Ted Cruz, the Gaza War, and the Scofield Bible
Here is a challenge for readers inclined to dumpster dive into the dark side of human nature. Put these three pieces together: Ted Cruz, the war in Gaza, and a man by the name of Cyrus Ingerson Scofield.
Give up?
Let’s begin with the last piece, a man better known as C. I. Scofield. For those of you, who like me, who emerged from a childhood saturated in Fundamentalist, Biblical Christianity, the name “Scofield” might ring a bell. Roman Catholics, Mormons, Unitarians, Episcopalians—Muslims, Rastafarians, and atheists, to be ecumenical—may not recognize him.
In keeping with the dark, cynical side of the human-nature motif of this piece, it will be helpful to recollect the names of some Americans whose names occupy a high rank in the registry of conmen: Charles Ponzi, Bernie Madoff, Jim Bakker, and, for purposes of “gender equity,” Elizabeth Holmes, heralded before her fall as “the next Steve Jobs.” Holmes’ scam is particularly noteworthy as she was able to bamboozle luminaries such as Bill Clinton, George Schultz, and the Dark Prince of Realpolitik, Henry Kissinger, who forked over six million of his ill-gotten dollars to the creepy, blonde swindler.
Elizabeth Holmes
That said, these con artists were eventually exposed and punished. Which brings me to Cyrus Scofield, who might arguably compete for the title of the greatest American conman. Moreover, religious cons seem to be in many respects the most intriguing. The argument would rest on two factors: unlike Ponzi et al, he was never exposed and covered in ignominy, and though he died over 100 years ago, the effects of his scam are being felt in today’s world of geopolitics, most alarmingly in the Middle East.
Cyrus Scofield was born in 1843 in Lenawee County, Michigan and died in 1921 in New York City. The name “Scofield” figures prominently in the formation and popularization of a unique eschatology that shapes the current world view of millions of American Protestants, including several leading members of the US Congress. The provenance of this eschatology, known as premillennial dispensationalism (PD), has a long, complex history. The current, popular American version of it is largely the creation of 19th-century British and American, low church Protestants. It is a theologically based set of beliefs relating to the approaching end of world as prophesied in certain chapters of the Bible in which the state of Israel figures prominently.
Which brings me to the predominant vehicle for the dissemination of PD, popularly known as the Scofield Reference Bible (SRB), bearing the name of its creator, C. I. Scofield.
1917 edition
It is a useful fact for trivia night that Oxford University Press, one of the world’s most prestigious academic publishers, has a bestselling book of all time that it doesn’t often celebrate. That bestseller is the Scofield Reference Bible, edited by C. I. Scofield, first published in 1909, updated in 1917, and revised in 1967. In its first few decades, the SRB sold more than two million copies and, by one estimate, has sold more than ten million copies in its lifetime. It still sells in various formats in dozens of languages. (See The Bestselling Reference Bible That Remade American Evangelicalism)
The SRB is not an ordinary English bible, like the Gideon Bible. For the theologically untutored lay-reader, who is unprepared for making sense of such a vast compellation of ancient history, myth, poetry and prophecy, it provides a path that leads to a “true understanding” of God’s plan for the world and mankind. It is replete with topical references connecting themes, annotations, chronologies, etc. The SRB is overlayed with an elaborate hermeneutical architecture designed to lead the reader’s understanding of the text to conform to the PD eschatological vision.
Check it out.
2026 Edition
For those who wonder how a 19th-century Anglo-American end-of-the-world envisioning based on the interpretation of texts dating back a couple of millennia has gotten so much traction in 21st-century America, it’s easy to get lost in the weeds. I’ll try to be succinct.
A Brit born in 1800, John Nelson Darby, who was an amateur theologian, bible teacher, and lawyer (as was Scofield) is regarded as the father of PD. Nelson graduated from Trinity College Dublin in 1819. He became Curate in the Church of Ireland (Anglican) but eventually resigned and spent the remainder of his life developing his theological views and forming a movement that came to be known as the Plymouth Brethren.
Cyrus Scofield never met Darby in person, but he knew of Darby’s writing and the Plymouth Brethren movement.
Scofield cites Brethren in the SRB acknowledgements and Brethren helped to fund and bring it to publication. Yet, as historian Crawford Gribben has recently argued, Scofield did not regard himself as beholden to Darby’s ideas. The notes presented Darby’s teachings in a “radically revised, simplified, and contracted form” intended to apply to American evangelical rather than British Exclusive Brethren concerns. (See The Bestselling Reference Bible That Remade American Evangelicalism)
Scofield lacked any formal theological training or education. He had clerked his way into the legal profession. His DD was honorary, a fact he declined to note when he attached it to his name throughout his long career.
