'Rapture' shares its root with 'rape,' 'rapid,' and 'raptor' — all from Latin 'rapere' (to seize violently).
A feeling of intense pleasure or joy; ecstatic delight; in Christian theology, the transporting of believers to heaven at the Second Coming of Christ.
From Latin 'raptūra' (a carrying off, a seizing), from 'raptus,' past participle of 'rapere' (to seize, to carry off, to snatch away). The etymological image is of being physically seized and carried away — snatched out of ordinary experience by overwhelming emotion. The same Latin verb produced 'rape' (violent seizure), 'raptor' (one who seizes), 'rapid' (seizing, rushing), and 'ravish' (via Old French). Rapture is thus, at root, an experience of being ravished — taken by force from the mundane into the transcendent.
The words 'rapture,' 'rape,' 'rapid,' 'raptor,' and 'ravish' all descend from Latin 'rapere' (to seize). A raptor seizes prey; rapids seize a river; rapture seizes the soul. The theological Rapture literalizes the metaphor: believers are physically seized from earth and carried to heaven.