It wasn't very long ago that I explained dispensationalism in one of my articles, but I've been seeing social media posts connecting Zionism to Dispensationalism and the concept of a "Rapture". Many of these "debunk" Dispensationalism as a new, unbiblical doctrine and conclude that this undermines the whole concept of Zionism.
Biblical Contradictions
Many Christians would take issue with the fact that the Bible contradicts itself, not to mention historical and archeological records. Many others simply ignore the contradictions — or don't know about them because they don't read the Bible. But from the very early days of Christianity theologians have been aware of contradictions and discrepancies and attempted to reconcile them. (I'm mainly dealing with how Christian theologians addressed inconsistencies, I am not very familiar with how Jewish scholars may have approached issues in the Jewish scriptures).The question of the nature of Jesus Christ — was he God, or was he a man? — caused a lot of ink to be spilled in the theological battlefields of the early centuries of Christianity. Even when they thought they had an answer — he's both! — the minutia of how he could be both, as well as the ramifications of the various theories, occupied Christian leaders for centuries, when it could be argued that they certainly had better things to do.
The problem that the Church Fathers identified was that there were sections of the Gospels and Epistles that very clearly indicated that Jesus was a man, a very holy man, a special man, but a man and not God. There were also other verses which just as clearly came down on the side of Jesus being God. These second century scholars had a choice: they could ignore the question and focus what Jesus preached and encourage people to follow his example and live their life as he taught; they could decide that Jesus being a man made more sense and interpret the verses that suggested that he was also God in that light; or place their bets on Christ's divinity and interpret the verses that said otherwise in that light. What they did was decide that Jesus was man and God. They argued interminably about the details, but ended up with the conclusion that he was fully God and fully man. That was the starting point for the doctrine of The Trinity, a theological edifice to explain away a contradiction — a Christology which cannot be found in any actual book of the Bible. (The nuances of that stance take up fat volumes — check it out some time).
The God of the Jewish Bible (aka The Old Testament) vs. The God of Jesus
A very large plot hole in the Bible is the stark difference between how God is portrayed in the Old Testament and the New Testament. (Other than the Apocalypse of John [aka Revelation] which reverts back to the wrathful, vengeful God imagery). In the 1800's there arose a theological position called Dispensationalism, which attempted to explain the differences. But long before that, Marcion, a Second Century Christian, came up with his own solution. Marcion took a blunt force approach to Biblical criticism and simply threw out the parts he thought made no sense. Observing that the vengeful God of the Old Testament bore no resemblance to the God of the Gospels he concluded that they were different gods. In Marcion's view, the Old Testament God was evil, while the New Testament God of Jesus was the "true" God, the good God. He threw out the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and John and the non-Pauline epistles and heavily edited what was left. Say what you want, but Marcion took care of those pesky contradictions!
Dispensationalism as an Answer to The Contradictions
Nineteenth Century Dispensationalists eschewed Marcion's approach. Rather than relegating the Old Testament God to second deity status, they arranged history as outlined in the Bible into a number of "dispensations". A dispensation, according to them, was a time period where God dealt with humanity in different ways from the other time periods. Even though Dispensationalism as a interpretative framework did not come about until the Nineteenth Century, it is predicated upon the observation that God appeared to act differently toward humans during different periods of history, which is clearly based on scripture. There was a time when God required his people to follow The Law of Moses, yet Paul wrote that Christians were not required to follow The Law. There was a time before The Law, and there will be a time after Christ returns when all the rules will be different. And Jesus was certainly following the Law of Moses, at least in spirit, if not in Pharisaic detail. How to reconcile all that? The answer was to theorize that since the rules obviously changed periodically, there was a need to demarcate those divisions.
Scofield Reference Bible
Dispensationalism became popularized with the publication of the Scofield Reference Bible in 1900 by American Bible student Cyrus Scofield. It was innovative in that it included commentary in the margins, rather than in a separate volume as was the previous custom. In 1909, Anglican Minister E.W. Bullinger edited The Companion Bible, which was similar in its inclusion of notes and commentary, along with voluminous appendices. Both men were Dispensationalists and their commentary reflected this belief.