On to “premillennial dispensationalism.” “Dispensation” denotes stages or ages into which history differentiates how God enters human history based on the Bible, beginning with Genesis (age of innocence) and ending with the book of Revelation (end of the world/history). “Millennium,” in the eschatology parlance of Protestant Bible study is that thousand year period when Christ returns from heaven and establishes his reign over an earthly kingdom.
Just when “the millennium” is supposed to take place, according to biblical prophecy, and determining exactly what God has in mind for it, is where things get complicated, both hermeneutically and doctrinally. Its exact occurrence within those biblically designated dispensations (ages) is a matter of great doctrinal controversy, the fall out of which was the splintering into sects or denominations, each of which attached themselves to a particular interpretation of the timing of Christ’s return to earth and how events will unfold with the “anti-Christ,” the “tribulation,” the “mark of the beast,” the Jews and, of course, the future of Satan himself.
This brings me, finally, to premillennialism, distinct from the eschatological variations of postmillennialism and amillennialism, the specifics of which for the purposes of this essay can be mercifully forgone.
Premillennial dispensationalism is relevant and significant for our time because of how the current state of Israel figures into the PD eschatological framework. The founding of the state of Israel in 1948 fulfills the prophecy of the gathering of the Jewish people together as a race in the land (Zion) promised to them in the Old Testament by God. The prophetic fulfillment of the Jews gathering in Zion is a sign that the end times are about to begin and that Christ’s return is imminent. This is the PD eschatological foundation of Christian Zionism.
The essential components of Christian Zionism are a belief in the literal truth of the Bible and its prophecy that Christ will return first in the appearance of “the Rapture” to gather his believers (both living and resurrected from the dead) to heaven, after which there follows on earth a seven year period of tribulation. Christ then returns to establish his thousand-year reign during which the conversion of the Jews to Christianity will occur. “Rapture theology” made its way into American pop culture in the 1970s with Hal Lindsey’s PD-themed non-fiction, The Late Great Planet Earth, a book that sold over 28 million copies and was translated into 54 languages. During the 1970s I recall occasionally driving behind cars with this bumper sticker:
I appreciated the warning and would drop back several car lengths. No such vehicles that I followed were ever vacated by their drivers.
Whatever you may think of this completely incredulous worldview, what’s important is that there are approximately 30 million Americans who subscribe to Christian Zionism and its end-of-the-world eschatology.
For the better part of the 20th century, the anti-modernist, fundamentalist Protestant Christianity of which PD Christian Zionism was part eschewed direct involvement in national politics because the fundamentalists viewed themselves as a spiritual community separate from a corrupt and fallen world that would soon experience the end times, the Rapture, and the eventual millennial rule of Jesus Christ. That separateness would change in the late 1970s with politicalization of many evangelical Christians led by the Baptist minister, Jerry Falwell, who created “The Moral Majority” movement, directly involving his fellow fundamentalists in support for socially conservative politics, but in terms of foreign policy, unwavering support for the state of Israel.
What few Americans likely know about Falwell is his close relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin who, early in his “career” with the underground Irgun, masterminded the 1946 bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem that killed 91 people.
In 1979, Israel gave Falwell a Lear Jet (a private airplane) and in 1981 he received the Jabotinsky Award in New York. This award is named after Vladimir Jabotinsky (1880-1940), a Jewish militant Zionist from Russia, the founder of so-called Revisionist Zionism, who advocated a Jewish state on both sides of the Jordan River. In 1981, Menachem Begin Prime Minister of Israel called Falwell asking for his support after the Israeli bombing of an Iraqi nuclear facility. (See Why does Jerry Falwell support Israel?)
Falwell was also closely theologically aligned with the evangelist Billy Graham. Falwell’s PD theology would figure heavily into his support for Israel, and Christian Zionism would over the next decades grow into the largest demographic block of supporters for Israel and its expansionist designs on the West Bank. Today, Texas televangelist, John Hagee, estimated to be worth five million dollars stemming from his prolific ministry and book sales, is the founder and chairman of the largest Zionist organization in the US Christians United for Israel (CUFI) with over 10 million members. The Dallas Theological Seminary (DTS) is where you want to go to be cured of doubts you might have about biblical inerrancy, premillennialism, and God’s plan for Israel. Hal Lindsey is a DTS alum.
