\n
\u201cFor a nation to commit the sin of anti-Semitism
\nbrings inevitable judgement.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n<\/blockquote>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/cathail.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\u2014The New Scofield Study Bible<\/p>\n
Since it was first published in 1909, the Scofield Reference Bible has made uncompromising Zionists out of tens of millions of Americans. When John Hagee, the founder of Christians United for Israel (CUFI), said that \u201c50 million evangelical bible-believing Christians unite with five million American Jews standing together on behalf of Israel,\u201d it was the Scofield Bible that he was talking about.<\/p>\n
Although the Scofield Reference Bible contains the text of the King James Authorized Version, it is not the traditional Protestant bible but Cyrus I. Scofield\u2019s annotated commentary that is problematic. More than any other factor, it is Scofield\u2019s notes that have induced generations of American evangelicals to believe that God demands their uncritical support for the modern State of Israel.<\/p>\n
BLESSING ISRAEL, CURSING ITS CRITICS<\/h4>\n
Central to Christian Zionist belief is Scofield\u2019s commentary (italicized below) on Genesis 12:3: \u201c\u2018I will bless them that bless thee.\u2019\u00a0In fulfillment closely related to the next clause,\u00a0<\/em>\u2018And curse him that curseth thee.\u2019\u00a0Wonderfully fulfilled in the history of the dispersion. It has invariably fared ill with the people who have persecuted the Jew\u2014well with those who have protected him. The future will still more remarkably prove this principle.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Drawing on Scofield\u2019s rather tendentious interpretation, Hagee claims, \u201cThe man or nation that lifts a voice or hand against Israel invites the wrath of God.\u201d<\/p>\n But as Stephen Sizer points out in his definitive critique,\u00a0Christian\u00a0Zionism<\/a>: Road-map to Armageddon?\u00a0<\/em>(available from AET\u2019s\u00a0Middle East Books and More<\/a>): \u201cThe promise, when referring to Abraham\u2019s descendants, speaks of God blessing them, not of entire nations \u2018blessing\u2019 the Hebrew nation, still less the contemporary and secular State of Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n Notwithstanding this more orthodox reading,\u00a0The New Scofield Study Bible,\u00a0<\/em>published by Oxford University Press in 1984, intensified Scofield\u2019s interpretation by adding, \u201cFor a nation to commit the sin of anti-Semitism brings inevitable judgement.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSustained by a dubious exegesis of selective biblical texts,\u201d Sizer concludes, \u201cChristian Zionism\u2019s particular reading of history and contemporary events…sets Israel and the Jewish people apart from other peoples in the Middle East…it justifies the endemic racism intrinsic to Zionism, exacerbates tensions between Jews and Palestinians and undermines attempts to find a peaceful resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, all because \u2018the Bible tells them so.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n In his 2008 book,\u00a0The Rise of Israel: A History of a Revolutionary State,\u00a0<\/em>Jonathan R. Adelman describes the crucial support Israel receives from Christian fundamentalists as \u201ctotally fortuitous.\u201d That assertion is belied, however, by the incredible career of the man who wrote \u201cthe Bible of Fundamentalism.\u201d<\/p>\n Two years after Scofield\u2019s reported conversion to Christianity in 1879, the\u00a0Atchison Patriot\u00a0<\/em>was less than impressed. Describing the former Atchison resident as the \u201clate lawyer, politician and shyster generally,\u201d the article went on to recount a few of Scofield\u2019s \u201cmany malicious acts.\u201d These included a series of forgeries in St. Louis, for which he was sentenced to six months in jail.<\/p>\n Being a \u201cborn again\u201d preacher did not preclude Scofield from becoming a member of an exclusive New York men\u2019s club in 1901, either. In his devastating biography,\u00a0The Incredible Scofield and His Book,\u00a0<\/em>Joseph M. Canfield suggests, \u201cThe admission of Scofield to the Lotus Club, which could not have been sought by Scofield, strengthens the suspicion that has cropped up before, that someone was directing the career of C.I. Scofield.\u201d<\/p>\n That someone, Canfield suspects, was associated with one of the club\u2019s committee members, the Wall Street lawyer Samuel Untermeyer. As Canfield intimates, Scofield\u2019s theology was \u201cmost helpful in getting Fundamentalist Christians to back the international interest in one of Untermeyer\u2019s pet projects\u2014the Zionist Movement.\u201d<\/p>\n Others have been even more explicit about the nature of Scofield\u2019s service to the Zionist agenda. In \u201cUnjust War Theory: Christian Zionism and the Road to Jerusalem,\u201d Prof. David W. Lutz writes, \u201cUntermeyer used Scofield, a Kansas City lawyer with no formal training in theology, to inject Zionist ideas into American Protestantism. Untermeyer and other wealthy and influential Zionists whom he introduced to Scofield promoted and funded the latter\u2019s career, including travel in Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n On one of these European trips, Oxford University Press publisher Henry Frowde \u201cexpressed immediate interest\u201d in Scofield\u2019s project. According to a biography of Frowde, although the OUP publisher was \u201c[n]ot demonstrative in his religious views, all his Christian life he was associated with brethren known as \u2018Exclusive.\u2019\u201d The \u201cExclusive Brethren\u201d refers to the group of Christian evangelicals that, in an 1848 split in the Plymouth Brethren, followed John Nelson Darby, the Anglo-Irish missionary generally considered to have been the most influential figure in the development of Christian Zionism, and a major influence on Scofield.<\/p>\n Had the Scofield Bible never been published, American presidents influenced by Christian Zionism such as Truman, Johnson, Reagan and George W. Bush might have been less sympathetic to Israeli demands, and consequently more attentive to U.S. interests. Moreover, the American people could have been spared the pseudo-Christian rants of John Hagee, Pat Robertson and the late Jerry Falwell, not to mention the lucrative End Times Rapture \u201cprophecy\u201d peddled by Hal Lindsey and Tim LaHaye.<\/p>\n But it is the people of the Middle East who have been most affected by an expansionist Israel emboldened by the unswerving allegiance of Christian Zionists led to believe that Scofield\u2019s words are God\u2019s will. Not least among the many victims of the Scofield Bible are 5 million Palestinian refugees whose right to return is fervently opposed by America\u2019s Zionized Christians. Thanks to their indoctrination by Scofield\u2019s unholy book, they believe that Palestine belongs not to the Palestinians\u2014many of whom are fellow Christians\u2014but exclusively to \u201cGod\u2019s chosen people.\u201d<\/p>\n Maidhc \u00d3 Cathail writes extensively on U.S. foreign policy and the Middle East. He is also the creator and editor of The Passionate Attachment blog, which focuses primarily on the U.S.-Israeli relationship.<\/em><\/p>\nTHE INCREDIBLE SCOFIELD<\/h4>\n
SCOFIELD\u2019S LEGACY<\/h4>\n
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