In 1995, my son's Latin Professor translated an original manuscript on the subject by Ephraem the Syrian (A.D. 373).
If you don't care to purchase any of the scholarly reviews, you can get a synopsis here:
www.arewelivinginthelastdays.com/com/ephraem.htm
Church historians call Ephraem the Syrian, “Pseudo”- Ephraem.
“Pseudo” means false. There was a true Ephraem the Syrian in church history, and a false Ephraem, this one being the false one.
Not only so, the pretrib rapture pretribs claim to see in Pseudo-Ephraem is likewise false. A pseudo-pretrib rapture is read into Pseudo-Ephraem.
I haven’t looked at that scholar’s work.
It’s real simple: he’s ONE scholar.
For 1800 years, there was no “left behind” movie, no dispensationalism.
There WERE allsorts of cults with all sorts of wrong interpretation.
It’s possible to find some scholar in history to support just about any position one could imagine.
But serious conservative scholars for 2,000 years have pretty much had the SAME eschatology.
Study the theology of the Reformation, start with the Westminster Confession of Faith 1646.
This version has Biblical Proof Texts cited; just click on the numbers.
http://www.reformed.org/documents/wcf_with_proofs/
The last chapter, 33, is “Of the Last Judgement”.
What dispensationalism denies is the Biblical concept of the advancement of the Christ’s Kingdom on earth, that Christians are to be not only involved in the world but to exercise dominion over it. Dispensationalism leads to withdrawal from leading in society, giving up on leading politicially, seeing Jesus’ Great Commission (to go forth and teach all the nations) as doomed to failure. Why bother with the heathen when they are going to have dominion over “this world” until Christ comes and “raptures us away” ? So we accept wickedness in government as a given - instead of using our civil courts to purge it out. Our our government system has thus become a festering cesspool of wicked men and women, many of the professing Christians that do not know Christ at all, but are liars and vile, immoral criminals, entirely corrupt, mostly in secret, as only a few are every held to account for their corruption. That’s what happens when we abandon God and instead have pluralism - separation of Church and State - and allow our government to be based on a human-devised model instead of the Biblical model, which teaches that civil government is ordained of God to restrain evil, and must, at its foundation, base its laws on Biblical moral law.
Dispensationalism denies these verses:
Psalm 110:1
The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.
Matthew 22:44
The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool?
Mark 12:36
For David himself said by the Holy Ghost, The Lord said to my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool.
Hebrews 1:13
But to which of the angels said he at any time, Sit on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool?
Biblical eschatology has always been an optimistic eschatology - one of hope, where, as the Bible tells us, Christ is and has been reigning over the nations in heaven at the right hand of God since his resurrection, and the nations are gradually over time subdued, either willingly by submitting to Christ in faith, or with a “rod of iron”. In the same pattern as the Old Testament ancient Israel, Christianity has had ebbs and flows of faithfulness to God; when nations turn to God they are blessed, but before long they turn to wickedness and evil men and then they are (rod of iron) destroyed by a foreign invading heathen nation. As it says in Isaiah 1, God will purge his elect when they will not give up their whoring. He chastises those whom he loves.
Since the early 1800’s when Biblical doctrine in America started to slide away from the truth, wickedness has steadily increased in its power and control of America, and Christianity has steadily decreased in its dominion over American society and leadership - which was very solid in the 1600’s.