Which brings me to the “Ted Cruz” piece. You may have seen the video interview last year of Senator Cruz with Tucker Carlson where Cruz says: “Growing up in Sunday School, I was taught from the Bible, those whose bless Israel will be blessed and those who curse Israel will be cursed.” He then adds, “Biblically, we’re commanded to support Israel.” Tucker goes on to make a fool of Cruz, with this question: “Is the nation [Israel] referred to by God in Genesis, the same as the country run by Benjamin Netanyahu right now? Cruz answers, “yes.”
Got that? Cruz conducts US foreign policy based on what he came away with from his childhood Sunday school. Here it is, Genesis, 12:3, straight from the SRB: “And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.” All of this combined with an astonishing ignorance of the region of the world where he calls for “regime change.” Carlson forced Cruz to confess that he doesn’t know the population of Iran and its ethnic composition. Tucker also has to tell Cruz where to find God’s Israel commandment in the Bible.
Cruz isn’t just any Christian Zionist. A former candidate for US President, he’s one of our most powerful Senators.
Third in line for succession to the US Presidency is the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, who like Cruz a Christian Zionist. Johnson in December, 2023 pushed through the US House of Representatives a resolution “H.Res.894” which “clearly and firmly states that anti-Zionism is antisemitism. . .”
I don’t know exactly how many of our Congressmen are Christian Zionists. But clearly, considering the power and reach of the American-Israeli Political Action Committee (AIPAC), it is safe to say that our national legislature is an overwhelmingly bought and paid for Zionist entity, and that the Zionist ideology (like the theology of premillennialism) is a nineteenth-century creation that conjoined itself with some Christian millenarians to make the creation of the Jewish state possible. “In the early 19th century interest in a return of the Jews to Palestine was kept alive mostly by Christian millenarians.” (Britannica, “Zionism”). The Christian, Arthur Balfour, British Foreign Secretary authored the Balfour Declaration in 1917 announcing its support for the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine.
Thus, the third piece. The war in Gaza is a monstrous collaboration of Christians and Jews driven by a fusion of blind, invincible religious zealotry and the sectarian fanaticism of a colonial settler state with a currently unhinged leadership. Where, you might ask, would Jewish Zionists be today without the support of Christian Zionists? What would Gaza look like today without the eschatology of premillennialism turned into a powerful political ideology showering a tiny country with enough military arms to blow up the entire Middle East?
That brings us back to Cyrus Scofield and the SRB.
Scofield’s life’s work made an enormous contribution to the growth and expansion of premillennial dispensationalism within American Christianity. Now, thanks to Joseph M. Canfield and his book, The Incredible Scofield and his Book, (ISB, 1989) revised edition published in 2004, we have a more complete picture of this man. This book is extensively and meticulously documented and the biographical details are explosive. Scofield as he is known and celebrated in evangelical circles is a saintly figure. Details from the ISB reveal the character of a man best described as a charlatan, a counterfeit saint.
A careful reading of the book should shatter any illusions about what kind of man Scofield was and why his SRB as a reliable guide to interpreting the Bible should be viewed with the greatest skepticism. I shall summarize some of the most shady, unsavory elements of Scofield’s biography.
Scofield’s highly inflated account of his Civil War heroism.
In later years when Scofield had become well known as a Bible teacher, he allowed to circulate a story that he was decorated for bravery at Antietam. [His official biographer] Trumbull wrote, “The Cross of Honor was awarded to him for bravery at Antietam….” The simple fact is that, except for one instance that took place some time after Scofield left the Confederate service, the Confederacy gave no decorations for bravery. (ISB, Kindle Edition)
Accounts of Scofield’s suspected criminality.
Scofield, by all accounts of his young adulthood prior to conversion, was a drunkard and a suspected embezzler:
Among the many malicious acts that characterized his career, was one peculiarly atrocious, that has come under our personal notice. Shortly after he left Kansas, leaving his wife and two children dependent upon the bounty of his wife’s mother, he wrote his wife that he could invest some $1,300 of her mother’s money, all she had, in a manner that would return big interest. After some correspondence he forwarded them a mortgage, signed and executed by one Chas. Best, purporting to convey valuable property in St. Louis. Upon this the money was sent to him. Afterwards the mortgages were found to be base forgeries, no such person as Charles Best being in existence, and the property conveyed in the mortgage fictitious. (ISB, Kindle Edition)
Dubious accounts or Scofield’s religious conversion.
