This paper is a review and critique of Three Views on the Rapture: Pre-, Mid-, or Post-Tribulational. This is a dialogue among Gleason L. Archer, Jr., Paul D. Feinberg, and Douglas J. Moo, all of whom are or have been professors at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, which is the seminary of the Evangelical Free Church of America.
The format of the book is one in which each of the three professors presents his viewpoint on the Rapture, and then is responded to by the other two. These papers were actually given originally to a meeting of the Ministerial Association of the Evangelical Free Church of America in 1981. There is also an introductory essay by Richard R. Reiter (ABD, NYU), who was apparently a graduate student of one or more of these professors when he received his M.Div. from Trinity. His essay traces the history of the development of the Rapture positions. This paper will, however, deal with only two of the papers: that by Professor Feinberg, setting forth the pretribulational position, and that by Professor Moo, setting forth the posttribulational position, along with the responses to them.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this book is its demonstration that three professors of theology at the same seminary, of a church which takes its theology extremely seriously (and there are churches, such as the Unitarian-Universalist, in which the members are really free to believe almost anything they want), can take three different stances on a concept which is extremely important, though perhaps not absolutely essential, for its entire theological perspective. On the other hand, one must be aware of the possibility, one which does arise in scholarly enterprises, that if the competent authorities are all coming up with different answers to the same question, then perhaps something is wrong with the question: with the way it is formulated; with some of the assumptions it is based upon; or perhaps even with the wa...