After watching Michael Tolkin’s The Rapture, I reread The Book of Revelation and wondered if many of the references made to the bible were legitimate. For example, we’re told that the sound of archangel Gabriel’s horn signifies the beginning of the apocalypse. However, in Revelation 8, we’re told that there are seven angels around God and each of them have trumpets. We are not told which angel sounds the first horn, or any of their names. Also, in Revelation 6:2 the first horseman of the apocalypse was Conquest. However, in Tolkin’s film, Angie cried out that the first horseman was War. Some of Tolkin’s use of biblical references in order to portray a rapture film was false and in a way, created a slightly antireligious film.

Although the film touches upon the Christian apocalypse, there are of course some things that make the film seem like a satire of Christianly. For instance instead of a religious symbol or visitation from Jesus appearing as proof of a vision of god, luxury items of a pearl are used instead in order to become aware of god’s presence. There are also events of prophets in the form of children who seemed to be able to communicate with god (the boy). Yet I question whether these prophets were genuine. For instance, Sharon’s daughter Mary seemed like an overzealous Westboro Baptist Church member. She was convinced that she saw archangel Gabriel probably because she was introduced into Church since birth. In theory, the boy from the movie could have been like her, a child that was brought into a religious household who was so zealous over their religion they became convinced they saw visions of god. Also, Sharon’s faith seemed to mirror those of a stereotypical born again Christian. It’s very rare for someone to all of a sudden convert to seeing a god after having sex with a man who used to kill individuals for money.

There was a scene in the film that mirrors the bible in a very interesting way. The scene when Sharon killed Mary can be mirrored to the scene with Abraham and his son, where he was told to kill his son as a test of his faith. Yet in the bible Abraham was told to pass and therefore passed the test and in the film, Sharon ended up killing her daughter and failed the test of faith. If she would’ve stayed hopeful and stayed another day she would still be at the desert when the 6^th seal was broken for the earthquake and would have been raptured along with her daughter with her faith intact.

It seemed as if Tolkin wanted to make it appear that the rules of Christianity can be a quite unfair. As Sharon lost the test of her faith and was too traumatized by her interactions with god, she was unable to ascend into heaven because she was unable to forgive and love a god who doesn’t require forgiving and for that, must stay in purgatory for eternity. Instead a man who was unfaithful to god all his life except for about five minutes was granted acceptance into heaven just for saying that he loved god for giving him life. I found Tolkin’s film to be more of a film about the fallacies of religion instead of an apocalyptic film.