SCOFIELD, CYRUS INGERSON
(19 August 1843, Lenawee County, MI-24 July 1921, Douglaston, NY). Career: Private, Confederate army, 1861-65; clerk, land claims office, St. Louis, MO, 1866-68; lawyer, KS (1869-75), and MO (1875-82); minister, First Congregational Church, Dallas, TX, 1882-95 and 1902-7; minister, East Northfield, MA 1895-1902.
After serving in the Confederate army and working as a lawyer, Cyrus Ingerson Scofield was converted to Christianity in 1879. He did volunteer work with the YMCA in St. Louis and studied the Bible with a local minister. The Congregational Home Mission Board chose him to serve as a pastor in Dallas. There and in his later career he was fascinated with the Bible.
Perhaps it was inevitable that in an age when some ministers turned to biology and geology to learn more about the world, others would turn to the Bible with a zest encouraged by their fear of the new sciences. Scofield never learned the original tongues of the Bible, and he rejected higher criticism as leading to apostacy. He held that every word of the Bible-even as translated into English-was divinely inspired.
To help his followers discover biblical truths, he compiled The Scofield Reference Bible (1909). Through a system of entries, he attempted to assist Scripture in providing information on various topics. In his choice of categories and passages he encouraged a premillennial dispensational perspective on the Scriptures and contributed to the Fundamentalist understanding of Christianity.
Bibliography
A: Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth (New York, 1888; and subsequent editions); No Room in the Inn (New York, 1913); The New Life in Christ (Chicago, 1915); What Do the Prophets Say? (Philadelphia, 1918); Things New and Old (New York, 1920); In Many Pulpits (New York, 1922).
B: DARB, 399-400; NIT 25 July 1921, 13; RHAP, 809-11; Charles G. Trumbull, The Life Story of C.I. Scofield (New York, 1920).
After serving in the Confederate army and working as a lawyer, Cyrus Ingerson Scofield was converted to Christianity in 1879. He did volunteer work with the YMCA in St. Louis and studied the Bible with a local minister. The Congregational Home Mission Board chose him to serve as a pastor in Dallas. There and in his later career he was fascinated with the Bible.
Perhaps it was inevitable that in an age when some ministers turned to biology and geology to learn more about the world, others would turn to the Bible with a zest encouraged by their fear of the new sciences. Scofield never learned the original tongues of the Bible, and he rejected higher criticism as leading to apostacy. He held that every word of the Bible-even as translated into English-was divinely inspired.
To help his followers discover biblical truths, he compiled The Scofield Reference Bible (1909). Through a system of entries, he attempted to assist Scripture in providing information on various topics. In his choice of categories and passages he encouraged a premillennial dispensational perspective on the Scriptures and contributed to the Fundamentalist understanding of Christianity.
Bibliography
A: Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth (New York, 1888; and subsequent editions); No Room in the Inn (New York, 1913); The New Life in Christ (Chicago, 1915); What Do the Prophets Say? (Philadelphia, 1918); Things New and Old (New York, 1920); In Many Pulpits (New York, 1922).
B: DARB, 399-400; NIT 25 July 1921, 13; RHAP, 809-11; Charles G. Trumbull, The Life Story of C.I. Scofield (New York, 1920).