John Byron is associate professor of New Testament and Greek at Ashland Theological Seminary in Ashland, Ohio. He has written about evangelical fascination with the Rapture on his blog The Biblical World.

J. Daniel Hays is a co-author of the Dictionary of Biblical Prophecy and End Times. Hays is on the faculty of Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, Ark.

J. Scott Duvall is professor of New Testament at Oachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, Ark., where he also holds the J.C. and Mae Fuller Chair of Biblical Studies. Duvall is a co-author of the Dictionary of Biblical Prophecy and End Times.

Thomas B. Slater is a professor of New Testament at Mercer University’s McAfee School of Theology in Atlanta. He has said that Family Radio’s billboards claiming that Jesus would return on May 21, 2011, were inherently misguided.

Dick J. Reavis is an associate professor of English at North Carolina State University. He studied the history of end-times movements while researching his book about the Branch Davidians,  The Ashes of Waco: An Investigation.

Kevin Lewis is a professor of religious studies at the University of South Carolina in Columbia. He teaches a course called “Visions of Apocalypse” and has written an essay on Americans’ obsession with the apocalypse.

Rebecca Denova is a lecturer in religious studies at the University of Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh, Pa., where she has taught a course called “Apocalypse Then and Now.”

Anthony Aveni is the Russell Colgate Distinguished University Professor of Astronomy and Anthropology and Native American Studies at Colgate University in Hamilton, N.Y., and author of The End of Time: The Maya Mystery of 2012.

Philip Lamy is professor of sociology and anthropology at Castleton State College in Castleton, Vt. He is an expert on secular millennial movements, including among survivalist groups and militias.