Seth Perry
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780691179131
- eISBN:
- 9781400889402
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691179131.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, History of Christianity
This book is a wide-ranging exploration of the place of the Christian Bible in America in the decades after the Revolution. Attending to both theoretical concerns about the nature of scriptures and ...
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This book is a wide-ranging exploration of the place of the Christian Bible in America in the decades after the Revolution. Attending to both theoretical concerns about the nature of scriptures and to the precise historical circumstances of a formative period in American history, the book argues that the Bible was not a “source” of authority in early America, as is often said, but rather a site of authority: a cultural space for editors, commentators, publishers, preachers, and readers to cultivate authoritative relationships. While paying careful attention to early national bibles as material objects, the book shows that “the Bible” is both a text and a set of relationships sustained by a universe of cultural practices and assumptions. Moreover, it demonstrates that bible culture underwent rapid and fundamental changes in the early nineteenth century as a result of developments in technology, politics, and religious life. At the heart of the book are typical bible readers, otherwise unknown today, and better-known figures such as Zilpha Elaw, Joseph Smith, Denmark Vesey, and Ellen White, a group that includes men and women, enslaved and free, Baptists, Catholics, Episcopalians, Methodists, Mormons, Presbyterians, and Quakers. What they shared were practices of biblical citation in writing, speech, and the performance of their daily lives. While such citation contributed to the authority of the Bible, it also meant that the meaning of the Bible constantly evolved as Americans applied it to new circumstances and identities.Less
This book is a wide-ranging exploration of the place of the Christian Bible in America in the decades after the Revolution. Attending to both theoretical concerns about the nature of scriptures and to the precise historical circumstances of a formative period in American history, the book argues that the Bible was not a “source” of authority in early America, as is often said, but rather a site of authority: a cultural space for editors, commentators, publishers, preachers, and readers to cultivate authoritative relationships. While paying careful attention to early national bibles as material objects, the book shows that “the Bible” is both a text and a set of relationships sustained by a universe of cultural practices and assumptions. Moreover, it demonstrates that bible culture underwent rapid and fundamental changes in the early nineteenth century as a result of developments in technology, politics, and religious life. At the heart of the book are typical bible readers, otherwise unknown today, and better-known figures such as Zilpha Elaw, Joseph Smith, Denmark Vesey, and Ellen White, a group that includes men and women, enslaved and free, Baptists, Catholics, Episcopalians, Methodists, Mormons, Presbyterians, and Quakers. What they shared were practices of biblical citation in writing, speech, and the performance of their daily lives. While such citation contributed to the authority of the Bible, it also meant that the meaning of the Bible constantly evolved as Americans applied it to new circumstances and identities.
Dirk Van Miert, Henk Nellen, Piet Steenbakkers, and Jetze Touber
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- November 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780198806837
- eISBN:
- 9780191844379
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198806837.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Biblical Studies
The Editors’ Introduction explains that seventeenth-century philology covered a wide range of positions in the realm of biblical scholarship. As an innovative discipline, practised across a large ...
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The Editors’ Introduction explains that seventeenth-century philology covered a wide range of positions in the realm of biblical scholarship. As an innovative discipline, practised across a large confessional landscape, from orthodox theologians to radical philosophers, it produced a shift in the appreciation of the authority of God’s Word by stimulating awareness of the historical situation of the Bible and a concomitant sensitivity for rational arguments. Furthermore, the Editors’ Introduction gives a short survey of the chapters in the book and finishes with a general conclusion that argues for a nuanced view of the shift in the supernatural status of the Bible. Biblical criticism was also, and even first, embraced within the established confessions by prominent, often impeccably orthodox theologians, historians, and philologists. Many believers continued to study Scripture through a primarily dogmatic lens, while drawing on prior critical exegesis.Less
The Editors’ Introduction explains that seventeenth-century philology covered a wide range of positions in the realm of biblical scholarship. As an innovative discipline, practised across a large confessional landscape, from orthodox theologians to radical philosophers, it produced a shift in the appreciation of the authority of God’s Word by stimulating awareness of the historical situation of the Bible and a concomitant sensitivity for rational arguments. Furthermore, the Editors’ Introduction gives a short survey of the chapters in the book and finishes with a general conclusion that argues for a nuanced view of the shift in the supernatural status of the Bible. Biblical criticism was also, and even first, embraced within the established confessions by prominent, often impeccably orthodox theologians, historians, and philologists. Many believers continued to study Scripture through a primarily dogmatic lens, while drawing on prior critical exegesis.
Henk Nellen
Dirk van Miert, Piet Steenbakkers, and Jetze Touber (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- November 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780198806837
- eISBN:
- 9780191844379
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198806837.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Biblical Studies
Did innovative textual analysis reshape the relations between Christian believers and their churches in early modern confessional states? This volume explores the hypothesis that in the long ...
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Did innovative textual analysis reshape the relations between Christian believers and their churches in early modern confessional states? This volume explores the hypothesis that in the long seventeenth century humanist-inspired biblical criticism contributed significantly to the decline of ecclesiastical truth claims. Historiography pictures this era as one in which the dominant position of religion and church began to show signs of erosion under the influence of vehement debates on the sacrosanct status of the Bible. Until quite recently, this gradual but decisive shift has been attributed to the rise of the sciences, in particular astronomy and physics. This book looks at biblical criticism as, on the one hand, an innovative force and, on the other, the outcome of developments in philology that had started much earlier than scientific experimentalism or the New Philosophy. Scholars began to situate the Bible in its historical context. The seventeen chapters show that even in the hands of pious, orthodox scholars philological research not only failed to solve all the textual problems that had surfaced, but even brought to light countless new incongruities. This supplied those who sought to play down the authority of the Bible with ammunition. The conviction that God’s Word had been preserved as a pure and sacred source gave way to an awareness of a complicated transmission in a plurality of divergent, ambiguous, historically determined and heavily corrupted texts. This shift took place primarily in the Dutch Protestant world of the seventeenth century.Less
Did innovative textual analysis reshape the relations between Christian believers and their churches in early modern confessional states? This volume explores the hypothesis that in the long seventeenth century humanist-inspired biblical criticism contributed significantly to the decline of ecclesiastical truth claims. Historiography pictures this era as one in which the dominant position of religion and church began to show signs of erosion under the influence of vehement debates on the sacrosanct status of the Bible. Until quite recently, this gradual but decisive shift has been attributed to the rise of the sciences, in particular astronomy and physics. This book looks at biblical criticism as, on the one hand, an innovative force and, on the other, the outcome of developments in philology that had started much earlier than scientific experimentalism or the New Philosophy. Scholars began to situate the Bible in its historical context. The seventeen chapters show that even in the hands of pious, orthodox scholars philological research not only failed to solve all the textual problems that had surfaced, but even brought to light countless new incongruities. This supplied those who sought to play down the authority of the Bible with ammunition. The conviction that God’s Word had been preserved as a pure and sacred source gave way to an awareness of a complicated transmission in a plurality of divergent, ambiguous, historically determined and heavily corrupted texts. This shift took place primarily in the Dutch Protestant world of the seventeenth century.
