"Rapture" not in the Bible?

Often times, whether in internet chat rooms long ago or personal conversations, I’ve heard the claim that the word “rapture” is not in the Bible. And I confess if reading the English Bible alone, one will likely not find the word “rapture.” It actually isn’t an English word in origin. It comes from the Latin rapio, and this word is in the Bible—although in the Vulgate edition. As the text in 1 Thessalonians 4:17 states:

deinde nos qui vivimus qui relinquimur simul rapiemur cum illis in nubibus obviam Domino in aera et sic semper cum Domino erimus

The Latin rapiemur is simply a conjugated form of rapio and corresponds to ἁρπαγησόμεθα as appearing in the Greek New Testament of this same verse:

ἔπειτα ἡμεῖς οἱ ζῶντες οἱ περιλειπόμενοι ἅμα σὺν αὐτοῖς ἁρπαγησόμεθα ἐν νεφέλαις εἰς ἀπάντησιν τοῦ κυρίου εἰς αέρα· καὶ οὕτως πάντοτε σὺν κυρίῳ ἐσόμεθα.






The King James Bible rendered it as such: "Then we which are alive and remail shall be caught up together with them in the coulds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord."

Therefore, the rapture is simply the “catching away” into the clouds that 1 Thessalonians 4:17 describes—this is where the concept appears in Scripture. And it is specifically called “rapture” according to the Latin version.