Rapture
The Rapture is an eschatological (end-times) concept held by some Protestant Christians, particularly those of American evangelicalism, consisting of an event when all dead Christian believers will be resurrected and, joined with Christians who are still alive, together will rise "in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air."
Many different timelines have been asserted that tie to ideas of a seven-year Great Tribulation: pretribulation, midtribulation, prewrath, and posttribulation raptures; and to a thousand-year age of Messianic rule: millennialism, premillennialism, postmillennialism, amillennialism, and preterism.
The origin of the term extends from the First Epistle to the Thessalonians in the Bible, which uses the Greek word harpazo (Ancient Greek: ἁρπάζω), meaning "to snatch away" or "to seize". The idea of a rapture as it is defined in dispensational premillennialism is not found in historic Christianity and is a relatively recent doctrine originating from the 1830s.
Most Christian denominations, and the numerically largest, do not subscribe to rapture theology and have a different interpretation of the aerial gathering described in 1 Thessalonians 4. They do not use rapture as a specific theological term, nor do they generally subscribe to the dispensational theology associated with its use. Instead they typically interpret rapture in the sense of the elect gathering with Christ in Heaven directly after the Second Coming and reject outright the idea that a large portion of humanity will be left behind on Earth for an extended tribulation period after the events of 1 Thessalonians 4:17.
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