Very interesting. I have never thought of that.
I was really into science, especially dinosaurs, before I even started first grade. I was reading about the adventures of Roy Chapman Andrews in the Gobi Desert long before dinosaurs were cool. I never questioned the old age of the earth and, when I was older and did question, I found nothing to make me doubt it.
I didn't give much thought to premillenialism until Hal Lindsey's books came out. I read rabidly on the subject and held to it for years. However, I began to have problems when I noticed that PM authors were inserting an awful lot of their own interpretations into the Bible text. The "Left Behind" books were positively dreadful. I'm now a semi-Preterist but am open to the option that there may well be another antichrist.
Most eschatology books concentrate on Daniel and Revelation. I've learned that the major and minor prophets also have a lot to say on the subject and that this material.
Premillenialism or semi-preterism are not hills that I would choose to die on. Christ is returning, I am looking forward to it, and I believe that it will happen within my lifetime. If there is a pre-trib rapture, I'm not going to argue with Jesus on the way up that he's wrong about eschatology.
Thanks for the thoughtful reply. Yes, it would be poor form to lecture Christ about what he "must" do according to the timeline you have!
And to be fair, not all pre-mill, pre-trib believers believe in YEC or think they have a special revelation of who the anti-Christ is. But I do believe that the system Darby created has many problems and its chief problem is that it actually distracts the church from Christ and points people in many needless directions. But I think preterism is an unsatisfactory answer. There are a lot of conservative Christians who follow amillennialism but don't go as far as preterism.
I have known a fair number of people who would call themselves pre-trib fundamentalists and they really do believe all or most tenants of YEC. Let's just say I would be shocked to find a believer in YEC who was also an amillennialist.
There are a few good critiques of millennialism. "The Apocalypse Code" by Hank Hanegraaff is pretty good, although about 20% of the book strays into side issues. Also, "A Case for Amillennialism" by Kim Riddlebarger gives a traditional Reformed view.
"The Orthodox Study Bible" came out last year and I have enjoyed that, although I am not a member of an Eastern church. They have helpful notes about the book of Revelation, etc. It is something I found very worthwhile.