That for sure, and also to protect other dogmas like preterism, "rapture" refutation, and replacement theology
.... but why is this done?
The root ambition ..... what is the real motive?
Are those that do this just deceived by false teachers, have written books for material gain, or something more perverse beyond human ambition?
"To deflect attention away from the serious flaws in amillennialism would be my guess"
That for sure, and also to protect other dogmas like preterism, "PRE-TR rapture" refutation, and replacement theologies
.... but why is this done?
The root ambition ..... what is the real motive?
Are those that do this just deceived by false teachers, have written books for material gain, or something more perverse beyond human ambition?
Brother BW,
I stated that Morgan Edwards wrote a paper while in seminary suggesting the possibility of a pretrib removal. At the time, neither he nor his professor considered the idea to be a serious possibility.
Someone labeled as PseudoEphraem may have done so. The original Syriac version does not contain the passage, but the later Latin version does.
Counting this unknown person and unknown source as one of your two sources is on ice about a millimeter thick, but I have no doubt you will attempt to walk out onto it.
However, the version taught by the Irvingites which came to be known to them and others as the "Secret Rapture" where believers will be whisked away silently, in the blink of an eye, has clearly been traced to Margaret Macdonald.
Many pretrib promoters like Dr. Tommy Ice and author Tim LaHaye have often quoted her vision in an attempt to show no connection to Darby, but they conveniently left out several lines of her vision.
There is no evidence that Darby got his "Secret Rapture" doctrine from Morgan Edwards or PseudoEphraem.
Dr. Tommy Ice's claim that Darby came up with it on his own while recovering from a riding accident in 1827 will not hold water either, based on Darby's own paper from 1829 written from a historicist, amill viewpoint.
Darby, J. N., Reflections (1829), Prophetic No. 1
Reflections upon the Prophetic Inquiry and the views advanced in it
However, there is a tremendous amount of evidence from Irvingites and Brethren stating that Darby's version came from Margaret Macdonald or the Irvingites in general.
Origin of the Pretrib Rapture Doctrine
http://www.answersinrevelation.org/pretrib_history.pdf
Nice try.
You may want to take it a little easy on the "practicing fraud" label unless you can show some evidence of "online discussions" from the years 1967 or 1968, during the time of the Israeli attack on the U.S.S. Liberty.
.
Enjoy your Kool-Aid.
I gave you a whole series of people that taught various versions of this, including even two between 1810 and 1820. But you are so taken up with the love of this lie that you will listen to nothing.
A quick summary for others:
The alleged vision of Margaret MacDonald was only a partial rapture, and thus materially different from the doctrine popularized by J. N. Darby.
The system of eschatological doctrine that grew up around the alleged vision was completely different from the system of eschatological doctrine that grew up around the teaching of J. N. Darby.
The alleged date of the alleged vision was after, and in some cases long after, numerous historical statements of various versions of a rapture before the time that the Lord comes to judge the world.
After over a hundred years of desperate searching, not a single person has ever been able to find even one historical statement made by anyone that conclusively proves that J. N. Darby even knew about the alleged vision.
And yet the allegation thrives and lives on, not because it can be proved, but because so many people simply want to believe it.
If J. N. Darby had based anything he said, taught, or even thought, on the alleged vision, he would have been going against all his most basic principles. He consistently insisted that the only source of truth (of course, he meant spiritual truth) is the scriptures themselves. He taught that any kind of dream or vision is a totally unacceptable source for any doctrine of any kind. He plainly stated his personal judgment that the alleged "gifts" in MAcDonald's church were Satanic in origin, rather than of God. And he rejected as satanic and evil, the entire group of which Margaret MacDonald's little church was a part.
However, we have multiple members of the Irvingites and Brethren, that were eyewitnesses to the events of the early 19th century, who say that Darby's "Secret Rapture" teaching came from the Irvingites.
Do we take the word of Darby and his apologists or that of the multiple unbiased and sober eye witnesses?
Darby himself indeed openly wrote about having visited MacDonald's church, and even mentioned her as a speaker at the time he visited. And Darby indeed attended at least some of the Albury conferences. And Darby indeed read at least some articles in "The Morning Watch."I am a little baffled by your statement of Darby not knowing about Macdonald's vision.
It was my understanding from you that Darby had admitted visiting the Macdonald's.
We also know from his own words in his 1829 paper that he was reading "The Morning Watch", which was the periodical of the Irvingites.
Margaret's "Secret Rapture" was first mentioned in the September 1830 edition.
We also know from Coad's 1966 paper and others that the "Secret Rapture" teaching was discussed by those who attended the conferences which met at Powerscourt, starting in 1831.
Darby, J. N., Reflections (1829), Prophetic No. 1
Reflections upon the Prophetic Inquiry and the views advanced in it
PROPHETIC DEVELOPMENTS
with particular reference to the early Brethren Movement.
F. Roy Coad (Brethren Historian) read pages 10-26
http://brethrenhistory.org/qwicsitePro/php/docsview.php?docid=418
You claim that your multiple sources are "unbiased and sober eye witnesses," but that is demonstrably incorrect. There was not even one of them, including the first one (Tergelles) to make the charge, that was not already a dedicated enemy of both dispensationalism and the concept of a pre-trib rapture, long before they began to circulate the charge.
