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Hubner and Cox On Scofield's Literalist "Hermanutic"
Posted : 7 Jul, 2011 03:06 PM
Hubner and Cox On Scofield's Literalist "Hermanutic"
http://www.realapologetics.org/blog/2010/06/15/ci-scofield-the-meaning-of-literal-and-the-birth-of-hyper-dispensationalism/
C.I. Scofield (1843 -1921) was the first American dispensationalist. He joined the Confederate army,although he was from Michigan, but was soon discharged. According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._I._Scofield he was "forced to resign "under a cloud of scandal" his position as the U. S. District Attorney for Kansas "because of questionable financial transactions."
"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 dispensationalism, a theology that was in part conceived in the early nineteenth century by the Anglo-Irish clergyman John Nelson Darby, who like Scofield had also been trained as a lawyer."
On the site whose link is given at the beginning above Jamin Hubner says about dispensationalism that: "Despite the revisions and �improvements,� one thing hadn�t changed: it was still a system based on man-made rules of Bible interpretation. It still made a sharp distinction between Israel and the Church. And it still stressed a literalist hermeneutic. These presuppositions didn�t come without problems."
A "hermenutic," is, in the dictionary definition, "a method or principle of interpretation." It is a word used by Christian
seminary professors and their students. On http://www.mac.edu/faculty/richardpalmer/liminality.html they say "hermeneia--can be traced back to the god Hermes...hermeneutics, as the art of understanding and of textual exegesis, does stand under the sign of Hermes. Hermes is the messenger who brings the word from Zeus (God); thus, the early modern use of the term hermeneutics was in relation to methods of interpreting holy scripture."
Hubner says "It�s very common to read or hear dispensationalists talk about a �literal interpretation� of the Bible...
Then Hubner explains that "Examples of this literalism in Scofield�s theology can be found in his following words:
Israel is earthly, the church heavenly. One is natural the other spiritual. What pertains to Israel is to be interpreted in literalistic fashion. But what pertains to the church need not be so interpreted.
[Prophecy is] the ground of absolute literalness.
Jerusalem is always Jerusalem, Israel always Israel, Zion always Zion�Prophecies may never be spiritualized, but are always literal.
The important question everyone must ask when reading these quotes of Scofield � or any dispensationalist for the matter � is this: are these biblical rules or artificial rules? Do these assertions come from the internal structure of the Bible? Or does it come from Darby and Scofield�s external presuppositions?"
Hubner goes on to say "Scofield is no fool. He knows the rules of his dispensational system can�t be followed consistently, which is why he himself breaks them in practice in his interpretation of Zech. 10:1, Hos. 6:3, Joel 2:23-32, and Zech. 12:10. As a case in point, Hosea 6:3 says, �So let us know�His going forth is as certain as the dawn; And He will come to us like the rain, Like the spring rain watering the earth.� Even though the author clearly identifies this prophecy (�he will come�) as symbolic (�Like the spring rain�), Scofield, if he was consistent with his Dispensationalism, must to say it�s all literal. He must say God will actually come in the literal form of rain. Why? Because he believes that �prophecies may never be spiritualized, but are always literal.�
Realizing the impossibility of his own dispensational hermeneutic, he says that these particular passages just so happen to have �both a physical and spiritual meaning.� This seems a bit convenient; create a rule to make sense of Scripture and then break the rule when Scripture doesn�t make sense!"
The site http://www.graceonlinelibrary.org/eschatology/dispensationalism/dispensationalist-beliefs-the-scriptures-by-william-e-cox/ says "Dispensationalists boast of literal interpretation of Scripture, and cast aspersions at those who �spiritualize� some passages of the Bible. Charles C. Ryrie, President of The Philadelphia College of the Bible, says: (Bibliotheca Sacra, Vol. 114, July, 1957, p. 254), only dispensationalism provides the key to consistent literalism (italics mine)."
"Daniel predicted that the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 would be accomplished by a flood (Dan 9:26). This did not happen literally. Was Daniel mistaken? Or did he not rather speak spiritually or figuratively and mean that the city would be flooded with the soldiers of Titus? This latter alternative did happen. The literal interpretation insisted upon by Walvoord would make the biblical account untrue!"
Daniel 9: 26 says "...the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and he end thereof shall be with a flood..." The people of the prince are the Romans, the city is Jerusalem and the sanctuary is the Temple in Jerusalem.
William E. Cox then quotes Oswald T. Allis, Prophecy and the Church, 1945, pp. 17, 18 as saying The great theme of the Bible is God, and His redemptive dealings with mankind. God is a spirit; and these spiritual and heavenly realities are often set forth under the form of earthly objects and human relationships. When Jesus said, Ye must be born again, He was not referring to a physical but a spiritual birth. When He said, Destroy this temple, He meant His body. When He said, He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, hath everlasting life, He was speaking of a spiritual relationship in terms of the Old Testament type. Jesus� Jewish hearers, being literalists, either failed to understand or misunderstood His words."
