The Dispensational Propaganda Study Bible Gary DeMar As I write this, the Left Behind movie has hit the theaters.  Church vans are heading to the movies.  You've got to give the dispensationalists credit.  They do know how to market their product.  Of course, fiction is easier to sell than reality.   Left Behind is a rehash of Hal Lindsey's Late Great Planet Earth.  There's not much more that can be said about the theological premise that serves as the foundation for these prophetic blockbusters.  But I keep getting calls from newspaper and magazine reporters asking my opinion of the series.  The December issue of Charisma magazine carried an extensive critique and quoted me throughout.  Churches are asking me to come and speak on the topic.  The phone hasn't stopped ringing.  I dislike being so negative, but the whole Left Behind thing is troubling.  The theology is so bad and ridiculous, and yet millions of Christians have taken it in - hook, line, and sinker.   Then there's the Prophecy Study Bible edited by Tim LaHaye that establishes the exegetical basis for Left Behind.  A better title would be The Dispensational Propaganda Study Bible.  Every note carries a dispensational interpretation with little or no discussion of alternative views or the problems inherent in dispensational hermeneutics.  There is no discussion of the time texts.   More than forty prophecy "experts" worked on the study notes and articles.  One particular article caught my eye - Thomas Ice's discussion of the dating of Revelation.  One of the arguments for the early date for Revelation is that John is told to measure the temple.  We know that the rebuilt temple (John 2:20) was destroyed in A.D. 70, therefore, Revelation was written before the rebuilt temple was destroyed.  Ice first assumes, without argument and without dealing with the time texts of Revelation, that "John is clearly transported in some way to a future time in order to view the events as they will unfold."  Ice never explains the two-thousand year jump to the distant future when John is told that the "time is near"(1:3).  Ice offers no biblical evidence for another rebuilt temple.   But the biggest problem is his claim that "Ezekiel, during a similar vision of a temple (Ezek. 40-48), was told to measure that same temple."  Not quite.   Ezekiel never measures the temple.  "A high-ranking angel...or possibly a pre-incarnate appearance of the 'angel of the Lord,' Jesus Christ" measures the temple (40:3).  Read it for yourself.  The person who wrote the note for Ezekiel 40:3 got it right, and Ice got it wrong.  Ezekiel's temple is visionary; John's temple was still standing in Jerusalem when he was told to measure it.  The New Testament says nothing about another rebuilt temple.  Revelation 20 says nothing about Jesus reigning on the Earth.  The NT says nothing about the Jews returning to their land.  Every land promise made to Israel has been fulfilled:  "So the LORD gave Israel all the land which He had sworn to give to their fathers, and they possessed it and lived in it" (Josh. 21:43).  What's curious but not surprising is that the Tim LaHaye Prophecy Study Bible has no note for this verse.  Propaganda. This article appears in the March, 2001 issue of Gary DeMar's American Vision Biblical Worldview Magazine (1-800-628-9460).  Permission has been granted to The Preterist ABCs for online publication.