Rapture Nonsense (Larry Hurtado on...)

Detroit, where so many people are missing
that there's always talk of the "rapture."

Now that the "rapture" has come and gone, New Testament scholar Larry Hurtado has a nice post on the false May 21 prediction.

He makes three points.

1) "It is profoundly troubling that people who claim to read and seek to follow biblical teaching allow themselves to be taken in by such predictions." Especially since Scripture dissuades us from doing so. (Mark 13:32-33; Luke 17:20-21) 

2) "It’s also troubling that the news media report readily on this sort of nonsense."

3)  "Perhaps the most troubling thing is that such phenomena trivialize, distort, and indeed miss entirely the serious religious and theological concerns that are involved in traditional Christian expressions of hope in God’s judgement and mercy.  The biblical texts expressive of such hopes reflect concerns about the injustice, cruelty, and oppression that characterize much of human history, and specifically whether God cares and will in some way and some good time make things right."

I love this last point.