The Tin Man rattled and the Straw Man cowered as the great Oz thundered amid smoke and flames. But Toto pulled the curtain and Dorothy saw the snake oil salesman from Kansas at the controls.
Like
the great Oz , C.I. Scofield was an imposing figure in the early 20th
century. He was revered for the genius of his novel footnotes. But research
has pulled the curtain on the Kansas con man. We now know who actually
wrote the notes and created the illusion of the patriarch of the dispensationalist
movement.
If you had been on 2nd Street on the lower East Side of New York in 1896, you could have walked into the office of the Zionist publication Our Hope and met its editor Arno Gaebelein. He would have been busy at his typewriter surrounded by stacks of his magazine awaiting delivery. 1
This
was the capital of world Jewry. The streets were teeming with immigrants
from Eastern Europe. Many had arrived penniless on America’s shore fleeing
persecution in Russia. Amid the squalor, noise and press of humanity there
was excitement and hope. Theodore Herzl and Rothschild were campaigning
to restore the Jews to their home land.
Arno read many Jewish periodicals and kept close contact with members of the Jewish colonization societies. His magazine argued that the only solution to the Jewish problem was a Jewish State. 2 At first, Jews were wary of the new Zionist movement. It would take several decades before they accepted it.
Arno had just returned from a tour of Russia and Eastern Europe where he visited synagogues to learn more about Jewish conditions. The rabbis in Russia welcomed him as one of their own. His full black beard immediately categorized as him a Jew. 3
On his return to America he spoke to 332 Jews and representatives of the Jewish press. He was soon engulfed with speaking engagements across the nation as interest in Zionism grew. Gaebelein thrilled at the chance to convey his knowledge of the Jewish people and report on the progress of Zionism. 4
His Bible study magazine included a section on bible prophecy. Arno was dogmatic about the necessity of the Jewish state. After all he argued this end time phenomenon was the inevitable fulfillment of bible prophecy. They were witnessing an exciting a sign of the end times.
By 1901, Our Hope had reached a circulation of 15,000 copies a month. It was at this time that he met Scofield at the Sea Cliffs Bible Conference. They laid the plan for what was to become the most widely used reference bible in the English speaking world. 5
Researcher Joseph Canfield spent a lifetime trying to determine what happened between this meeting and 1909 when the book was published. He concluded that the notes had been written by a Zionist named Gaebelein who followed Scofield around all the time. Arno was the man behind the curtain. He created the illusion of the incredible Scofield, when in reality he was the real wizard of dispensationalism.
This deduction was confirmed by his son Frank. Next page
Interesting Links
Balfour
C.I.
Scofield
C.C Carlson - The Mother of Modern
Prophecy
Dallas Theological Seminary
Dispensationalism
Hal Lindsey - Wolf In Sheep's Clothing
The Rapture Hoax
Rothchild
Theodore
Herzl
Untermeyer
Westcott
Zionism