of how texts are read than the texts themselves. Reading the Bible as having a blueprint for the future held within it was attributed to Joachim of Fiore (1132–1202), who created a complex timeline of different ages leading to the second coming of Christ. But even he didn’t have a Rapture.
Darby, Scofield, LaHaye and Jenkins were inheritors of this tradition and put it into practice to create their own Rapturous chain of events, which is now often presented as the only possible version.
However, the idea that Jesus’ sayings, Paul’s teachings, John’s Letters and John of Patmos’s Revelation, not to mention the texts of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel, represent the same branch of eschatology is something few scholars would maintain. These texts were written in different locations and time periods, to different people, with different goals. A “one end-plan fits all” attitude proves more than problematic, as richly diverse ancient texts are streamlined to an ordered modern timeframe of Rapture, tribulation and Antichrist.
What’s more, the “backbone” for all of this—the book of Revelation—frustrates its readers. It offers long pauses, contradictory timeframes and undisclosed declarations, and every time the end is announced, it never actually arrives. It is more apt to describe it as spiralling around an endpoint rather than marching toward one. It is, in essence, a text that defies any framework placed onto it.
Vic Armstrong’s Left Behind movie has been lambasted by critics as over-simplistic, formulaic and lacking all intrigue, with the Rapture in the middle as the only interesting part. The reality of the Rapture in the Biblical text is somewhat different. It’s the common concept of the pre-tribulation Rapture that is an oversimplification, a blurring of the complex texts and ancient worldviews. It is a modern creation assumed to be part of the final book of the Bible. But the book of Revelation doesn’t offer its readers the Rapture. It doesn’t even offer a clear ending. Rather, it offers wonder, awe and quite often bewildering strangeness. And that is why, unlike the new movie Left Behind, it’s so very, very intriguing.1
Notes
1. For a further introduction to the book of Revelation, see Ian Boxall, Revelation: Vision and Insight: An Introduction to the Apocalypse (London: SPCK, 2002). For further information on different readings of Revelation through history, see Wes Howard-Brook and Anthony Gwyther, Unveiling Empire: Reading Revelation Then and Now (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2001).
Michelle Fletcher is currently completing her doctoral research at King’s College London on the use of the Old Testament in the book of Revelation. She is particularly interested in the relationship between the book of Revelation and film. Her publications and conference papers cover such topics as Terminator’s use of the Apocalypse, Revelation’s females, Frankenstein films and Westerns as apocalyptic spectacle.
Learn more about the book of Revelation in Bible History Daily:
How the Serpent Became Satan by Shawna Dolansky
Can A Pre-Christian Version of the Book of Revelation Be Recovered?
Understanding Revelations in the Bible
This Bible History Daily feature was originally published on October 14, 2014.
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Study the timelines given in Daniel and Revelation. Namely Daniel 12v12&13 and Revelation 12v6&14 where 1290, 1335 and 1260 days are specified. As it turns out there are exactly 1335 days between the Feast of Trumpets (Yom Teruah) and Pentecost (Shavuot); further there is exactly 1260 1290 days between the FOT and the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur). So how do we know when to locate this timeline that is always present except for leap months? Revelation 12v1&2 Heavenly Sign occurs on the 23 September 2017 the day after the FOT. This makes Pentecost the day the church was birthed the day it will also be raptured a parallel found also with Enoch (also a Gentile). Pentecost is also the feast that celebrates the wheat harvest (see Exodus 34v22) and Christians are known as the wheat (see Matthew 13). Further the First-Trump was blown on the Feast of Trumpets in Exodus 19; the Last-Trump (see 1 Corinthians 15v52) will also be blown on a future Pentecost. 2017 is a special year since it is 70 Biblical Years (360 day year) since National Israel became Born-Again on Pentecost 1948 which fulfills Psalm 90v10 & Mat 24v34. God Bless Mark.
Rapture:18-May-2021
2nd Coming:14-Sept-2024
Chart http://bit.ly/1xjcWVa
Vid http://bit.ly/1zrvUrf
Nope, this is another math into bible prophesy misrepresentation.
