The theory commonly called "the rapture hoax" for the origins of the pretribulation rapture goes something like this:
1. The idea originated with Immanuel Lacunza, a Roman Catholic Jesuit, who published a book in 1812 (in Spanish) called The Coming of Messiah in Majesty and Glory.
2. Edward Irving, a pioneer to the Catholic Apostolic Church, translated Lacunza's book in the 1820s. The Catholic Apostolic Church held to the reappearance of the supernatural gifts of tongues, healing and prophesying. While they were not founded by Irving, the members were commonly derided as "Irvingites."
3. Margaret MacDonald, an "Irvingite" gave a prophecy during a meeting and said the rapture was pretribulational.
4. Darby, attending this meeting, appropriated the pretribulation rapture as his own idea.
There are insinuations behind this theory, and to interpret those insinuations:
1. When your belief originates from a Roman Catholic, and especially a Spanish Jesuit, it is downright bad.
2. When this bad idea is translated into English by a misguided heretic, and then one of these Irvingites - Margaret MacDonald - utters it in a prophecy, it is even worse.
3. But it wasn't any prophecy, it was a demonic prophecy coming from a 13 year old girl. Most proper Christians would never touch that with a 10 foot pole, but not Darby.
4. Darby, who obviously couldn't think of something original on his own, decided to plagiarize the idea of a pretribulation rapture. Not just from anybody, but from a 13-year old demonically inspired girl. Bad Darby. Then Darby passed this idea on to the rest of the evangelical world, where most people bought it hook, line and sinker. Very bad Darby. And shame on those who hold to such a demonically inspired doctrine today, because you really should know better.
Now how should dispensationalists respond to this? I really don't think it is very helpful to ask questions such as:
1) Where did Edward Irving learn Spanish?
2) What color was Margaret's hair when she uttered the prophecy?
3) Was Darby really that bad at creating ideas and that great of a marketing expert?
4) Seriously, a demonically inspired 13 year old girl???
What might be helpful though is to ask whether the idea of a pretribulation rapture has been taught before Lacunza. That would immediately go to the heart of the matter.
A man named Morgan Edwards, a Baptist who founded Brown University, wrote something interesting. In the 1740s he wrote that 3.5 years before the two witnesses of Rev 11 were to be killed by the Antichrist, that Jesus would appear in the clouds, and that the dead in Christ would be raised and the living caught up to be with Him.
Going further back, written in the 1300s in Latin, is a text called The History of Brother Dolcino. The beliefs of the Apostolic Brethren are described as: after the coming of the Antichrist, believers will be caught up into paradise to be preserved from harm, then Enoch and Elijah would descend to the earth and eventually be killed by the Antichrist, and after the Antichrist is dead the believers would return to earth.
So if the "rapture hoax" theory is to be taken seriously, shoudn't it at least take these two examples into account? And if it can't...or won't...