In Dispensationalist circles it is customary to give personal testimonies that include the day, the hour, and often the exact minute of one’s conversion. However, such precision is not possible in the case of C. I. Scofield, the father of Dispensationalism. (ISB, Kindle Edition.)
The “official” accounts of Scofield’s conversion change over the years and appear to be completely unreliable.
Those ‘details’ of the story that can be checked against the control of accepted public records do not support Scofield’s story. . . Thus we still do not know the facts of the conversion of a man who had profound influence in an important segment of the church. (ISB, Kindle Edition)
Scofield’s abandonment of his family.
You can order Greg Johnson’s Tyranny and Wisdom here.
During his progression from drunkard, disgraced lawyer to a born-again, evangelizing preacher, Scofield decided to shed himself of responsibility for his wife and two daughters. As his career as an evangelizing minister-theologian advanced, he remarried, but, though wealthy from the royalties of the SRB, he continued to provide no financial support for his abandoned family. His first, wife, Leontine, who died at the age of 87 in 1957, had become a beloved fixture as the public librarian in Atchison, Kansas. When a flyer of Canfield’s 1989 biography of Scofield was sent to the public library suggesting that the book should be added to their collection, the letter was returned with this scribbled note:
As you recall, Mr. Scofield left Mrs. Scofield with small children and no money—not too responsible of a person. I don’t think we need his biography. Many Atchison citizens remember what a rascal he was.” (ISB, Kindle Edition)
One final detail from Canfield’s biography connects Scofield in his effort to find a publisher for his reference bible to Samuel Untermeyer. Untermeyer, brother of Hollywood mogul, Louis Untermeyer, was not the sort of man you would imagine who would want to have a connection with a biblical fundamentalist like Scofield.
Untermeyer was a founding partner in the law firm of Guggenheimer, Untermyer & Marshall, and was the first lawyer in America to earn a one-million-dollar fee on a single case. He was also an astute investor, and became extremely wealthy.
He was one of the most prominent Jews of his day in America. He was a prominent Zionist, and was President of the Keren Hayesod (United Israel Appeal). In addition, he was the president of the Non-Sectarian Anti-Nazi League from 1933-1938, and advocated for a worldwide boycott of Germany and the destruction of Hitler’s regime. The British press called him “Hitler’s Bitterest Foe.” (Untermeyer Gardens Conservancy, “Samuel Untermeyer”)
In 1901, Scofield quite out of keeping for a theologian dedicated to a life separated from the unbelievers in preparation for the Rapture at any moment, was admitted to the exclusive New York City Lotus Club of which Untermeyer was a prominent member.
The primary object of this Club shall be to promote social intercourse among journalists, artists, and members of the musical and dramatic professions, and representatives, amateurs, and friends of Literature, Science, and the Fine Arts: and at least one third of the members shall be connected with said classes. (ISB, Kindle Edition)
Scofield was searching for the kind of leverage such a prestigious association could provide for a book contract with a reputable publisher. Canfield writes:
The club’s Literary Committee, when Scofield’s application was presented, included Samuel Untermeyer, a fervent Zionist… There is not one activity listed which would suggest that Untermeyer could have appreciated either Scofield’s Bible Correspondence Course or his magazine The Believer. Untermeyer’s life was so remote from the circles in which Scofield normally moved, that we must remain amazed that Untermeyer would have given Scofield the “white ball” rather than the “black ball.” A possible clue — Scofield’s “postponed Kingdom” theory was most helpful in getting Fundamentalist Christians to back the international interest in one of Untermeyer’s pet projects — the Zionist Movement… Indications are that had … Samuel Untermeyer seen any of Scofield’s works, [he] would have reacted with raucous laughter. (ISB, Kindle Edition)
Canfield then adds: “The [Lotus Club] membership was not referred to in any obituary or eulogy. (The Dispensational community knew nothing of it!) The club was given as Scofield’s residence in 1912 in Who’s Who in America.” (ISB, Kindle Edition)
Thus, as we reflect on these most unsavory details of the man who gave us the SRB, the words of a theologian from an earlier age might be appropriate: “Many pass for saints on earth whose souls are in hell.” -Martin Luther.
Perhaps it would be appropriate to conclude this dive into the dark side with a biblical verse (King James version, SRB) that I retain from my Baptist childhood. I remember it as my minister father used to recite it:
When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
The children are everywhere. We can hear them speaking. Where are the men?
https://counter-currents.com/2026/01/ted-cruz-the-gaza-war-and-the-scofield-bible