The Dispensations
Following is a common division of dispensations:
- Innocence/Original Paradise/Garden of Eden — Adam and Eve before eating from the Tree of Knowledge
- Patriarchal — before the Law was given
- Law — the giving of the Law to Israel
- Grace or Church — this started when the Law Dispensation ended and includes the present day
- Tribulation — starts with the rapture and includes all the horrors of the Book of Revelation
- Millennial — ends with Christ's return to defeat The Beast and The Devil and initiates the Thousand Year reign of Christ on Earth
- This is sometimes combined with either The Tribulation or Paradise Dispensations,
- Paradise — establishment of God's eternal kingdom on earth
There were usually seven of these time periods, although I have seen eight listed as well. Since these dispensations were the opinions and interpretations of the theologians who came up with them, there were different ways to divide them up. Here are a few of the other divisions from other groups:
- Conscience — after "The Fall" — no rules, people followed their own conscience, ended with The Flood
- Human Government — From Noah to Abraham
- Promise — starts with Abraham and indicates God dealing with one specific group of people — ends with Moses
- These three are often combined into one
- Jesus' Ministry — some recognized this as a separate Dispensation; some interpretations ended the Law at Jesus' resurrection, some at the beginning of his ministry, some at the ascension, other at the end of The Acts of the Apostles.
- Part of The Law, at least definitely separate from the Church Dispensation
Despite there being disagreements among Dispensationalists on where these divisions should begin and end, the concept does have its own logic. There's no question that God acts differently throughout different time periods as outlined in the Bible. But there are no bright lines delineating changes in God's rules — if there were, there would be no disagreement among the various advocates of dispensationalism. You won't find the term in the Bible, but it's a legitimate interpretive framework.
Tribulation, The Anti-Christ and Other Hallucinations
The Apocalypse of John, also known as Revelation (not Revelations) is the final book of the Bible. It was not universally considered to be inspired scripture during the canonization process in the Fourth Century, and it was re-examined by Martin Luther. Luther questioned Revelation, as well as several other previously canonized books, but ultimately left the New Testament Canon intact. Objectively Revelation is a figurative commentary on then-current events, and has nothing to do with our times, or any other time in the future of the First Century CE. Fundamentalists and Evangelicals however, view it as prophetic, and a blow-by-blow description of how the world will end and be replaced by the Kingdom of God that Jesus thought was going to happen 2000 years ago.
There are a few things that make it at least plausible as a prophecy of future events. One of these is Chapter 1, v7: "Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen.", which fits very well with First Thessalonians 4:15-17 "For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord."
The other point is that the interpretation of chapters 20 and 21 makes the most sense as a description of events after the triumphant return of Christ.
The Rapture
It's true that the concept of The Rapture is relatively new, it wasn't taught widely until the mid-1800's. But it does have a Biblical foundation, even without resorting to the acid trip that is the Apocalypse of John, aka The Book of Revelation. It's pretty clear from the Gospels, at least the Synoptics, that Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet, i.e. he preached that the world as it was known was going to end, and God would inaugurate his Kingdom on Earth. Not at some hazy future time, but soon. He is quoted as saying that end would come before the current generation passed away. Paul, writing around 20 years later, and arguably writing toward the end of that generational countdown, thought it would happen soon as well. 2000 year old spoiler alert: it didn't happen.
Within Paul's epistles he addresses the undeniable fact that it hadn't happened yet. He comforts those who were concerned that those who had died would miss out in First Thessalonians chapter 4 by describing those who had already died rising from the dead, followed by those still alive, to meet Jesus in the air. "For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord." First Corinthians chapter 15 gives additional information. Second Thessalonians chapter 2 addresses those who thought that the resurrection was spiritual and had already happened by stressing that it was still future, would be physical, and could not happen until a "great apostasy" took place. The great apostasy, or "falling away", as some translations render it, could conceivably be linked to the "Beast" of the Book of Revelation.
As Paul grew older, with no sign of Jesus returning to gather the believers in the air, he started writing about his belief that a believer would be in God's presence immediately upon death. As the Catholic/Orthodox version of Christianity became the dominant, official, version, the canonical doctrine became that a believer would immediately be ushered into God's presence (or, if evil, to Hell) at death. The future resurrection was viewed, if at all, as a return of Jesus to herald the new heaven and new Earth.
Dispensationalist End Times
Nineteenth Century Dispensationalist theologians combined the description of a resurrection in Paul's epistles with the events in Revelation and with various prophesies in the Old Testament to concoct a timeline of the end times. It eventually became an article of faith in Fundamentalist and Evangelical circles that a rapture of believers would be followed by a "tribulation" which would end with the triumphant return of Jesus, the last judgement and the ushering in of paradise. It's my opinion that the Rapture itself, even apart from the Book of Revelation, is a plausible interpretation of the New Testament doctrine regarding the fate of the dead, despite it being a relatively new theory.
