18 AMERICAN HISTORY
THE
LIFE
S
T
O
RYOF^C.I.^
S
C
O
FIELDcolleagues promoted a simpler view. Rather than read the Bible through
the lens of historical events, they applied the lens of Scripture to history,
biblically dividing all of history into seven epochs. “The past is seen to fall
into periods,” he wrote. “The clear perception of this doctrine of the Ages...
has the same relation to the right understanding of the Scriptures that
correct outline work has to map making.”
Premillennial dispensationalists such as Scofield forecast a period of
tribulation and a millennium when Jesus Christ returned to earth before
the final judgment. A dispensation is “a period of time during which
man is tested in respect of obedience to some specific revelation of the
will of God,” he said. Of seven dispensations in the biblical construct,
the sixth outlined Jews’ return to Israel. The seventh and final dispensa-
tion governed the unfolding of the millennium and the end of time. Sco-
field also highlighted the concept of the Rapture, the ascent to heaven
by Christian believers, in his notes about Thessalonians 4:17.
Feeling End Times—the storied period of tribulation—were near, Sco-
field wanted to save others. Regarding the Bible as a manual for inter-
preting experience, he collected notes about biblical text, in 1888 pro-
ducing Rightly Divided the Word of Truth—the title is from II Timothy
2:15—explaining how biblical prophecies foretell history and salvation.
The booklet helped readers interpret Scripture on their own, eliminating
the need for expertise. Disciples, not denominations, was Scofield’s goal,
along with immediate individual salvation rather than church building.
In 1890 Scofield established the Central American Mission and in
1895 a correspondence Bible course enrolling 10,000 students intent on
becoming pastors. By 1905 he had
resigned from his congregation to work
on a reference Bible. With eight consult-
ing scholars, he created the first study
Bible with title headings, explanations
on each page, and a novel system of ref-
erences. Scofield borrowed chronologies
from 17th century Irish archbishop
James Ussher. The book of Genesis, for
example, is said to span 2,315 years;
Deuteronomy, 40. In 1909 Oxford Uni-
versity Press published the work, adver-
tised as “a new system of connected
topical references [in which] all the
greater truths of the divine revelation
are so traced through the entire Bible,
from the place of first mention to the last, that the reader
may for himself follow the gradual unfolding of these.”
In 1913 Scofield helped found the Philadelphia School
of the Bible, now Cairn University. Philanthropist Charles
Huston of Lukens Steel underwrote the project. The next
year came World War I—the Great Tribulation, some said.
Three years and 40 million casualties later, on December 30, 1917, in Brit-
ish General Edmund Allenby’s conquest of Palestine, devout dispensa-
tionalists saw a portent of the prophesied return of Jews to Israel. “Now
for the first time, we have a real prophetic sign,” Scofield wrote to a friend.
However, no Rapture ensued. Peace undermined the End Times mes-
sage, creating an opening for Indiana Baptist and noted anti-evolution-
ist William Bell Riley, who argued ardently in 1918 for a more organized
evangelical approach. Riley deemphasized the
End Times and stressed nurturing Christian
communities through missionary work and
church building.
Scofield opposed such centralization. Histo-
rian Richard Kent Evan says that Riley’s 1919
break with Scofield on this point and Riley’s
establishment of the World Conference on
Christian Fundamentals birthed establish-
ment fundamentalism in the United States.
Scofield’s death in 1921 did not end the
vogue for reading current events biblically. For
some, Israel’s 1948 founding echoed prophecy.
In 1967 a team lightly revised the Scofield
Bible; that year, in another seeming alignment
with prophecy, Israel won a war with Arab
neighbors. Since then evangelical Christians
have enthusiastically supported American
politicians backing Israel. A 2018 survey of
white evangelicals showed that 71 percent
supported Donald Trump, whose administra-
tion’s 2018 decision to move the U.S. embassy
from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem further broadcasts
an American tie to the Jews’ Holy City.
Selling tens of millions of copies, the Sco-
field Bible remains popular, thanks in
part, scholar Brendan Pietsch says, to
worldly touches by Oxford’s pub-
lisher, Henry Frowde. The Scofield
Reference Bible was only one product
of a vibrant enterprise that printed
Bibles on Oxford India paper—light-
weight, sturdy sheets of cotton and
hemp since replaced by other acid-
free papers.
Cyrus Scofield is not a household
name, but his End Times theory reso-
nates with American evangelicals.
Friend and disciple Lewis Sperry
Chafer founded and ran Dallas Theo-
logical Seminary 1924-52. In 1970
a student of Chafer’s, Hal Lindsey,
wrote Late Great Planet Earth, a
best-seller about the End Times,
fictionalized in a 1979 movie. A
1995 Rapture-centered novel by
evangelical pastor Timothy
LaHaye begat the 2014 movie Left Behind.
These works use popular forms to portray the
End Times, but Scofield noted scripture’s ambi-
guity on the issue. Of the Book of Revelation,
he wrote, “Doubtless much of which is design-
edly obscure to us will be clear to those for
whom it is written as the time approaches.” +
The Scofield Effect
First Congregational
Church in Dallas, Texas,
saw its enrollment rise
from 12 to 500.