John Nelson Darby is best known as the architect of the most influential system of end-times thinking among the world's half-a-billion evangelicals. This book re-examines Darby's thought and argues that claims that Darby is the father of dispensationalism may need to be revised. This book is, no doubt, the definitive, concise study of the theology of J. N. Darby, particularly of his eschatology and of the role it played in the creation of modern dispensationalism. It establishes the author's surprising judgment that Darby "contributed some of the system's [dispensationalism's] key ideas: he saw the roots, but not the birth, ofdispensationalism".