What is the Scofield Reference Bible?

Answer

The Scofield Reference Bible is an influential study Bible with notes written by Cyrus I. Scofield, a Civil War veteran, U.S. state attorney, Kansas legislator, and Congregational preacher. The Scofield Reference Bible was the first of its kind—an annotated Bible designed to aid the reader in understanding the text. First published in 1909, the Scofield Reference Bible was highly popular among conservative Protestants in the twentieth century and remains in print today, available in eight languages. It is now known as the Scofield Study Bible.

Scofield’s aim in creating the Scofield Reference Bible was to assist new readers of Scripture in comprehending the text. He provided a summary of the entire Bible, crafted a simple introduction to each book, and linked key subjects throughout the Bible with cross-references. Additionally, paragraph headings were introduced. In 1917, the Scofield Reference Bible underwent a revision; the publisher, Oxford University Press, marketed it as the New and Improved Edition. Updates in this edition included an essay titled “A Panoramic View of the Bible” and a chronology based on the works of James Ussher. Dates were incorporated into the center column of each page, and the introduction to each book was expanded to include event dating.

Although Scofield passed away in 1921, his legacy lived on through the Scofield Reference Bible. In 1967, an eight-member committee revised the notes, modernizing some outdated language and adding approximately 700 new footnotes and 15,000 cross-references. This 1967 edition is now known as the New Scofield Study Bible (or the Scofield Study Bible III), while the 1917 edition is referred to as the Old Scofield Study Bible. The New Scofield Study Bible is offered in four versions: the KJV, the NKJV, the NIV, and the NASB.

Scofield intended the notes in the Scofield Reference Bible to be informative rather than polemical or controversial. His goal was to clarify the te

Text rather than provide commentary on it. In the first edition of the Scofield Reference Bible, Scofield included a preface that listed eleven distinctive features of his work. Among those features were 1) “a chain of references . . . for each important Biblical concept, starting from its first appearance in the Biblical story and continuing to each important link in succession until a final summary is reached”; 2) “Helps . . . covering such things as weights and measures, dates, explanations of names, and the like”; 3) “Analytical summaries of the whole teaching of Scripture on that subject, thus guarding the reader against hasty generalizations from a few passages or proof texts”; 4) Twenty-seven “great words of Scripture . . . defined in simple, non-technical terms” (“Introduction to the First Edition,” 1909, p. iii).

The Scofield Reference Bible is also noted for its dispensational approach, its promotion of the gap theory, and its non-allegorical interpretation of prophecy. Scofield defined a dispensation as “a period of time during which man is tested in respect of obedience to some specific revelation of the will of God” note on Genesis 1:28. Taken together, the dispensations exhibit “the majestic, progressive order of the divine dealings of God with humanity, ‘the increasing purpose’ which runs through and links together the ages, from the beginning of the life of man to the end in eternity” (from the Introduction).

The Scofield Reference Bible is consistently Christological in its emphasis. The notes present Jesus Christ as the theme of the whole revelation of God: the Old Testament is the Preparation for Christ; the Gospels are the Manifestation of Christ; the book of Acts is the Propagation of Christ; the Epistles are the Explanation of Christ; and the Apocalypse is the Consummation of Christ.

The Scofield Reference Bible contains much valuable information for the student of Scripture who wants a dispensational, pre-millennial perspective. The Scofield Reference Bible representsAn eloquent effort to portray the Bible as a cohesive disclosure of God: “No specific section of Scripture should be understood independently of its position within the entirety” (from the Introduction).