On this site William E. Cox says "Our difficulties arise when students of the Bible (oftentimes sincerely) attempt to force a literal meaning into a spiritual prophecy..."
Dispensationalists have often tried to "force a literal meaning into a spiritual prophecy."
Hal Lindsey, for example, makes use of the dispensationalist literalist
interpretation of prophecy in suggesting in his New World Coming (1973), that the locusts of Revelation 9: 3, etc might be an advanced kind of helicopter. See page 8 and page 141 for a reference to Lindsey's Cobra helicopters.
Revelation 9: 3 says "And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power."
In Revelation 9: 2 it says "And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit..." The fifth angel in verse 1 is said to have been given the key to the bottomless pit. The bottomless pit is mentioned in the Book of Revelation several times. In 9: 11 a king as the angel of the bottomless pit is said to be Abaddon and Apollyon.
In 11: 7 the beast that ascends out of the bottomless pit is to make war against the two witnesses, whatever this image represents. Then in 17: 8 it says the beast was, and is not, and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit. The six, seven, eight cycle involving the beast, one of the two beasts of Revelation 13,, was, and is not, and even he is the eighth and is of the seven. Then we find in 20: 1, 3 an angel from heaven having the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand binds Satan for a thousand years, and throws the devil into guess were, the bottomless pit.
This is all about spiritual events. However, because this is first of all about spiritual events that are to go on, it does not mean that there cannot be physical happenings as a result of these spiritual things going on. But the say that Revelation 9: 3 with its language about locusts and scorpions which are to torment those who do not have the seal of God is to try to begin to reduce all this to the level of the physical, that is, not to say that there are no physical events that are a result of what is happening in the spiritual world, but to try to replace the spiritual with the physical. To try to replace the spiritual with the physical does harm to the work of the Holy Spirit in giving this all to John.
Look at the "literalist" take on II Thessalonians 2: 4, "Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God." The literalist insists this temple is a rebult temple in Jerusalem and a one man political figure, their Anti-Christ, is to sit in that literal rebuilt temple. In fact, literalist dispensationalists use this text to say that the Jews will rebuilt the temple in Jerusalem.
But again, II Thessalonians 2: 4 is about a spiritual happening. Paul teaches in I Corinthians 3:16-17 that "Ye," meaning believers, are now the temple of God. In I Corinthians 6: 19 he teaches that the body of the Christian is the temple of the Holy Spirit. When Paul is talking about the believer being tghe temple of God, he uses the Greek word naos for temple, not hieron. And in II Thessalonians 2: 4 he again uses naos, not hieron, which he would have likely used had he been talking about some guy sitting in literal the rebuilt temple in Jerusalem. What Paul is saying is that false prophets (Matthew 24: 11) have taken over the minds and hearts of those who claim to be God's people. They are sitting in the temples where Christ should be in the minds and hearts of the people who claim to be of God.
Revelation 11: 1-12 is also about spiritual events, though its not easy to figure out what this is all about. But the literalist followers of ol C.I. Scofield insist that the two witnesses of Revelation 11: 3 are Moses and Elijah. They often go on to say that verses 5 and 6 that Moses and Elijah - sometime during the tribulation - will kill with ire from their mouths those who harm them, and that these two witnesses will also stop it from raining and will turn waters into blood and smite the earth with plagues. Again, interpretation moves this prophecy moves toward events in the physical and hinders the possible understanding of those who believe this physical take on Revelation 11. And again, this is not to say that what is said here will not have a manifestation in the physical. But the spiritual manifestation is primary.
In Revelation 9: 13-16 the language is describing something occurring in the spirtiual. But those under the influence of Scofield say this must be limited to the physical. The "two hundred thousand thousand" in verse 16 has to refer to something literal, like 200 million Chinese troops, because Scofield and those who came after him in that camp postulated - without scripture behind this postulation - that prophecy must always be interpreted in a literal way, in the plain language of the text, not as a metaphor.
The mark of the beast in Revelation 13: 16-17, in the literalist view, is reduced to nothing other than taking a computer chip of some kind in your hand or forehead. But the mark is a spiritual mark of belonging to one or both of the two beasts of Revelation 13. As the spiritual mark of the second beast, which represents the false prophets in the churches after the falling away, the mark means those who take it now belong to the false prophets. If the mark is to the government beast - not the one whose deadly wound was healed in verse 3 - then those who take his mark belong to the government; they obey and support the government in all things it does and says. This means that they as Christians interpret Romans 13 as teaching that Christians must obey and support the government no matter what it says or does. And often as modern day Pharisees they demand that other Christians to also.
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