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This chapter describes a debate between Erasmus and Luther, and concludes with the sensational literary and theological controversy that broke out between Erasmus and Luther in 1524. Luther was one of the first readers of Erasmus's new Bible in 1516. The chapter begins by exploring the politics of interpretation, and also explains Erasmus and Luther on Ecclesiasticus 15. The text from Ecclesiasticus, Luther says, is obscura et ambigua, and ‘proves nothing for certain’ (WA 18.666.25). What is required of Erasmus is a text that will show his case in claris verbis; but he cannot find one. At the same time, Luther objects that Erasmus's exegesis is far from showing his doctrine planissime. A discussion on the theologian and the grammarian, as well as the potter and the clay, is provided.

The fourth chapter argues that the Reformation and early modern period focuses on trying to clarify the causal chain by which God communicates goodness to some and permits others to lack goodness. The result is that predestination becomes the central theological controversy of the early modern period. With the support of some biblical texts, Calvin argues that God actively causes everything, a position that endangers God's innocence. Molina posits a “middle knowledge” wherein God non-volitionally scans all possible causal chains so as to ensure that predestination takes into account what humans freely do. Francis de Sales combines insistence upon God's unlimited love of all rational creatures, with allowance of God's predestination of some rational creatures. The mechanistic approach of Leibniz further distances predestinarian doctrine from the God of love.

Various controversies in the early 1860s – over Darwin’s Origin, heretical publications by clergymen, and the science and politics of race – drew Lubbock and Spottiswoode into joint action with Hooker, Huxley, and Busk. Huxley, Busk and Lubbock set new directions in their research, focusing on the gaps between apes and humans and between “savage” and “civilised” humans. They took over the Natural History Review, which carried this new research. Lubbock, Spottiswoode and Hooker sought to rouse scientific men to defend free enquiry in theology. In an effort to keep anthropology free from association with extreme racist politics, Lubbock, Huxley, and Busk became active in the Ethnological Society of London. In 1864, as controversy over the relationship between scientific enquiry and theological orthodoxy intensified, Spencer drew his scientific friends into alliance with liberal thinkers in politics and Church to contribute science articles to the weekly Reader and make it an organ of “liberal opinion.” At the same time as this common cause brought naturalists, physical scientists and Spencer together, the households of the Busks and the Lubbocks became the social centers for the growing network. From the common friendships and common causes the X Club was formed in November 1864.

Chapter 8 demonstrates how biblical scholarship became part of normal public discourse in the course of the 1650s and 1660s. Discussions on the Sabbath, on usury, on long hair, on vernacular translations, on chronology, on the Septuagint all conspired to normalize textual criticism, linguistic analysis, and historical contextualization as ways of approaching the Bible, in juxtaposition with theological and dogmatic readings. Meanwhile, such theological discussions raged particularly in the 1660s, with pamphlet wars over newly voiced radical ideas. Together, all such disputes made very fertile ground for Spinoza’s radical biblical scholarship, which took its lead from precisely the philology developed and was made popular by Scaliger, the translators of the States’ Translation, Gomarus, Heinsius, Grotius, Saumaise, La Peyrère, Isaac Vossius, and a host of other participants in what had become a highly charged public debate over the status of the biblical text.

This chapter analyzes how Syriac historiography is a rare example of non-etatist, non-imperial, history writing. It was produced, copied, and preserved entirely within Christian church structures. The Syriac-using Christians, however, were divided into numerous rival denominations and communities as a consequence both of the fifth-century theological controversies and of geopolitical boundaries. And since both of these factors strongly influenced both the motivations which underpinned the production of history writing and the forms it took, historians need to have some knowledge of these rival Syriac denominations. Because of internal Christian debates about the relationship of the divinity and humanity within Christ during the fifth century, the Syriac-using churches fragmented. All accepted that Christ was perfect God and perfect man, but differed fiercely about how to articulate this.

The eventful career of the ‘Velesian readings’ constitute an instructive chapter in the history of New Testament exegesis. Around 1570, Pedro Fajardo, Marquis of los Vélez, jotted down some 2,000 variant readings in a printed New Testament, giving later researchers the impression that these annotations resulted from a persistent perusal of Greek manuscripts. The original annotated book was never found, but the Velesian readings found their way into many editions, for example Walton’s 1657 Polyglot. Eventually, the readings were shown to be retranslations from Latin into Greek, intended to vindicate the Latin Vulgate against the received Greek text. This chapter traces the role scholars played in their unmasking. It shows that variant readings were of paramount importance in theological controversy.