Yea, relatively recent since Paul himself was a pre tribber. He counseled his churches to comfort each other with the rapture, and I dont see much comfort going through the tribulation... We can agree to disagree about the timing of the rapture, its not a salvation issue. But I don’t lightly dismiss others thoughts on the subject and admit I could be wrong with my pre trib views. It would be nice if other Christians would offer the same courtesy.
excerpt from my blog that I got from someone else:
There is no known writing existing, or referred to by other writers, of the pre-trib rapture teaching prior to 1830. None of the early Church fathers or anyone else throughout Church history wrote about the saints being raptured before the end-time Great Tribulation. This does not conclusively mean that the theory is false, only that it is a historical fact that this teaching did not exist among the early Christians or the Church fathers or any Christians throughout history until 1830.
Reportedly the origin of the pre-trib rapture teaching was with a fifteen-year-old girl named Margaret MacDonald in the town of Port Glasgow, Scotland. Supposedly in 1830 she had a dream or vision that Christians were raptured just prior to the Great Tribulation. In 1831 or 1832 a Presbyterian pastor in London, England named Edward Irving heard about this dream or vision that Miss MacDonald had and started teaching it to his congregation. These are well-known reports among scholars of eschatology.
These reports concerning the origin of the pre-trib rapture theory may or may not be true. What is well-documented is the fact that John Nelson Darby, the founder of a group known as the Plymouth Brethren, after visiting Miss MacDonald began teaching this new theory. http://lastdaysministry.com/pretrib.htm