The first seven English translations of
apostasia all rendered the noun as either “departure” or “departing.” They are as follows: Wycliffe Bible (1384); Tyndale Bible (1526); Coverdale Bible (1535); Cranmer Bible (1539); Breeches Bible (1576); Beza Bible (1583); Geneva Bible (1608).
[7] This supports the notion that the word truly means “departure.” In fact, Jerome’s Latin translation known as the Vulgate from around the time of A.D. 400 renders
apostasia with the “word
discessio, meaning ‘departure.’”
[8] Why was the King James Version the first to depart from the established translation of “departure”?
Most scholars say that no one knows the reason for the translation shift. However, a plausible theory has been put forth by Martin Butalla in his Master of Theology thesis produced at Dallas Theology Seminary in 1998.
[9] It appears that the Catholic translation into English from Jerome’s Latin Vulgate known as the Rheims Bible (1576) was the first to break the translation trend. “
Apostasia was revised from ‘the departure’ to ‘the Protestant Revolt,’” explains Butalla. “Revolution is the terminology still in use today when Catholicism teaches the history of the Protestant Reformation. Under this guise,
apostasia would refer to a departure of Protestants from the Catholic Church.”
[10] The Catholic translators appear eager to engage in polemics against the Reformation by even allowing it to impact Bible translation. By 1611, when then original version of the King James Bible came out, the translators changed the English translation tradition from “departure” to “falling away,” which implied “apostasy.” Such a change was a theological response to the Catholic notion that the Reformation was a revolt against the true church; instead, Protestants saw Catholic beliefs as “the falling away” or “the great apostasy. This would mean that the shift in translation was not based upon research of the meaning of the original language but as a theological polemic against the false teachings of Romanism.
It is well established that E. Schuyler English is thought to be the first pretribulationist to propose that “the departure” in
2 Thessalonians 2:3 was a physical departure and thus a reference to the pre-trib rapture. However, history records that at least a couple of men thought of this idea before English’s series of article in 1950.
[11] J. S. Mabie is said to have presented the view that “the departure” refers to the rapture as early as 1859 during a prophecy conference in Los Angeles.
[12] He later wrote his view in an article published in November 1895 in a periodical called
Morning Star.
[13] Another pre-English proponent of “the departure” as the rapture was John R. Rice in a book in 1945.
[14]
From:
https://www.pre-trib.org/articles/all-articles/message/the-departure-in-2-thessalonians-2-3/read