A man who is a dedicated opponent of a man (or an idea) is no more an "unbiased" witness that a dedicated supporter.
You have already clearly demonstrated that you have basically zero knowledge of original sources. You rely entirely on what various people have said about these old documents.
Darby himself indeed openly wrote about having visited MacDonald's church, and even mentioned her as a speaker at the time he visited. And Darby indeed attended at least some of the Albury conferences. And Darby indeed read at least some articles in "The Morning Watch."
But Darby's own comments indicated that he only attended MacDonald's church as an unbelieving visitor, and apparently only on a single day, although it is possible he may have visited several different days. And not even one of the sources you are using has found even one witness that said that Darby was present at any time when this doctrine was mentioned.
Tim Warner based his conclusion that it was discussed when Darby was present on the statement of a witness that Warner claims was there, but he provided zero documentation to back up that claim. And the single short quotation he gave from that witness said nothing about Darby being present at the meeting he was discussing. And it did not say that the pretribulation rapture was mentioned at that same meeting.
So Tim Warner's conclusion was backed up only by documentation that, in his opinion, made it a fair assumption that Darby knew about the doctrine.
And not even one of your sources has ever been able to find even one witnesses that claims that Darby ever made even one comment specifically about the alleged vision.
The only hard fact, and I repeat, the only hard fact that all this research has produced is evidence that both the alleged vision and its publication pre-dated anything that Darby published about his doctrine of a pretribulation rapture.
But you resolutely refuse to admit that the doctrine of a pretribulation rapture existed before the alleged time of the alleged vision, even though this has been thoroughly documented with actual quotations from original sources.
You attempt to impune the entire process of answering this charge by quoting a single individual (Grant Jeffery) who made claims that were demonstrably incorrect, and backed them up with out-of-context quotations. But you have refused to admit that your own main source of information, Dave MacPherson, not only made claims that were demonstrably incorrect, but libelously pressed the false charge that Darby covered up his visit to Margaret MacDonald's church. And, considering the amount of research that he invested in his book, "The Incredible Cover-Up," it is inconceivable that he did not know that his charge was false.
So, while one of the many witnesses against this lie has indeed been demonstrated to have presented assumptions as facts, the same is true of every witness you have produced, and the main leader of them at this time not only presented assumptions as fact, but published (and continues to publish) what appears to be a willful lie about the foundation facts involved.
What you do not want to understand, but is unquestionably true, is that eschatology was a relative small part of the extensive ministry of J. N. Darby. I told you my personal library contained more than sixty volumes by Darby, but I did not mention that only about half a dozen of these were about prophecy, and his entire writing about the pretribulation rapture doctrine was not even enough to fill one such volume. He devoted his entire life to Christian ministry, and Ecclesiology was a far greater part of his ministry than eschatology. And Christolgy, Pneumatology, and Soteriology all occupied major portions of his ministry.
So why would a multi-faceted man, who dealt regularly in basically all portions of Christian truth, compromise his entire self and being by, in a single point, going against everything he stood for?
For if Darby had placed any significance whatsoever in the alleged vision, even if he knew about it, that would have been a rejection of his most basic internal principles. He would have been throwing away his entire career for a single point that was, in actual fact, a relatively minor part of his ministry.
Whether Darby or whomever got what ever from whomever - I - sincerely doubt - I- could - care - less - about.
"Personally I have nothing against those who rail against Dispensationalism."
Neither do I
I also have zero interest in the subject, except to counter the lie that it came from a demon-inspired vision.
Based on all the failed rapture timing predictions done by the pre-trib rapturists. It is clear that the pre-trib rapture doctrine come in head of the list about deceptive doctrines with potentially dangerous underpinnings which can be very misleading.preterism and post-tribulation thinking are both deceptive religions with potentially dangerous underpinnings which can be very misleading
This is because it's NO WHERE in scripture! It's a contrived teaching!The "full court" attack on the doctrine of the Pre-tribulation rapture, which has recently been pressed in thread after thread, has been completely off the subject in most of the threads where it has popped up.
I can agree...however what is material is where is it in scripture?This attack has been irrevelant, because where Darby got the ideas he taught is wholly immaterial. Even if Darby got his ideas from Irving, and through him Lacunza, the cogent question is whether or not he was correct, not where the ideas came from.
That *could* basically be true. Even if it is though, error brings more error. There have been and will be many theologians that have errors in their theology/eschatology. How *old* a teaching is, is irrelevant if it can be shown it's error.And the attack is completely incorrect because most of the ideas on prophecy which are currently thought to be unique to dispensationalism, were clearly taught in some of the oldest Christian writings that have come down to us.
These have all been debated THROUGHOUT Christian history, and will continue to be debated. You're not raising a new issue Biblewriter.This has included the eventual conversion of all the Jews, the temple in "the earthly Jerusalem" being rebuilt, the Antichrist showing himself to be God in this rebuilt temple in Jerusalem, a future fulfillment of Daniel's seventieth week, a calculation of the years of the seventy weeks prophecy based on Jewish years instead of solar years, And that there shall be great tribulation "when the church is suddenly caught up."
That doesn't make it correct though! Look at all the error Jesus had to correct when He did His earthly ministry...and that which He corrected was what was being taught to the people for the most part.All of these except the calculation of the seventy weeks based on Jewish years were clearly set forth during the first two centuries of the church.
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