C . I . Scofield Cyrus Ingerson Scofield ( August 19 , 1843 - July 24 , 1921 ) was an American theologian , minister , and writer whose best - selling annotated Bible popularized futurism and dispensationalism among fundamentalist Christians . Biography . Cyrus Scofield was born in Clinton Township , Lenawee County , Michigan , the seventh and last child of Elias and Abigail Goodrich Scofield . Elias Scofield ' s ancestors were of English and Puritan descent , but the family was nominally Episcopalian . Abigail Scofield died three months after Cyrus ' s birth , and his father twice remarried during Cyrus ' s minority . Details of his early education are unknown , but there is no reason to doubt his later testimony that he was an enthusiastic reader and that he had studied Shakespeare and Homer . By 1861 Scofield was living with relatives in Lebanon , Tennessee . At the beginning of the American Civil War , the 17 - year - old Scofield enlisted as a private in the 7th Tennessee Infantry , C . S . A . , and his regiment fought at Cheat Mountain , Seven Pines , and Antietam . In 1862 , after spending a month in Chimborazo Hospital in Richmond , Scofield successfully petitioned for a discharge . Scofield then returned to Lebanon and was conscripted again into Confederate service . Ordered to McMinnville , Tennessee , Scofield deserted and escaped behind Union lines in Bowling Green , Kentucky . After taking the Union oath of allegiance , Scofield was allowed safe passage to St . Louis , Missouri , where he settled . In 1866 , he married Leontine LeBeau Cerrè , a member of a prominent French Catholic family in St . Louis . Scofield apprenticed in the law office of his brother - in - law and then worked in the St . Louis assessor ' s office before moving to Atchison , Kansas in late 1869 . In 1871 , Scofield was elected to the Kansas House of Representatives , first from Atchison for one year and then from Nemaha County for a second . In 1873 he worked for the election of John J . Ingalls as senator from Kansas , and when Ingalls won , the new senator had Scofield appointed U . S . District Attorney for Kansas — at 29 , the youngest in the country . Nevertheless , that same year Scofield was forced to resign " under a cloud of scandal " because of questionable financial transactions , that may have included accepting bribes from railroads , stealing political contributions intended for Ingalls , and securing bank promissory notes by forging signatures . It is possible Scofield was jailed on forgery charges , although there is no extant evidence in the public records . Perhaps in part because of his self - confessed heavy drinking , Scofield abandoned his wife and two daughters during this period . Leontine Cerrè Scofield divorced him on grounds of desertion in 1883 , and the same year Scofield married Hettie Hall von Wartz , with whom he eventually had a son . According to Scofield , he was converted to evangelical Christianity through the testimony of a lawyer acquaintance . Certainly by the late fall of 1879 , Scofield was assisting in the St . Louis campaign conducted by Dwight L . Moody , and he served as the secretary of the St . Louis YMCA . Significantly , Scofield came under the mentorship of James H . Brookes , pastor of Walnut Street Presbyterian Church , St . Louis , a prominent dispensationalist premillennialist . In October 1883 , Scofield was ordained as a Congregationalist minister — while his divorce was proceeding but not yet final — and he accepted the pastorate of small mission church founded by that denomination , which became the First Congregational Church of Dallas , Texas ( now Scofield Memorial Church ) . The church grew from fourteen to over five hundred members before he resigned its pastorate in 1895 . In 1888 Scofield attended the Niagara Bible Conference where he met pioneer missionary to China , Hudson Taylor . Taylor ' s approach to Christian missions influenced Scofield to found the Central American Mission in 1890 ( now CAM International ) . Scofield also served as superintendent of the American Home Missionary Society of Texas and Louisiana ; and in 1890 , he helped found Lake Charles College ( 1890 – 1903 ) in Lake Charles , Louisiana . As the author of the pamphlet " Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth " ( 1888 ) , Scofield himself soon became a leader in dispensational premillennialism , a forerunner of twentieth - century Christian fundamentalism . During the early 1890s , Scofield began styling himself Rev . C . I . Scofield , D . D . ; but there are no extant records of any academic institution having granted him the honorary Doctor of Divinity degree . In 1895 , Scofield was called as pastor of Moody ' s church , the Trinitarian Congregational Church of East Northfield , Massachusetts , and he also attempted with limited success to take charge of Moody ’ s Northfield Bible Training School . Although , in theory , Scofield returned to his Dallas pastorate in 1903 , his projected reference Bible consumed much of his energy , and for much of the time before its publication , he was either unwell or in Europe . When the " Scofield Reference Bible " was published in 1909 , it quickly became the most influential statement of dispensational premillennialism , and Scofield ' s popularity as Bible conference speaker increased as his health continued to decline . Royalties from the work were substantial , and Scofield held real estate in Dallas , Ashuelot , New Hampshire , and Douglaston , Long Island . Scofield also joined the prestigious Lotos Club . Scofield left the liberalizing Congregational Church to become a Southern Presbyterian and moved to the New York City area where he supervised a correspondence and lay institute , the New York Night School of the Bible . In 1914 he founded the Philadelphia School of the Bible in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania ( now Cairn University ) . Scofield ' s second wife proved a faithful companion and editing assistant , but his relationships with his children were distant at best . Scofield died at his home on Long Island in 1921 . Religious significance . Scofield ' s correspondence Bible study course was the basis for his " Reference Bible " , an annotated , and widely circulated , study Bible first published in 1909 by Oxford University Press . Scofield ' s notes teach futurism and dispensationalism , a theology that was systematized in the early nineteenth century by the Anglo - Irish clergyman John Nelson Darby ( who like Scofield had also been trained as a lawyer ) , though it had roots in the teachings of some Church Fathers . Dispensationalism emphasizes the distinctions between the New Testament Church and ancient Israel of the Old Testament . Scofield believed that between creation and the final judgment there are seven distinct eras of God ' s dealing with man and that these eras are a framework around which the message of the Bible could be explained . It was largely through the influence of Scofield ' s notes that dispensational premillennialism became influential among fundamentalist Christians in the United States , and these notes became a significant source for popular religious writers such as Hal Lindsey .