Rapture

Eschatological concept in Christianity

The Rapture is an eschatological (end-times) concept held by some Christians, particularly those of American evangelicalism, consisting of an event when all dead Christian believers will be resurrected and, joined with Christians who are still alive, together will rise "in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air." Many different timelines have been asserted that tie to ideas of a seven-year Great Tribulation: pretribulation, midtribulation, prewrath, and posttribulation raptures; and to a thousand-year age of Messianic rule: millennialism, premillennialism, postmillennialism, amillennialism, and preterism. The origin of the term extends from the First Epistle to the Thessalonians in the Bible, which uses the Greek word harpazo (Ancient Greek: ἁρπάζω), meaning "to snatch away" or "to seize". The idea of a rapture as it is defined in dispensational premillennialism is not found in historic Christianity and is a relatively recent doctrine originating from the 1830s.

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