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The Rapture Exposed: The Message of Hope in the Book of Revelation [Paperback]

Barbara R. Rossing
3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (83 customer reviews)

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Book Description

July 5, 2005
The idea of “The Rapture”—the return of Christ to rescue and deliver Christians off the earth—is an extremely popular interpretation of the Bible’s Book of Revelation and a jumping-off point for the best-selling “Left Behind” series of books. This interpretation, based on a psychology of fear and destruction, guides the daily acts of thousands if not millions of people worldwide. In The Rapture Exposed, Barbara Rossing argues that this script for the world’s future is nothing more than a disingenuous distortion of the Bible. The truth, Rossing argues, is that Revelation offers a vision of God’s healing love for the world. The Rapture Exposed reclaims Christianity from fundamentalists’ destructive reading of the biblical story and back into God’s beloved community.

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The Rapture Exposed: The Message of Hope in the Book of Revelation + The Theology of the Book of Revelation (New Testament Theology)
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Ordained minister Rossing is ready to do battle with evangelicals both within and outside of her Lutheran Church camp. Rossing, who teaches New Testament at the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago, begins her sparring by taking on the widely popular Left Behind series and all it presumes to communicate about the future of the world. Claiming that the Left Behind authors' interpretation of prophetic biblical verses is "fiction," Rossing firmly asserts that the Book of Revelation has a completely different purpose than to predict upcoming world uprisings and the eventual end of the earth. Instead, Rossing believes that this biblical vision is meant to inspire humanity to seek out "repentance and justice." Rossing also maintains, somewhat unfairly, that rapture enthusiasts extol a careless, abusive attitude toward God's created world, since rapture theology declares that the followers of Christ are soon to be removed from it. More significant is Rossing's belief that Revelation does not offer a prophetic look at Jerusalem as the inevitable battleground between good and evil, but rather extends the promise of a New Jerusalem that will open its arms to all nations in peace. While Rossing's scholarly work is well organized and obviously carefully thought out, evangelicals may take issue with the blanket statement that "most Christian churches and biblical scholars condemn Rapture theology as a distortion of Christian faith with little biblical basis." This book will likely upset Christian conservatives while appealing to many in mainline denominations.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Arguing against the dispensational theology of Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins' Left Behind novels, Rossing advances an alternative view of the Revelation of St. John, a text that has fascinated biblical scholars and lay readers--beginning, no doubt, with those to whom it was first addressed--for almost 2,000 years. Although a professional New Testament scholar, Rossing writes for a popular readership, including Left Behind fans. She places the Revelation in a tradition of apocalypse and prophecy that has less to do with violence or prediction than with vision. In so doing she argues powerfully against the fascination with violence characteristic of much dispensational thinking. For Rossing, the Revelation is "a rapture in reverse"--God raptured, so to speak, into the world as Immanuel, God-with-us. That, she says, is a vision of a new Jerusalem, a beloved community--a vision of peace and justice that has inspired a host of good stories and still inspires persistent hope in the face of oppression and violence. Steven Schroeder
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 240 pages
  • Publisher: Basic Books (July 5, 2005)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0813343143
  • ISBN-13: 978-0813343143
  • Product Dimensions: 5.3 x 0.7 x 8 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (83 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #63,006 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
239 of 273 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars The Rapture vs. Emmanuel April 15, 2004
Format:Hardcover
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.

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163 of 191 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
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!
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97 of 116 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars No passage in the Bible uses the word "Rapture." May 22, 2004
By A Customer
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
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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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars Required reading...
If you know a fundamentalist or were a fundamentalist (like myself)...this should be the only book you need to read to find out how much Dominionism is destroying this country and... Read more
Published 6 days ago by Furball
1.0 out of 5 stars Our Blessed Hope
In the book of Revelation the Blessed Hope, popularly known as 'the Rapture,' is actually only inferred, not proclaimed. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Greenstone
5.0 out of 5 stars Believable approach
This is an important book for anyone exploring the Book of Revelation. I've heard Rossing speak and this book lays out her view as well as her lecture did. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Lynnea McHenry
4.0 out of 5 stars Great insights on Revelation AND Left Behind
Along with many others here, I found The Rapture Exposed to be a very helpful explanation of the message of the book of Revelation, and of the shortcomings of "Rapture Theology". Read more
Published 4 months ago by Wimama
3.0 out of 5 stars Strong on Rapture, Weak on Revelation
It was a helpful resource for a recent sermon series on the "end of the world." A little weak on the actual contents of Revelation.
Published 5 months ago by Jeffrey L. Phillips
5.0 out of 5 stars Definite required reading
Very important book. The author does a very nice job of showing the fallacies that exist in much of what is labeled rapture theology. But she doesn't just point out what is wrong. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Anita K Chancey
4.0 out of 5 stars A helpful introduction to the traditional interpretation of Revelation
It is easy for western Christians to miss much of what the Apocalypse of John is about. For one thing, we in the west tend towards linear thinking, thereby missing the elliptical... Read more
Published 5 months ago by Kristofer Carlson
2.0 out of 5 stars Disingenuous distortion of Pre Tribulation Beliefs
I have to confess that I did not read much of this book, but I honestly didn't see the point. From the first page the author takes a very condescending and juvenile tone towards... Read more
Published 7 months ago by Allison
3.0 out of 5 stars The Rapture Exposed
The book is being used for discussion in my Sunday School class. It is good info but since we all agree there isn't a lot for us to discuss. Read more
Published 8 months ago by Patricia Sackett
5.0 out of 5 stars repetitive, but redeeming in the end
I enjoyed reading the book. I found it to be a little repetitive in the earlier chapters, but the overall message came through in the end. Read more
Published 14 months ago by Newnorb
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Ignorant heretical feminist professor?
Forgive me if I am in error, but I do not believe that any of canonical Scripture was first transcribed in Latin. Any Latin text would have been a translation of a Greek or Aramaic or Hebrew text and, thus, subject to some of the subtle shifts in meaning that seem to come with translation. ... Read more
Sep 14, 2006 by Vajs |  See all 4 posts
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