ZIONISM’S UN-CHRISTIAN BIBLE

For a nation to commit the sin of anti-Semitism brings inevitable judgment.

By Maidhc Ó Cathail

Shamir Readers

The New Scofield Study Bible

The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) campaign should widen its scope to target non-Israeli companies who contribute significantly to the oppression of Palestinians.

As part of this broader strategy, priority should be given to one of the most egregious offenders, the prestigious British publisher, Oxford University Press.

As unlikely as it may seem, the world’s largest university press is responsible for one of the greatest obstacles to justice for Palestinians ~ The Scofield Bible.

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, said that

"50 million evangelical bible-believing Christians unite with five million American Jews standing together on behalf of Israel ," it was the Scofield Bible that he was talking about.

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’s annotated commentary that is the problem.

More than any other factor, it is Scofield’s notes that induced generations of American evangelicals to believe that God demands their uncritical support for the modern State of Israel.

BLESSING ISRAEL 
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Central to Christian Zionist belief is Scofield’s commentary on Genesis 12:3. For the sake of clarity, Scofield’s notes have been italicized in the following passage:

"'I will bless them that bless thee.’ In fulfillment closely related to the next clause, 'And curse him that curseth thee.’ Wonderfully fulfilled in the history of the dispersion. It has invariably fared ill with the people who have persecuted the Jew ~ well with those who have protected him. The future will still more remarkably prove this principle."

Drawing on Scofield’s speculative interpretation, John Hagee claims,

"The man or nation that lifts a voice or hand against Israel invites the wrath of God."

However, as Stephen Sizer points out, in his definitive critique, Christian Zionism: Road-map to Armageddon?:

"The promise, when referring to Abraham’s descendants speaks of God blessing them, not of entire nations 'blessing’ the Hebrew nation, still less the contemporary and secular State of Israel."

Apparently unaware of this more orthodox reading, The New Scofield Study Bible, published by Oxford University Press in 1984, enhanced Scofield’s interpretation, by adding,

"For a nation to commit the sin of anti-Semitism brings inevitable judgment."

Reading such tendentious comments, a bible-believing Christian could easily assume, for example, that God will punish the 114 countries which endorsed the Goldstone Report.

"Sustained by a dubious exegesis of selective biblical texts," Stephen Sizer concludes, "Christian Zionism’s 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 'the Bible tells them so.’"

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Heading from an open letter to John Hagee and his flock found here. It must be read to be believed! 
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THE INCREDIBLE SCOFIELD

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In his 2008 book, The Rise of Israel: A History of a Revolutionary State , Jonathan R. Adelman describes the crucial support Israel receives from Christian fundamentalists as "totally fortuitous."

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The incredible career of the man who wrote "the Bible of Fundamentalism," however, casts considerable doubt on that assertion.

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Two years after Scofield’s reported conversion to Christianity in 1879, the Atchison Patriot was less than impressed. Describing the former Atchison resident as the "late lawyer, politician and shyster generally," the article went on to recount a few of Scofield’s "many malicious acts." These included a series of forgeries in St. Louis , for which he was sentenced to six months in jail. 
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Being a "born again" preacher, however, did not preclude Scofield from becoming a member of an exclusive New York men’s club in 1901. In his devastating biography, The Incredible Scofield and His Book, Joseph M. Canfield comments, "The admission of Scofield to the Lotos 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." 
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That someone, Canfield suspects, was associated with one of the club’s committee members, the Wall Street lawyer Samuel Untermeyer. As Canfield intimates, Scofield’s theology was "most helpful in getting Fundamentalist Christians to back the international interest in one of Untermeyer’s pet projects ~ the Zionist Movement."
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Others, however, have been more explicit about the nature of Scofield’s service to the Zionist agenda. In "Unjust War Theory: Christian Zionism and the Road to Jerusalem," Prof. David W. Lutz claims, "Untermeyer 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’s career, including travel in Europe ." 
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Absent such powerful connections, it is hard to imagine "this peer among scalawags" ever getting a contract with Oxford University Press to publish his bible. Nevertheless, it remains a mystery why OUP chose to endorse such a sectarian work. 
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ATONEMENT 
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If there had been no Scofield Bible, American presidents influenced by Christian Zionism, such as Truman, Johnson, Reagan and George W. Bush, would most likely have been less sympathetic to Israeli demands, and consequently more attentive to U.S. interests. Moreover, the American people might have been spared the well-publicized pro-Israeli rants of John Hagee, Pat Robertson and the late Jerry Falwell, not to mention the lucrative End Times "prophecy" peddled by Hal Lindsey and Tim LaHaye. 
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But it is the people of the Middle East who have suffered most at the hands of an expansionist Israel, emboldened by the unswerving allegiance of America’s Christian Zionists, who were led to believe that Scofield’s words were God’s will. 
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Although much needless suffering has already been caused by the Scofield Bible, perhaps it’s not too late for Oxford University Press to publicly disavow its harmful book. Among its many victims are 3.5 million Palestinian refugees whose right to return is fervently opposed by Christian Zionists, who believe that the land belongs exclusively to "God’s chosen people." At the very least, OUP could demonstrate remorse for its role in promoting ethnic cleansing by compensating those refugees with the considerable profits accrued over the past century from sales of its Zionist bible.
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Maidhc Ó Cathail is a freelance writer living in Japan who writes a monthly political column for Kansai Time Out magazine. He also contributes a monthly column to the Irish language internet magazine. 
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ED Noor:

