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The Scofield Factor--Part 2

Cyrus Scofield began studying the writings of John Darby in 1879 while serving a 6-month prison sentence for forgery. He had not been a Christian prior to that time, but then met his "Father of the Faith," Rev. James H. Brookes, pastor of the Walnut Street Presbyterian Church. Brookes was a follower of John Darby, the Dispensationalist.

As a result of this contact, Scofield's views on prophecy took shape, and Scofield himself gave Brookes the credit for this. In July 1880, Scofield became a member of the Pilgrim Congregational Church in St. Louis, pastored by a personal friend of Brookes, Dr. C. C. Goodell. It was this church that gave Scofield a "License to Preach." A newspaper in Topeka, KS, The Daily Capital, reported on his new career as a preacher, spelling his name Schofield:

"Cyrus I. Schofield, formerly of Kansas, late lawyer, politician and shyster generally, has come to the surface again, and promises once more to gather around himself that halo of notoriety that has made him so prominent in the past. The last personal knowledge that Kansans have had of this peer among scalawags, was when about four years ago, after a series of forgeries and confidence games, he left the state and a destitute family and took refuge in Canada.

For a time he kept undercover, nothing being heard of him until within the past two years when he turned up in St. Louis, where he had a wealthy widowed sister living who has generally come to the front and squared up Cyrus' little follies and foibles by paying good round sums of money. Within the past year, however, Cyrus committed a series of St. Louis forgeries that could not be settled so easily, and the erratic young gentleman was compelled to linger in the St. Louis jail for a period of six months....

"In the latter part of his confinement, Schofield, under the administration of certain influences, became converted, or professedly so. After this change of heart, his wealthy sister came forward and paid his way out by settling the forgeries, and the next we hear of him he is ordained as a minister of the Congregational church, and under the chaperonage of Rev. Goodell, one of the most celebrated divines of St. Louis.... [The Incredible Scofield and His Book, Joseph Canfield, pp. 79, 80]

The news account goes on to report his divorce from his Catholic wife, Leontine, on the grounds that he could not live with a Catholic wife. The irony is that after he had left Kansas, abandoning his wife and two children to the care of his wife's mother, he had written to her asking her to invest $1300 (all that she had) to buy "valuable property" in St. Louis. The property, of course, did not exist, and the mortgage was a forgery. Hence, Scofield spent time in jail for forgery.

The divorce between Cyrus and Leontine Scofield occurred on July 23, 1881. The legal papers charged Cyrus with "abandonment" of his wife and "neglect of duty." For some reason the case was never concluded, and in 1883 Leontine filed for divorce again, while Cyrus was an ordained minister. In fact, in 1882 he had moved to Dallas, TX, where he pastored the First Congregational Church. While divorce does not call for much notice today, in 1883 it was widely considered a disqualification for Christian ministry.

After the divorce, Scofield married Hettie Van Wark. The marriage certificate is dated March 11, 1884, but Scofield himself claimed the wedding date to be July 14, 1884. He claimed a 6-month courtship, but if this ended with marriage in March 1884, then the courtship would have begun in September 1883, two months before his divorce from Leontine. This may explain why he claimed a later date for the marriage.

On June 5, 1907 Scofield signed the most important document of his life. It was the contract with Oxford University Press for the publication of The Scofield Reference Bible. Oxford's policy was to publish books by well-established authors only. Scofield had written only short tracts and one small book up to this time and was certainly not a well-known author. His doctor's degree was self-bestowed. The only influence he had was through the Lotos Club, which he had joined in 1901 after meeting Samuel Untermeyer. Who's Who in America, Vol. 7, 1912 edition, page 1850 lists the "Club Lotos" as part of Scofield's accomplishments. In fact, it listed the Lotos Club as Scofield's residence in 1912.

The Scofield Reference Bible was officially published on January 15, 1909. It was apparently not a very good edition. Nearly all copies of the 1909 edition have disappeared as it was revised in 1917. The most important revision was the introduction of Bishop Ussher's dates in the margins.

Scofield himself believed Anstey's dating system, which had incorrectly pushed the decree of Cyrus ahead by 80+ years. Anstey's view was fully disproven in the 1930's when archeologists excavated Persepolis. (See chapter 8 of Secrets of Time.) Scofield "lucked out" when Oxford republished his Reference Bible using Ussher's instead of Anstey's chronology.

The real question, however, is this: Of what possible interest would a Jewish lawyer, Samuel Untermeyer, with connections to President Wilson and the Federal Reserve System, have with a fairly obscure Christian preacher? Why would he invite Scofield to join an exclusive literary club and then finance his house and trips to Oxford? How is it also that Oxford would agree to publish his Reference Bible when it had largely become a club for the Fabian Society?

Immediately upon its inception [in 1884], the Fabian Society began attracting many prominent contemporary figures drawn to its socialist cause, including George Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells, Annie Besant, Graham Wallas, Hubert Bland, Edith Nesbit, Sydney Olivier, Oliver Lodge, Leonard Woolf, and Virginia Woolf, Ramsay MacDonald and Emmeline Parkhurst. Even Bertrand Russell briefly became a member, but resigned after he expressed his belief that the Society's principle of entente (in this case countries allying themselves against Germany) could lead to war.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabian_Society

It is obvious that Scofield's views were useful to some very powerful Jews whose agenda included enlisting the help and support of American Christians to the cause of political Zionism. By promoting the Scofield Reference Bible, they were able to instill very useful Zionist views into the Church with very little investment. Oxford's involvement gave Scofield's views prestige and credibility. The results can be seen today.

The plan to establish a Jewish state had been set into motion some time during the 1800's. Albert Pike proposed it as early as 1871 as part of the plan to disillusion Christians when the Jewish state is actually destroyed. Immigrants to the Jewish state are just pawns in a bigger Luciferian game, even as are many Christians.

We know, of course, that Pike's plan will fail to destroy the Kingdom of God. Yet it may destroy many Church denominations. The plan will destroy the Jewish state, but not the true Kingdom of God. This final act of destruction will certainly expose a lot of false teaching and will disillusion all Zionists, both Jewish and Christian. This, I believe, will be the modern fulfillment of Judas when he hanged himself after betraying Jesus.

This is why I believe it is very important that we understand The Scofield Factor.