THE SCOFIELD BIBLE

THE SCOFIELD BIBLE NOTES THAT CHANGED AMERICAN CHRISTIANITY

Have you ever wondered where so much of our modern end-times teaching came from?

The secret rapture. A future seven-year tribulation. A future Antichrist. A rebuilt Jewish temple. A sharp distinction between Israel and the Church.

Prophecies concerning Israel pushed thousands of years into the future.

Many Christians assume these ideas have simply been the standard teaching of Christianity throughout its history.

But the history is much more interesting.

JOHN NELSON DARBY

In the nineteenth century, John Nelson Darby became one of the most important figures in the development of what would eventually become known as dispensationalism.

Darby was an Anglo-Irish clergyman and an influential leader among the Plymouth Brethren. Beginning in the 1820’s and 1830’s, he developed a system that strongly distinguished Israel from the Church and interpreted major portions of biblical prophecy futuristically.

Darby did not invent every component of dispensational thought, and historians debate exactly how much of the later system should be credited directly to him. But his influence upon the movement was enormous.

Darby traveled extensively, including several trips to North America, spreading these ideas.

Then came Cyrus Ingerson Scofield.

CYRUS I. SCOFIELD

Scofield was not the originator of dispensationalism. He encountered dispensational teaching in America, particularly through James H. Brookes, who had connections with Darby’s theological movement.

Scofield eventually began producing Bible-study material and developed a system for what he called “rightly dividing the word of truth.”

Then he did something that would have an enormous effect upon American Christianity.

He put the theological system directly into a Bible.

THE SCOFIELD REFERENCE BIBLE

In 1909, Oxford University Press published the first Scofield Reference Bible. A revised edition followed in 1917.

Think about what made this different.

People no longer had to attend a prophecy conference, read Darby’s writings, or study a separate theological commentary to encounter dispensationalism.

They could simply open their Bible.

At the top and bottom of the pages were headings, cross-references and explanatory notes telling readers how Scofield believed the passages should be understood.

The biblical text was the King James Bible.

But the notes were Scofield’s interpretation.

That distinction is extremely important.

The words above were Scripture.

The explanations underneath were not.

Yet because the two appeared together on the same page, generations of readers naturally became accustomed to reading Scripture through Scofield’s theological framework.

And the Bible became enormously successful.

Historian B. M. Pietsch describes the Scofield Reference Bible as the best-selling reference Bible in American history. Dispensational theology subsequently found influential institutional homes in Bible institutes and especially Dallas Theological Seminary.

By the middle of the twentieth century, millions of copies of the Scofield Bible had circulated.

The system had moved from theological conferences into churches, Bible institutes, seminaries, pulpits and homes across America.

And something remarkable happened.

An interpretation began to feel like the Bible itself.

FUTURISM BECAME NORMAL

When Christians opened Daniel, Matthew 24, 1 Thessalonians or Revelation, many were already being supplied with a framework for interpreting what they were reading.

Israel and the Church were separated.

Prophetic passages were assigned to different dispensations.

Much of biblical prophecy was projected into the future.

A future tribulation, future restoration of national Israel, future kingdom program and other end-times expectations became interconnected pieces of a prophetic system.

Eventually millions of Christians inherited the system without necessarily knowing where the system came from.

That does not mean everyone who believes these things learned them directly from Scofield.

It means Scofield was one of the most important vehicles through which dispensational futurism became deeply embedded in American evangelical Christianity.

AND THEN THERE WAS ISRAEL

This also had enormous consequences for the way many Christians came to understand the Jewish people, the land of Israel and biblical prophecy.

Dispensationalism maintained a continuing prophetic distinction between national Israel and the Church. Therefore promises made to ancient Israel were understood as requiring future literal fulfillment involving national Israel.

This theological framework became one important stream feeding what we now call Christian Zionism.

Christian support for Jewish restoration existed long before Scofield, so it would be historically incorrect to say Scofield invented Christian Zionism.

But his Reference Bible gave a particular dispensational understanding of Israel extraordinary reach within American evangelical Christianity.

Then came the establishment of the modern State of Israel in 1948.

For Christians already reading prophecy through the dispensational framework, this appeared to confirm what they had been taught.

Later generations would continue connecting modern Israel, Middle Eastern events, a future temple, Antichrist, tribulation and the return of Christ into one prophetic timeline.

But here is the question I believe we should be willing to ask:

Were we reading those things directly from Scripture?

Or were we sometimes reading Scripture through a system that had already told us what the passages were supposed to mean?

THAT IS WHY HERMENEUTICS MATTERS

I am not saying this to attack Scofield, Darby, dispensationalists, or anyone who was taught this system. I was taught much of it myself.

I am saying we should distinguish between the inspired text and the interpretive notes surrounding the text.

Darby’s theology was not Scripture.

Scofield’s notes were not Scripture.

I must say, my interpretation is not Scripture either.

So let’s go back to the text.

Who was speaking?

To whom were they speaking?

When were they speaking?

What did those words mean to the original audience?

How did the Old Testament prophets use the same language?

And most importantly, did Jesus and the apostles give their own generation any indication of when these things would occur?

I cannot stress how important this to understanding the scriptures.

Before we automatically send prophecy thousands of years into the future, perhaps we should first ask whether Scripture itself already gave us its timeframe.

Sometimes the hardest thing to question is not something written in our Bible.

It is something written in the margins that taught us how to read our Bible.