Here is a pretty good rundown of the origin of the false Pre-trib Rapture Theory, written by a Mark Williams...
"How did the pretribulation doctrine come about? A brief rundown would go something like this:
In 1591 a Jesuit priest named Francisco Ribera wrote a 500-page commentary on the grand points of Babylon and the antichrist, the object being to set aside the Protestant teaching that the Papacy is the antichrist. In his commentary, he assigned the first chapters of Revelation to the first century. The rest he restricted to a literal three and a half years at the end of time, BEFORE the resurrection. He taught that the Jewish temple would be rebuilt by a single individual antichrist that would abolish the Christian religion, deny Christ, pretend to be God, and conquer the world. Thus was laid the foundation for Dispensationalism. In 1812 another Jesuit priest, named Emmanuel Lacunza, started
teaching that there would be a 45-day tribulation period, AFTER Christ’s coming. In 1826 Edward Irving translated Lacunza’s book and published it in 1827. Sometime after that, Irving started to teach a three-and-a-half-year tribulation after Christ’s coming. In 1830, a man named John Darby of the Plymouth Brethren started teaching a seven-year tribulation period. He came to America seven times to promote his teaching. When George Muller of Bristol came up against the Dispensationalist doctrines of the Brethren movement, he severed all connection with it. “The time came,” he said, “when I had to either part from my Bible or part from John Darby. I chose to keep my precious Bible.”
So in 1812, we see the teaching of a 45-day tribulation after the rapture. Around 1827 Edward Irving taught a three and a-half-year tribulation after the rapture. Then in 1830, the final turn to a seven-year tribulation after the rapture. Others picked up on this new doctrine and added to it. In 1909, C. I. Scofield published the Scofield Reference Bible. His dispensational notes were mixed in with the verses of the Bible so well that if you didn’t know better, you would think they were part of the Holy Scriptures. Over two million copies of his Bible were sold with this new dispensational teaching. Scofield, although not a Plymouth Brethren, was a devoted disciple of John Darby. After that, W. E. Blackstone wrote a book titled Jesus Is Coming Again. A millionaire financed sending several hundred thousand copies of this book to missionaries throughout the world.
After Israel became a nation in 1948, prophecy teachers sprung up like wildfire, teaching that the Second Coming would happen approximately forty years after Israel became a nation. They got this belief from misinterpreting the word “generation” in Matthew 24. Hundreds of books were written on this subject. People learned about this new doctrine, not from the Bible, but from these so-called prophecy books. Today Dispensationalism has become the generally accepted belief of the Fundamentalist wing of popular Protestantism. In his tract, “Who is the Antichrist?” a former Catholic priest, Joseph Zacchello, says: “The Jesuits were the first ones to introduce a new theory in order to divert men’s minds from perceiving the fulfillment of the prophecies of the antichrist in the papal church. The Jesuit Ribera brought out the futuristic system, which asserts that the antichrist is yet to appear.” And to this statement, he adds: “Protestants who advocate the futuristic system are pleasing the pope and are playing into the hands of Rome.” The teaching that the Church is to be raptured to heaven just prior to a time called the great tribulation was not known prior to the 1800s. It’s amazing with all the writings left to us from early Christians on the rapture, all agreed that if there is going to be a tribulation at the end of time, the Church would go through it. Since no voice spoke out in favor of a pre-tribulation rapture, the only conclusion possible is that the Church did not teach this in the beginning and that it should not be teaching it now."
Short, concise, to the point.
But points many brethren are not... considering:
1. Bible prophecy indeed does... point to a final Antichrist figure that is to appear in Jerusalem at the end of this world, and place an abomination idol at a new stone temple there. And that is to happen prior to Lord Jesus' coming to gather His Church.
2. Jesus showed His coming to gather His Church will happen AFTER the great tribulation He warned about (Matt.24:29-31, Mark 13:24-27).
3. The Daniel 9:27 prophecy does... involve a final 70th symbolic
"one week" (7 years) at the end of this world. The previous symbolic 69 weeks of the Daniel 9 seventy weeks prophecy were completed at the cross, leaving only the final 70th week for the end of this world.
That symbolic
"one week" is divided up into two 1260 day periods each. In the middle of that week the "
abomination of desolation" Jesus warned about is to be setup at a stone temple in Jerusalem. The latter 1260 day half of that week represents the
"great tribulation" timing.
4. The papacy is not the Antichrist that will be setup in a Jewish stone temple in Jerusalem for the end of this world. Following the actual written Word of God on this reveals the final Antichrist to appear in Jerusalem for the end will be a SUPERNATURAL FALSE-MESSIAH PLAYING CHRIST, with the power to work great signs, wonders, and call fire down from heaven in the sight of men. No pope has that kind of power, and Judaism is not going to recognize a Christian pope as their Messiah which the Jews are still waiting for to come. Thus the whole rage of the idea of a pope as the Antichrist of The Bible is an OXYMORON IDEA.
5. The Reformation era Protestants were called Protestants by the Catholic Church because they 'protested' against the Catholic Church, separating themselves from Rome and the papacy. The Catholic Church, which was used to using a military army for its ventures began literally attacking and persecuting the Protestants. Thus the Protestants began claiming the pope was the Antichrist, and they actually expected Jesus' coming in their day, because the Antichrist is specifically associated with the generation of Christ's future return, as written in God's Word.
One group of my ancestors came to the American colony of Virginia in the 1600's, having fled the persecutions by the Catholic Church upon French Protestants. They were Huguenots, the first French Protestants. So with my family history, I have all the more reason to hate the Catholic Church and a pope. But I don't. It is because I know God's Hand was behind the Protestant rebellion so His people would be established beyond the reaches of the Catholic system, which had been pretty well taken over by crept in unawares with many false traditions of men.
6. There is no reason today for pushing Reformation era ideology in the Church, since what the 16th century Reformers believed about a pope being the Antichrist, and their persecutions being about the END, did not pan out in their era, and Jesus did not return as they were expecting in their era. Yet there exists today 'certain factions' that keep pushing those Reformation era doctrines, and the false Jews are among them taking advantage of it, since they are always interested in anything that divides Christians.
7. Thus the doctrine of men called Futurism is mainly associated with the Pre-trib Rapture theory, which is a false theory. But in reality, Futurism has the same 'design' of deception that Preterism causes. And that is to get the Christian away from looking at Jerusalem for the end time events of Bible prophecy as is actually written, and instead push one's view of prophecy fulfillment in the PAST. I know, how can Futurism be about the Past like Preterism is? Simple, by trying to get the Christian to realize that Futurism is only an attempt to get one to agree with the JESUITS in a counter-Reformation strategy, since they supposedly created it.
