Some pre-tribulation proponents, such as Grant Jeffrey,[SUP]
[42][/SUP] maintain that the earliest known extra-Biblical reference to the pre-tribulation rapture is from a 7th-century tract known as the
Apocalypse of Pseudo-Ephraem the Syrian. Different authors have proposed several different versions of the Ephraem text as authentic and there are differing opinions as to whether it supports belief in a pre-tribulation rapture.[SUP]
[43][/SUP][SUP]
[44][/SUP] One version of the text reads,
"For all the saints and Elect of God are gathered, prior to the tribulation that is to come, and are taken to the Lord lest they see the confusion that is to overwhelm the world because of our sins."
. . .
In 1590,
Francisco Ribera, a Catholic Jesuit, taught "futurism," the idea that most of Revelation was about the future rather than about the Catholic Church. He also taught that the rapture would happen 45 days before the end of a 3.5-year tribulation.
The concept of the rapture, in connection with
premillennialism, was expressed by the 17th-century
American Puritans Increase and
Cotton Mather. They held to the idea that believers would be caught up in the air, followed by judgments on earth, and then the
millennium.[SUP]
[24][/SUP][SUP]
[25][/SUP] Other 17th-century expressions of the rapture are found in the works of: Robert Maton, Nathaniel Homes, John Browne, Thomas Vincent, Henry Danvers, and William Sherwin.[SUP]
[26][/SUP] The term
rapture was used by Philip Doddridge[SUP]
[27][/SUP] and John Gill[SUP]
[28][/SUP] in their
New Testament commentaries, with the idea that believers would be caught up prior to judgment on earth and Jesus'
second coming.
There exists at least one 18th-century and two 19th-century pre-tribulation references: in an essay published in 1788 in Philadelphia by the Baptist
Morgan Edwards which articulated the concept of a pre-tribulation rapture,[SUP]
[29][/SUP] in the writings of Catholic priest
Manuel Lacunza in 1812,[SUP]
[30][/SUP] and by
John Nelson Darby in 1827.[SUP]
[31][/SUP] Manuel Lacunza (1731–1801), a
Jesuit priest (under the pseudonym Juan Josafat Ben Ezra), wrote an apocalyptic work entitled
La venida del Mesías en gloria y majestad (
The Coming of the Messiah in Glory and Majesty). The book appeared first in 1811, 10 years after his death. In 1827, it was translated into English by the Scottish minister
Edward Irving.
Dr.
Samuel Prideaux Tregelles (1813-1875), a prominent English theologian and biblical scholar, wrote a pamphlet in 1866 tracing the concept of the rapture through the works of John Darby back to
Edward Irving.[SUP]
[32]
[/SUP]
An 1828 edition of
Matthew Henry's
An Exposition of the Old and New Testament uses the word "rapture" in explicating 1 Thes. 4:17.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapture