APPLYING THE RIGHT MEASURE: ARCHITECTURE AND PHILOLOGY IN BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP IN THE DUTCH EARLY ENLIGHTENMENT

2015 ◽  
Vol 58 (4) ◽  
pp. 959-985 ◽  
Author(s):  
JETZE TOUBER
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Architectural Theory ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Scholarship ◽  
Proper Method ◽  
Skilled Professional ◽  
The Right ◽  
Do So

AbstractThe article reconstructs the seventeenth-century Dutch debate about the proper method to reconstruct the biblical temples of Jerusalem. It examines the involvement of Willem Goeree (1635–1711), an expert in architectural theory, in this debate which was dominated by philologically trained scholars. The article suggests that the clash between professional exegetes and a lay theologian like Goeree allows us to see hermeneutical debates of the early Enlightenment in a new light. While the skilled professional aspired to make arcane Temple scholarship accessible to a wider lay audience, theologians denied him the competence to do so, insisting on the primacy of sacred philology in interpreting the Bible. This case thus moves outside of the dogma vs reason dichotomy which dominates historiography concerning early modern biblical interpretation.

Jonathan Edwards and Scripture

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
New England ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Jonathan Edwards ◽  
Biblical Exegesis ◽  
Western History ◽  
The Bible ◽  
New Research

Jonathan Edwards and Scripture provides a fresh look at the important, burgeoning field of Edwards and the Bible. For too long, Edwards scholars have published new research on Edwards without paying due attention to the work he took most seriously: biblical exegesis. Edwards is recognized as an innovative theologian who wielded tremendous influence on revivalism, evangelicalism, and New England theology, but what is often missed is how much time he devoted to studying and understanding the Bible. He kept voluminous notebooks on Christian Scripture and had plans for major treatises on the Bible before he died. Edwards scholars need to take stock of the place of the Bible in his thought to do justice to his theology and legacy. In fact, more and more experts are recognizing how important this aspect of his life is, and this book brings together the insights of leading Edwards scholars on this topic. This volume seeks to increase our understanding of Edwards’ engagement with Scripture by setting it in the context of seventeenth-century Protestant exegesis and eighteenth-century colonial interpretation. It provides case studies of Edwards’ exegesis in varying genres of the Bible and probes his use of Scripture to develop theology. It also sets his biblical interpretation in perspective by comparing it with that of other exegetes. This book advances our understanding of the nature and significance of Edwards’ work with Scripture and opens new lines of inquiry for students of early modern Western history.

scholarly journals Towards an Akairological Politics: Rereading Negri on the Biblical Book of Job

2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Roland Boer
Keyword(s):  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Ancient Greece ◽  
Complex Treatment ◽  
Book Of Job ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Opportune Time ◽  
Truth Claims ◽  
The Right ◽  
Antonio Negri ◽  
Do So

This essay engages with an unfamiliar Antonio Negri, one who engages in biblical interpretation in The Labor of Job (2009). The analysis focuses on two key themes: kairós and measure/immeasure. Concerning kairós I critique Negri’s relatively conventional approach – creative and opportune time – by identifying its inescapable moral and class associations with ruling ideology in ancient Greece, where it designates, through its basic sense of measure, the right time and right place. In response, I pursue an akairological position, one that draws upon Negri’s complex treatment of measure and immeasure. While Negri seeks a reshaped and creative measure, I suggest we tarry with immeasure, for it overlaps with what is opposed to kairós. The article closes by asking why Negri should be interested in the Bible. The answer: he is able to do so, as his studies of Spinoza show, through a radical relativising of the absolute truth claims of theology.

Spinoza and Biblical Philology in the Dutch Republic, 1660-1710

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jetze Touber
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Dutch Reformed ◽  
Dutch Republic ◽  
Biblical Criticism ◽  
Ecclesiastical History ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Scholarship ◽  
Dutch Golden Age

This book investigates the biblical criticism of Spinoza from the perspective of the Dutch Reformed society in which the philosopher lived and worked. It focusses on philological investigation of the Bible: its words, its language, and the historical context in which it originated. The book charts contested issues of biblical philology in mainstream Dutch Calvinism, to determine whether Spinoza’s work on the Bible had any bearing on the Reformed understanding of the way society should engage with Scripture. Spinoza has received massive attention, both inside and outside academia. His unconventional interpretation of the Old Testament passages has been examined repeatedly over the decades. So has that of fellow ‘radicals’ (rationalists, radicals, deists, libertines, enthusiasts), against the backdrop of a society that is assumed to have been hostile, overwhelmed, static, and uniform. This book inverts this perspective and looks at how the Dutch Republic digested biblical philology and biblical criticism, including that of Spinoza. It takes into account the highly neglected area of the Reformed ministry and theology of the Dutch Golden Age. The result is that Dutch ecclesiastical history, up until now the preserve of the partisan scholarship of confessionalized church historians, is brought into dialogue with Early Modern intellectual currents. This book concludes that Spinoza, rather than simply pushing biblical scholarship in the direction of modernity, acted in an indirect way upon ongoing debates in Dutch society, shifting trends in those debates, but not always in the same direction, and not always equally profoundly, at all times, on all levels.

Afterword

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victoria Brownlee
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
Popular Entertainment ◽  
Departure Point ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Relationship

The recent upturn in biblically based films in Anglophone cinema is the departure point for this Afterword reflecting on the Bible’s impact on popular entertainment and literature in early modern England. Providing a survey of the book’s themes, and drawing together the central arguments, the discussion reminds that literary writers not only read and used the Bible in different ways to different ends, but also imbibed and scrutinized dominant interpretative principles and practices in their work. With this in mind, the Afterword outlines the need for further research into the relationship between biblical readings and literary writings in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe.

Production, Communication, and Comprehension of Knowledge of the New World: Ethnographic Descriptions in Caspar Barlaeus’ Rerum per Octennium

2012 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 223-246
Author(s):  
Britt Dams
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
New World ◽  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
Careful Selection ◽  
The Bible ◽  
New Knowledge ◽  
Trading Network ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Dutch Brazil

This article deals with the textual legacy of Dutch Brazil, in particular the ethnographic descriptions in one of the most popular works about the colony: Barlaeus’ Rerum per Octennium in Brasilia et alibi nuper gestarum. Barlaeus never set foot in Brazil, but was an important Dutch intellectual authority in the seventeenth century. To compose the Rerum per Octennium, he relied on a wide variety of available sources, not only firsthand observations, but also classical, biblical and other contemporary sources. From these, he made a careful selection to produce his descriptions. Recent research shows that the Dutch participated in networks of knowledge and imagination as well as in a more familiar early modern trading network. This article reveals that Barlaeus’ descriptions not only circulated as knowledge, but also produced new knowledge. The Rerum soon became one of the standard works about the colony due to the importance of its author and its composition. Furthermore, the article discusses the rhetorical techniques used in some selected descriptions in order to shed light upon the strategies Barlaeus used in his discourse on the strange reality of the New World. For example, his ethnographic descriptions employed parallel customs or events from the classical Antiquity or the Bible. In these comparisons he displays both his intellectual capacities and shows his desire to comprehend this exotic reality.

The Culture of Catechesis and Lay Theology

2018 ◽  
Vol 98 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-55
Author(s):  
Jetze Touber
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Benedictus De Spinoza ◽  
Dutch Republic ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Collective Effort ◽  
Lay Theology ◽  
Public Church

Abstract In the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic, non-professional theologians articulated well-informed biblical interpretation, producing a lay theology that was unwelcome to representatives of the churches. Historians have long considered this lay theology as a manifestation of Early Enlightenment. It did not, however, necessarily result from the activities of rationalist philosophers usually associated with the Dutch Early Enlightenment, such as Benedictus de Spinoza (1632–1677). Equally important were the clergy’s efforts to educate laity in reading the Bible and contemplating divinity autonomously. This paper reconstructs the Dutch “culture of catechesis,” a collective effort to involve laity in reflection on religion and the Bible, dating back to at least the 1640s. Based on catechetical materials and their authors, this paper argues that the “culture of catechesis” had its roots in the Public Church itself, and that it contributed to lay theology, as much so as the outspoken programs of eccentric philosophers.

Aberrant Numbers

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jed Z. Buchwald ◽  
Mordechai Feingold
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Common Ancestor ◽  
New Approach ◽  
The Bible

This chapter examines early modern conceptions regarding population, which impinged crucially on contemporary views—including Isaac Newton’s—regarding chronology, and the veracity of Scripture more generally. The Bible was universally perceived as the only authoritative account of “prehistory,” its divine authorship compelling unqualified assent. The first chapters of Genesis accordingly entailed that mankind had expanded quite rapidly from a common ancestor—both before and, especially, after the Deluge. While commentators on Genesis, especially the more zealous Protestants, saw little reason to engage in vain speculations regarding the number of mankind—or to synchronize sacred and secular histories beyond what Scripture itself required—a handful of chronologers and academic theologians began treading this territory at the turn of the seventeenth century. A pioneer of this new approach was Jean Du Temps (Johannes Temporarius), a French Protestant jurist.

Cultures of collecting

2021 ◽  
pp. 138-164
Author(s):  
David Pearson
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Medieval Manuscripts ◽  
Printed Books ◽  
Book Collecting ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Material Evidence

Studies of private libraries and their owners invariably talk about ‘book collecting’—is this the right terminology? After summarizing our broadly held understanding of the evolution of bibliophile collecting from the eighteenth century onwards, this chapter considers the extent to which similar behaviours can be detected (or not) in the seventeenth, drawing on the material evidence of bookbindings, wording in wills, and other sources. Do we find subject-based collecting, of the kind we are familiar with today, as a characteristic of early modern book owners? Some distinctions are recognized in ways in which medieval manuscripts (as opposed to printed books) were brought together at this time. The relationship between libraries and museums, and contemporary attitudes to them, is explored. The concluding argument is that ‘collecting’ is a careless word to use in the seventeenth-century context; just as we should talk about users rather than readers, we should use ‘owners’ rather than ‘collectors’ as the default term, unless there is evidence to the contrary.

Biblical Exegesis and Early Modern Legal History in Calvin’s Mosaic Harmony

2020 ◽  
pp. 165-195
Author(s):  
Barbara Pitkin
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Legal History ◽  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Biblical Exegesis ◽  
Historical Method ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
The Relationship

The chapter examines John Calvin’s commentary on Exodus through Deuteronomy (1563) through the lens of sixteenth-century historical jurisprudence, exemplified in the works of Calvin’s contemporaries François de Connan and François Baudouin. Recent scholarship has demonstrated how Calvin’s historicizing exegesis is in continuity with broader contemporary trends in premodern Christian biblical interpretation; this chapter explores another essential context for Calvin’s approach to the Bible. The intermingling of narrative and legal material in these four biblical books inspired Calvin to break with his customary practice of lectio continua and apply his historical hermeneutic more broadly and creatively to explain the Mosaic histories and legislation. Calvin’s unusual and unprecedented arrangement of the material in this commentary and his attention to the relationship between law and history reveal his engagement with his generation’s quest for historical method.

Calvin, the Bible, and History

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Pitkin
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Historical Consciousness ◽  
Biblical Exegesis ◽  
Apostle Paul ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Introductory Overview ◽  
Historical Developments

Calvin, the Bible, and History investigates John Calvin’s distinctive historicizing approach to scripture. The book explores how historical consciousness manifests itself in Calvin’s engagement with the Bible, sometimes leading him to unusual, unprecedented, and occasionally deeply controversial exegetical conclusions. It reshapes the image of Calvin as a biblical interpreter by situating his approach within the context of premodern Christian biblical interpretation, recent Protestant hermeneutical trends, and early modern views of history. In an introductory overview of Calvin’s method and seven chapters focusing on his interpretation of different biblical books or authors, Barbara Pitkin analyzes his engagement with scripture from the Pentateuch to his reception of the apostle Paul. Each chapter examines intellectual or cultural contexts, situating Calvin’s readings within traditional and contemporary exegesis, broader cultural trends, or historical developments, and explores the theme of historical consciousness from a different angle, focusing, for example, on Calvin’s historicizing treatment of Old Testament prophecy, or his reflection of contemporary historiographical trends, or his efforts to relate the biblical past to present historical conditions. An epilogue explores the significance of these findings for understanding Calvin’s concept of history. Collectively these linked case studies illustrate the multifaceted character and expansive impact of his sense of history on his reading of the Bible. They demonstrate that Calvin’s biblical exegesis must be seen in the context of the rising enthusiasm for defining adequate and more formalized approaches to the past that is evident in the writings of Renaissance humanists, early modern historical theorists, and religious reformers across the confessional spectrum.

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