Abstract
How will the world end? With a bang? With a whimper? Will God come out of the sky in a cloud? Will vast armies destroy all humanity? Will the sun’s fire engulf the planet? Such questions have fascinated humankind for millennia. The Left Behind series presents in fictional form authors Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins’s heartfelt beliefs about what will happen at the end of time.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
John J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to the Jewish Matrix of Christianity (New York: Crossroad, 1984), 87–91.
See also Norman Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages, rev. ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970), 19–25. All biblical quotations are taken from the New Revised Standard Version unless noted.
Calvin J. Roetzel, Paul: The Man and the Myth (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1998), 103–104. See also Cohn, Pursuit of the Millennium, 19–29.
The phrase is from Bernard McGinn, ed. and trans., Apocalyptic Spirituality: Treatises and Letters of Lanctantius, Adso of Montier-en-Der, Joachim of Fiore, the Franciscan Spirituals, Savonarola (New York: Paulist Press, 1979), 14,
as quoted in Robin Bruce Barnes, Prophecy and Gnosis: Apocalypticism in the Wake of the Lutheran Reformation (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1988), 19.
Andrew Cunningham and Ole Peter Grell, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Religion, War, Famine, and Death in Reformation Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 4.
Katharine R. Firth, The Apocalyptic Tradition in Reformation Britain, 1530–1645 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979), 5.
The quote is from a letter written in 1500 by Columbus to “a member of the royal court,” and appears in Christopher Columbus, Memorials of Columbus: A Collection of Authentic Documents of that Celebrated Navigator, compiled by Giovanni Battista Spotorno (London: Treuttel and Wurtz, Treuttel jun. [Jr.] and Richter, 1823), 224.
See Pauline Moffitt Watts, “Prophecy and Discovery: On the Spiritual Origins of Christopher Columbus’s ‘Enterprise of the Indies,’” American Historical Review 90 (February 1985), 73–102.
On apocalyptic currents in American culture, see Charles H. Lippy, “Waiting for the End: The Social Context of American Apocalyptic Religion,” in Lois Parkinson Zamora, The Apocalyptic Vision in America: Interdisciplinary Essays on Myth and Culture (Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1982), 37–43.
See also Paul Boyer, When Time Shall Be No More: Prophecy Belief in Modern American Culture (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992), 68–79.
Jonathan Edwards, Some Thoughts Concerning the Present Revival of Religion, in the Works of Jonathan Edwards, ed. Perry Miller (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1957), 4: 353–58,
as quoted in George M. Marsden, Jonathan Edwards: A Life (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2003), 264.
On Edward’s apocalyptic thought, see also Stephen J. Stein, “Editor’s Introduction,” Jonathan Edwards: Apocalyptic Writings (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1977), 1–93.
On the Albury prophetic conferences, see Ernest R. Sandeen, The Roots of Fundamentalism: British and American Millenarianism, 1800–1930 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970), 19–22.
Robert Norton, Memoirs of James & George MacDonald of Port-Glasgow (London: John F. Shaw, 1840), 171.
Ibid., 174. A similar account of Macdonald’s visions also appears in Robert Norton, The Restoration of Apostles and Prophets in the Catholic Apostolic Church (London: Bosworth & Harrison, 1861), 15–18.
Although some have claimed that Mary Macdonald originated the pretribulationist position, Norton’s account of her vision is somewhat unclear on the point. For instance, her emphasis on the idea that the spiritual eye will aid Christians in “seeing” the antichrist and understanding his deceit suggests that Christians will endure the end times. She also mentions, “The trial, through which those are to pass who will be counted worthy to stand before the Son of man.” Norton, Memoirs, 175. On Macdonald as a pretribulationist, see Dave MacPherson, The Incredible Cover-Up: The True Story of the Pre-Trib Rapture (Plainfield, N.J.: Logos International, 1975), 49, 52. MacPherson’s argument that the pretribulationist position has been based on a charismatic vision is meant as a means of discrediting what its defenders claim is scripturally based interpretation. Clearly, there are elements of this vision that correspond to later formalizations in the pretribulationist position, but this is hardly the smoking gun he claims. MacPherson’s argument holds up better when he asserts acquaintances of the Macdonalds, particularly Francis Sitwell, articulated the pretribulationist position. See The Incredible Cover-Up, 59–60, where MacPherson quotes from an 1834 letter from Sitwell to his sister, published in Charles William Boase, Supplementary Narrative to the Elijah Ministry (printed privately and posthumously, 1868). [The author has not been able to corroborate quotations from Boase.]
See also J. N. Darby, Lectures on the Second Coming (London: G. Morrish, 1909).
It should be noted that the extent of Darby’s influence in the United States has been debated by premillennialists and historians. See Carl E. Sanders II, The Premillennial Faith of James Brookes: Reexamining the Roots of American Dispensationalism (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 2001).
On the Millerites, see The Disappointed: Millerism and Millenarianism in the Nineteenth Century, ed. Ronald L. Numbers and Jonathan M. Butler (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1993).
On White, see Ronald L. Numbers, Prophetess of Health: A Study of Ellen G. White (New York: Harper & Row, 1976).
Princeton Seminary no longer advocates this position. On fundamentalism and Princeton theology, see George M. Marsden, Understanding Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans Publishing, 1991), 9–61.
All quotes appear in James H. Brookes, Maranatha; Or, the Lord Cometh,1 3rd. ed. (St. Louis, Mo.: Edward Bredell, 1874), 546.
Hal Lindsey with Carole C. Carlson, The Late Great Planet Earth (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1970; HarperCollins, 1977), 174.
James D. Tabor and Eugene V. Gallagher, Why Waco: Cults and the Battle for Religious Freedom in America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 76–79.
Editor information
Copyright information
© 2004 Bruce David Forbes and Jeanne Halgren Kilde
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Kilde, J.H. (2004). How Did Left Behind’s Particular Vision of the End Times Develop?. In: Forbes, B.D., Kilde, J.H. (eds) Rapture, Revelation, and the End Times. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403980212_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403980212_3
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-52884-4
Online ISBN: 978-1-4039-8021-2
eBook Packages: Palgrave Religion & Philosophy CollectionPhilosophy and Religion (R0)