The Rapture is very common among modern day Christians across the globe. Even so, this idea is not as old as many would expect. It dates back to less than 200 years. It has been driven into reality through books and movie series. One such common source is The Left Behind book and movie series by Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHaye. In the book, planes fall out of the sky and cars crash into each other after various people are taken in the Rapture (Veronese, 2012) .
The Rapture lacks adequate support from the Bible. Very few readings relate to such an ideology. It is based on two sources in the early 19 th century. The first is from a fifteen-year-old girl, Margaret McDonald, living in Scotland in 1820 that had a dream where all the sinners would be removed from the world through a purifying fire leaving only the righteous. Many did not support her and certain religious leaders deemed the dream demonic. The second source is from John Darby, an evangelist from London. He moulded and spread his ideas on the Rapture. He travelled to North America on many occasions to spread his word and on one such occasion, he met James Brookes, a preacher in Missouri. He was Cyrus Ingerson Scofield’s mentor. Scofield published the Scofield Reference Bible in 1909 after being influenced by Darby’s teachings, which became popular as more people immigrated into the states (Veronese, 2012) . The Scofield Bible also increased this spread considering there were few communication sources for biblical teachings.
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Various religious leaders believe in this notion so much that they even set dates on which they think the rapture will happen. Harold Camping was one of these leaders. He set three dates the first attempt being on September 6, 1994 that later turned out false. The second one happened in 2011 on May 21, but it also failed to happen on this day. He quickly changed the date to October 21, 2011 predicting earthquakes in New Zealand would mark the start of the Rapture. He and his followers amassed a fortune of over $100 million in his media campaigns (Veronese, 2012) . Most of his followers felt disappointed since some of them had used their entire life savings for a false cause.
References
Veronese, K. (2012, July 25). The Very Short History of the Rapture. io9 , p. 1.