I love this article. I was raised on dispensational, pre-tribulational rapture eschatology. I even taught it for years. I can still articulate how to connect the dots to arrive at this conclusion. Still, I have come to realize that it does require a lot of dot connecting and there are other ways to connect the dots. I have not embraced another view. I’ve only stepped back and recognized we don’t have enough clear information to be certain at all about the timing or sequencing of most of the events referred to in the Bible that have not yet occurred. Perhaps God just wants us to “watch” and “wait”.
Dr. Dale Pederson
Michelle Fletcher, interesting article. While there are several parts that could be commented on I will center on just one. “The book of Revelation does not specifically mention this pre-tribulation Rapture prior to the Antichrist’s reign, either. Revelation 3:10 is the text most cited as describing it: [this is not true] Because you have kept my word of patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world to test the inhabitants of the earth. Revelation 3:10.
However, this occurs in a letter to a specific church, Philadelphia, rather than as part of the visionary material. References to this having any connection to “the Rapture” in scholarly commentaries are few and far between. And Revelation 3:10 doesn’t mention being taken up into the sky or the Antichrist [missapplication and purposeful misguidance].
You erroniously missapplied and misquote to whom the Book of Revelation is to. With in the Book of Revelation are the seven letters to the seven churches; these seven churches are Ephesus, Symerna, Pergamos, Thyratira, Sardis, Philidephia and finally the church at Laodicea (some also teach that these seven chruches represent the seven ages of the church). These were churches that knew the Apostle John personally and while these seven letters are messages to address issues at a particular church they are still applicable for Christians and churches today. The Book of Revelation is for all Christians and all Christian churches.
Specifically Jesus had nothing but praise for the church at Philadelphia and so told the church:
“10 Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth. 11 Behold, I come quickly: hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown. 12 Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name. 13 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.”
The Book of Revelation is for Christians as a whole and not just for the church at Philadephia in Asia Minor. While this article is most likely a synopsis of a larger article it is poorly written as if someone is in a rush and not well thought out.
The Book of Revelation tells us “Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keeps those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand” Revelation 1:3. Of course being a Doctorate student of the Old Testament you are well aware that the Book of Daniel and the Book of Revelation goes hand in hand. Many theologians and expositors see the Book of Revelation as the Little Book that was sealed up in the Book of Daniel.
Please becareful in just looking a couple of hundred years to make your case as words and usage can change over time. Example the word Apocalypse: Today and since about the mid 1800s many have used it to discribe total distruction and chaos, yet the word actually means “unveiling, revealing” so the Apocalypse or revealing is how we get the title Revelation. Also a pre-tribulation and pre-millenial rapture can be found even in the 3rd Century A.D./C.E.
Keep up your studies but becareful not to dismiss items you cannot readily explain. It is those thinks that make us think and work that also makes us grow. Remember the Bible is and always have been it own best commentator!
PS: I will admit that I am surprised that you used the Left Behind movie with Nicolas Gage (which most Christians and those who study the Bible knows did not stay true to the Bible) instead of the three Left Behind moview with Kirk Carmeron in them. If you watch those three Left Behind movies they even tell you what other prophecies talk about the end time/Jacob’s Trouble/Tribulation.
Michelle, I agree with your statements more than I do with many statements offered by pre-trib authors, even though I am pre-trib myself. I guess you could say that I take a backwards approach. I think it is easier to prove that the catching up of believers cannot happen after the tribulation than it is to prove that it happens before the tribulation. For example, you stated in your article: “Other ascents to heaven by certain figures are mentioned in Revelation (John the Seer, the two witnesses, the child of the woman clothed like the sun), but these do not describe huge groups disappearing prior to the plagues, sufferings and terror which inflict the earth.” That statement is totally correct, of course. I merely observe that no “huge groups disappearing” happens after the tribulation. Specifically, we would expect to see it in Revelation 19 where Christ returns. But the catching up of believers is missing from that chapter. And going to the next chapter, Revelation 20 and the resurrection, if this were the rapture resurrection, then we would expect that resurrection to happen back in chapter 19, not in chapter 20, because at the rapture resurrection the dead in Christ shall “rise first.” In other words, chapter 19 and chapter 20 come in the opposite order, proving that this is not the rapture. This backwards approach is easier to prove.