Dispensationalism before Darby: Seventeenth-Century and Eighteenth-Century English Apocalypticism

In Christian theological circles discussion, critics of dispensationalism have argued that John Darby was the originator of the pretribulational rapture and dispensationalism. William Watson has spent over twenty years working through little known theological works of the 17th and 18th century. Drawing from primary sources he has demonstrated that Darby's perspectives were not aberrant nor did they originate with him. Instead, he followed a long list of individuals centuries before who anticipated the restoration of the Jews to their national homeland and believed in the imminent return of Christ. Now with the claim proved wrong that pretribulationalism and dispensationalism are new perspectives, hopefully the concentration in eschatological questions will be on exegesis of the Bible itself.