Zionism
The name Zionism comes from "Zion", the name of the mount upon which Jerusalem was built in Biblical times. It originated in the mid-1800's as a movement to create a national home for the Jewish people. Alternatives to Palestine were considered, but the consensus settled upon Palestine. The Ottoman Empire was still in control of Palestine at that time. Jews from other areas in Ottoman lands, as well as from Europe where Jews endured regular persecution, began to migrate to Palestine. Some Zionists had a religious motivation: to fulfil prophesies of the return of Israel to its ancestral land, others had purely political motivations — to secure a safe haven where Jews were in control. When the Ottomans lost in World War One, the United Kingdom took control of Palestine, which then included what is now the Kingdom of Jordan. The United Kingdom agreed to assist in the creation of a "national home for the Jewish people". Israel declared itself an independent state within the borders set by the United Nations in 1948.
Christian Support For Zionism and the State of Israel
Even though the Jewish Zionists were not motivated by the Book of Revelation (even if some were spurred by Old Testament predictions of a return to their ancestral domain) the support they received from the United Kingdom was. Dispensationalism and the related End Times interpretation of the Book of Revelation had taken root within the upper echelons of U.K. government. They saw it as their Christian duty to facilitate Israel's return to The Holy Land. Twentieth and Twenty-First Century United States military and financial support for Israel is based on some of the same assumptions. (It's ironic that many of these same cheerleaders for a Jewish state, nevertheless tend to be bigoted toward actual Jews.)
Dispensationalism became a bedrock doctrine of American Evangelical and Fundamentalist Churches and explains a lot of the right wing support for Israel. The relevant scriptures that point to a re-establishment of Israel and The Temple are not found in Revelation however. References are scattered throughout the Old Testament: Ezekiel 37:21-25, Zechariah 14:2-4, Jeremiah 31: 31-34, and others refer to Israel and the Israelites returning to the Biblical lands. The implication of these verses is then read into the events of Revelation.
Anti-Israeli Backlash
Recently, especially, but not exclusively, among progressives who support Palestine and decry the Israeli government's treatment of them, there has been a backlash. This reaction usually takes the form of denying that the modern State of Israel has anything to do with the Biblical Nation of Israel. This is often extended to include an assertion that the State of Israel is an illegal colonialist entity that has no right to exist. I'm not going to debate that issue here, but just as we shouldn't be conducting foreign policy based on the Bible, we shouldn't be doing so based on whether a country that clearly does exist, shouldn't exist based on a different Biblical opinion. In other words, our support for another nation should be predicated on our national interest, not whether that nation's existence fulfils a prophecy. Equally, scouring the Bible for reasons that a nation doesn't fulfill a Biblical prophecy, should not be a reason to abandon an ally. We shouldn't be using anyone's Holy Book to set national policy!
The movement to delegitimize Israel and our support for their war also includes denial of the legitimacy of Dispensationalist theology, including the Rapture. Opponents of Israel apparently believe that debunking the interpretive legitimacy of Dispensationalist and Rapture theology undermines any rationale for our alliance with Israel. Their foundation is not particularly strong, Dispensationalism, which in my opinion has its weak points, can be justified Biblically.
Antisemitism — An Offshoot Or Foundation of The Backlash?
An unfortunate side effect of all of this is a resurgence of Anti-Jewish bigotry, discrimination and persecution. Social media posts that I have seen attempting to discredit Dispensationalism often include the false assertion that the Scofield Reference Bible was "commissioned by the Rothschilds". Anyone who has paid attention to antisemitic tropes over the years knows that "The Rothschilds" is often shorthand for the conspiracy theory that powerful Jews are running the world through their alleged control of, among other things, banks, the media and government. No Rothschild had anything to do with the Scofield Bible. Another feature of the backlash is an insistence that the modern State of Israel has nothing in common with the Biblical Nation of Israel. This assertion is usually based on a 1976 book by Arthur Koestler, The Thirteenth Tribe. Koestler theorized that Ashkenazi Jews (i.e. Jews from Eastern Europe as opposed to Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews — from Spain and Egypt respectively) were descended from a Turkic Tribe that had converted to Judaism in the Eighth Century. Koestler claimed that this would remove the racial basis for discrimination and persecution against Jews. It had the opposite effect. It became a favorite of White Nationalists, the Christian Identity Movement, and Arabs who maintained that modern-day Jews had no ancestral claim to Palestine.
Bottom Line
It's complicated. I am not a Bible believer, and am firmly against basing our foreign policy on religious texts. But most of what you're reading on this subject is not true. There are plenty of reasons to be against our war with Israel against Iran, and many reasons to abhor Israel's treatment of the Palestinians, but insisting that certain Biblical interpretations are wrong isn't one of them.
Start at The Beginning: Part I


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