The Scofield Reference Bible is a widely circulated study Bible. Edited and annotated by the American Bible student Cyrus I. Scofield, it popularized dispensationalism at the beginning of the 20th century. Published by Oxford University Press and containing the entire text of the traditional Protestant King James Version (KJV), it first appeared in 1909 and was revised by the author in 1917.

Features

thumb|right|Scofield Reference Bible, page 1115. This page includes Scofield's note on John 1:17.

The Scofield Bible has several innovative features. Most important, it exhibits what amounts to a commentary on the biblical text alongside the Bible instead of in a separate volume, the first to do so in English since the Geneva Bible (1560). It also contains a cross-referencing system that ties together related verses of Scripture and allows a reader to follow biblical themes from one chapter and book to another (so called "chain references"). The 1917 edition also attempts to date events of the Bible. It was in the pages of the Scofield Reference Bible that many Christians first encountered Archbishop James Ussher's calculation of the date of Creation as 4004 BC; and through discussion of Scofield's notes, which advocates the "gap theory," fundamentalists began a serious internal debate about the nature and chronology of creation.

Later editions

thumb|Notes in the 1917 Scofield Bible The 1917 Scofield Reference Bible notes are now in the public domain, and the 1917 edition is "consistently the best selling edition of the Scofield Bible" in the United Kingdom and Ireland. In 1967, Oxford University Press published a revision of the Scofield Bible with a slightly modernized KJV text, and a muting of some of the tenets of Scofield's theology. Recent editions of the KJV Scofield Study Bible have moved the textual changes made in 1967 to the margin. The Press continues to issue editions under the title Oxford Scofield Study Bible, and there are translations into French, German, Spanish, and Portuguese. For instance, the French edition published by the Geneva Bible Society is printed with a revised version of the Louis Segond translation that includes additional notes by a Francophone committee.

In the 21st century, Oxford University Press published Scofield notes to accompany six additional English translations.

Criticism

Opponents of biblical fundamentalism have criticized the Scofield Bible for its air of total authority in biblical interpretation, for what they consider its glossing over of biblical contradictions and for its focus on eschatology.

Legacy

The first edition of the Scofield Bible (1909) was published only a few years before World War I, a war that destroyed a cultural optimism that had viewed the world as entering a new era of peace and prosperity; then the post-World War II era witnessed the creation of a homeland for Jews in Palestine. Thus, Scofield's premillennialism seemed prophetic. "At the popular level, especially, many people came to regard the dispensationalist scheme as completely vindicated." Sales of the Reference Bible exceeded two million copies by the end of World War II.

The Scofield Reference Bible promotes dispensationalism, the belief that between creation and the final judgement there would be seven distinct eras of God's dealing with man and that these eras are a framework for synthesizing the message of the Bible. Largely through the influence of Scofield's notes, many fundamentalist Christians in the United States adopted a dispensational theology. Scofield's notes on the Book of Revelation are a major source for the various timetables, judgements, and plagues elaborated on by popular religious writers such as Hal Lindsey, Edgar C. Whisenant, and Tim LaHaye; and in part because of the success of the Scofield Reference Bible, 20th-century American fundamentalists placed greater emphasis on eschatological speculation.

The Scofield Bible significantly influenced the Christian Zionist movement. Referring to Scofield's interpretation of Genesis 12:3 ("I will bless them that bless thee and curse him that curseth thee"), John Hagee, the founder of Christians United for Israel (CUFI), argues "The man or nation that lifts a voice or hand against Israel invites the wrath of God."

References

Further reading

  • Arno C. Gaebelein, The History of the Scofield Reference Bible (Our Hope Publications, 1943)
  • William E. Cox, Why I Left Scofieldism (Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1975)
  • R. Todd Mangum and Mark S. Sweetnam, The Scofield Bible: Its History and Impact on the Evangelical Church (Colorado Springs: Paternoster Publishing, 2009)
  • Donald Harman Akenson, The Americanization of the Apocalypse: Creating America's Own Bible (New York: Oxford University Press, 2023)
  • The KJV Scofield® Study Bible III 2003
  • The Scofield reference Bible. The Holy Bible, containing the Old and New Testaments 1917
  • Scofield Reference Bible Notes at Wikisource
  • Searchable text of the 1917 version of the Scofield Reference Bible reference notes.