The following quotes are from an article titled GEORGE WASHINGTON'S SURRENDER: by Senator Joseph McCarthy.
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"And many of the people of the land became Jews." Esther 9:17. "The confession of General Cornwallis to General Washington at Yorktown has been well hidden by historians. History books and text books have taught for years that when Cornwallis surrendered his army to General Washington that American independence came, and we lived happily ever after until the tribulations of the twentieth century."

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"Jonathan Williams recorded in his LEGIONS OF SATAN, 1781, that Cornwallis revealed to Washington that "a holy war will now begin on America, and when it is ended America will be supposedly the citadel of freedom, but her millions will unknowingly be loyal subjects to the Crown."

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Cornwallis went on to explain what would seem to be a self contradiction:.
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"Your churches will be used to teach the Jew's religion and in less than two hundred years the whole nation will be working for divine world government. That government that they believe to be divine will be the British Empire.
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All religions will be permeated with Judaism without even being noticed by the masses, and they will all be under the invisible all-seeing eye of the Grand Architect of Freemasonry."
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And indeed George Washington himself was a Mason, and he gave back through a false religion what he had won with his army.
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"Cornwallis well knew that his military defeat was only the beginning of world catastrophe that would be universal and that unrest would continue until mind control could be accomplished through a false religion. What he predicted has come to pass. A brief sketch of American religious history and we have seen Masonry infused into every church in America With their veiled phallic religion.

"Darby and the Plymouth Brethren brought a Jewish Christianity to America. Masons Rutherford and Russell started Jehovah Witnesses' Judaism which is now worldwide with their message of the divine kingdom. Mason Joseph Smith started Mormon Judaism with its Jewish teaching of millennialism.

"At the turn of the twentieth century there appeared the Scofield Bible with a Jewish interpretation of the prophecies. With wide use of this "helpful" aid all the American churches have silently become synagogues.

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“We now have Baptist Jews, Methodist Jews, Church of God Jews, apostate Catholic Jews, and many Protestant Jews throughout America. We are aliens in our own country because of false religion. All are praying for divine deliverance into that "Divine Government" which Cornwallis knew to be the British Empire.

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"A false religion has been used to deceive us into allegiance to our enemies of Yorktown and Bunker Hill. No! Not a gun has been fired but the invisible and malignant process of conquering America with the Jew's religion has gone on unabated. The Union Jack has been planted in our hearts with religious deception. All has happened "legally," "constitutionally," "freely" and completely within our most sacred trust ~ our churches.

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“Religious deception is painless inoculation against truth. It cannot be removed from the conscience with surgery, yet it is the motivator of our actions and directly controls our lives. Once man gives over to false religion, he is no longer rational because he originates no thought. His life is controlled by whomever controls his religion.

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"The veil of false religion is the sword of Damocles and its power to control humanity defies even the imagination of tyrants who use it."

The Roots of Christian Zionism: How Scofield Sowed Seeds of Apostasy from WHTT on Vimeo.