If you are a Pretribulationist King James Version Only Advocate this post may be disturbing news. Today when I was examining a facsimile of the original King James Version — the actual 1611 edition — I was looking at instances of textual variant notes found in the King James Version; there are 2,193 instances. (Yes, the 17th century Anglican King James translators made textual critical choices when they translated it.)
During my research of textual variant notes, I came across something else that is very interesting. As you know, pretribulationists assert that Matthew 24 does not describe the event of the rapture/resurrection. They claim that Matthew 24:31 describing the “gathering of the elect” is referring to some group of believing Jews and not the rapture/resurrection of the Church. This is to avoid the implication of the rapture/resurrection following after the Antichrist’s Great Tribulation; and in the pretrib system they cannot have the Church being persecuted during this time — it would, as well, undermine their doctrine of imminency since it would have the rapture following after prophesied events.
Observe the asterisk at the beginning of verse 31 and the two verses it cross-references to in the margin: 1 Cor 15:52 and 1 Thess. 4:16. The former verse is the twinkling of an eye rapture/resurrection passage, and the latter is the classic rapture/resurrection passage! Here the KJV translators understand that Matthew 24:31 is describing the same event of the rapture/resurrection, contra pretribulationism.
So for those pretribbers who invest ultimate authority into the textual critical decisions of 17th century Anglican churchmen, I thought I would highlight that these translators’ understanding of Matthew 24:31 agrees with Prewrath — and negates the notion of Pretribulationism.
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