New book series challenges 'Left Behind'

The publishers of "Left Behind" are launching a new series that challenges the end-times theology of the phenomenally popular books by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins.

Illinois-based Tyndale House Publishers says the first book in the new series, "The Last Disciple," by "Bible Answer Man" Hank Hanegraaff and award-winning fiction author Sigmund Brouwer, asks the question, "What if the prophecies of Revelation have already been fulfilled?"

The opposing interpretation of the Bible is presented in a historical novel centered in first-century Rome and Jerusalem, the publishers say, as "these historical sites begin to experience the turbulence Christ prophesied as the beginning of the 'last days.'"

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Dispensationalists believe in a future "rapture" of the church in which Christians will be suddenly taken to be with Jesus Christ before a seven-year period called the Tribulation. Jesus then will establish a 1,000-year reign on earth before Satan is released again on earth and then thrown in the lake of fire. They believe God will then establish a new heave and earth.

Hanegraaff believes most of the prophecies of Jesus and the book of Revelation were fulfilled with the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70. The tribulation, he contends, was the persecution of believers during the reign of Emperor Nero in Rome. When Jesus returns again, Hanegraaff says, he will immediately judge all peoples and establish a new heaven and earth.

Source: WorldNetDaily