Biblical Scholarship in an Age of Controversy

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kirsten Macfarlane
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Intellectual Culture ◽  
Biblical Scholarship ◽  
Profound Knowledge ◽  
Close Study ◽  
History Of ◽  
Confessional Identity ◽  
New Vision ◽  
King James Bible ◽  
The Relationship

This book offers a new vision of early modern biblical scholarship through a close study of Hugh Broughton (1549–1612), the colourful English Hebraist who cuts a strange figure in the history of the period. Best known today as the puritan who criticized the King James Bible (1611), Broughton was both despised and admired by his contemporaries for his abrasive personality, controversial pamphlets, and profound knowledge of Hebrew, Greek, and rabbinic literature. Modern historians have found it equally difficult to reconcile the contradictions of Broughton’s life and legacy, scarcely moving past the stereotype of him as an angry, eccentric puritan. By providing the first monograph-length account of Broughton, this book explains how the same person could be both one of the most conservative and backward-looking scholars of his generation, and also one of the most innovative and influential. In doing so, it advances a new understanding of the relationship between elite intellectual culture, lay religion, biblical criticism, confessional identity, and broader processes of secularization in the period from the late Reformation to the early Enlightenment.

Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Kirsten Macfarlane
Keyword(s):  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
Religious Culture ◽  
Theory Of Change ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Scholarship ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Confessional Identity ◽  
The Relationship

The introduction begins by outlining how Broughton’s modern reputation as an angry puritan was created over two centuries by a series of historians with various confessional motivations. Next, it analyses Broughton’s early life as a promising scholar at Cambridge, and explains key issues such as how his beliefs about scripture affected his attitudes to the Hebrew and Greek texts of the Bible. Finally, it summarizes the three major interventions of this book. The first concerns the relationship between scholars’ beliefs about scripture and the methods they used to study it. Broughton shows that it was possible to be an innovative exponent of the historical-philological method, while also believing that the Bible was infallible and verbally inspired; and that these positions could be mutually reinforcing. But while scholars like Broughton have generally been used as proof of the ‘unintended consequences’ theory of change from the Reformation to the Enlightenment, the introduction uses him to critique this theory. The second intervention concerns the relationship between confessional identity and historical scholarship, building on recent works that have emphasized the impossibility of theologically ‘neutral’ scholarship in this period by extending their findings into new areas such as chronology. Lastly, the third intervention concerns the relationship between elite neo-Latin biblical scholarship and vernacular lay religious culture in this period. It argues that biblical scholarship, even of the most demanding kind, deeply appealed to ordinary readers of scripture, and posits Broughton as a pioneer in the field of accessible, vernacular-oriented— but still highly scholarly—biblical criticism.

Martin Luther and the Saxon Electors

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marjorie Elizabeth Plummer
Keyword(s):  
Adult Life ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Reform Movement ◽  
16Th Century ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
History Of ◽  
Confessional Identity ◽  
The University ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Scholarly Attention

Although born in the territory of the Counts of Mansfield, Luther’s connection to Saxony began early. He attended school in Eisenach (1498–1501), located in electoral Saxony, and enrolled in university (1501–1505) and later entered the Augustinian monastery (1505–1508) in Erfurt, an independent city with close economic and political ties to Saxony. Luther’s association with Saxony and its electors, however, was sealed with his 1508 arrival at the University of Wittenberg, followed by his return to Wittenberg in 1511, where he was to reside for the most remainder of his adult life. His relationship with the rulers in Ernestine and Albertine Saxony and their reaction to his reform movement proved fundamental to Luther’s life and career, just as Luther has become inextricably linked to the history of Saxony and Wittenberg. Scholars have concentrated on Luther’s interactions with the elector of Saxony Frederick III, “the Wise” (1463–1525, r. 1486–1525), during the early Reformation. Less scholarly attention has been paid to the relationship between Luther and the electors of Saxony during the reign of Frederick’s brother John the Steadfast (1468–1532, r. 1525–1532) and nephew John Frederick (1503–1554, r. 1532–1547), despite the vital role that these rulers played during the development of the new confessional identity. Discussions of Luther’s interaction with these Saxon electors were featured in 16th-century publications and art as well as early histories of the Reformation and of Saxony. Over the course of subsequent centuries, the relationship between Luther and the Ernestine electors has become central to the story of the Reformation and to Saxon history.

The Conquest of Death

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Lockwood
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
State Formation ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Original Intent ◽  
History Of ◽  
Legislative Policy ◽  
History Of Violence ◽  
The Creation ◽  
State Growth ◽  
The Relationship

The Conquest of Death considers the concepts of violence and state power far more broadly and holistically than previous accounts of state growth by intertwining the national and the local, the formal and the informal to illustrate how the management of incidental acts of violence and justice was as important to the monopolization of violence as the creation of the machinery of warfare. It reveals how the creation and operation of everyday bureaucracy built systems of power far exceeding its original intent and allowed a greater centralized surveillance of daily life than ever before. In sum, this book forces us to think about state formation not in terms of the broad strokes of legislative policy and international competition, but rather as a process built by multiple tiny actions, interactions and encroachments which fundamentally redefined the nature of the state and the relationship between government and governed. The Conquest of Death thus provides a new approach to the history of state formation, the history of criminal justice and the history of violence in early modern England. By locating the creation of an effective, permanent monopoly of violence in England in the second-half of the sixteenth century, this book also provides a new chronology of the divide between medieval and modern while divorcing the history of state growth from a linear history of centralization.

scholarly journals The Impact of the Netherlandish Landscape Tradition on Poetry and Painting in Early Modern England*

2013 ◽  
Vol 66 (3) ◽  
pp. 866-903 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Trevisan
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Rare Case ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
Historical Knowledge ◽  
Complex Product ◽  
Problematic Relationship ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractThe relationship between poetry and painting has been one of the most debated issues in the history of criticism. The present article explores this problematic relationship in the context of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England, taking into account theories of rhetoric, visual perception, and art. It analyzes a rare case in which a specific school of painting directly inspired poetry: in particular, the ways in which the Netherlandish landscape tradition influenced natural descriptions in the poem Poly-Olbion (1612, 1622) by Michael Drayton (1563–1631). Drayton — under the influence of the artistic principles of landscape depiction as explained in Henry Peacham’s art manuals, as well as of direct observation of Dutch and Flemish landscape prints and paintings — successfully managed to render pictorial landscapes into poetry. Through practical examples, this essay will thoroughly demonstrate that rhetoric is capable of emulating pictorial styles in a way that presupposes specialized art-historical knowledge, and that pictorialism can be the complex product as much of poetry and rhetoric as of painting and art-theoretical vocabulary.

ARISTOTELIANISM, DESCARTES, AND HOBBES

2007 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 449-464 ◽  
Author(s):  
MICHAEL EDWARDS
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
History Of ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

The historiography of early modern Aristotelian philosophy and its relationship with its seventeenth-century critics, such as Hobbes and Descartes, has expanded in recent years. This article explores the dynamics of this project, focusing on a tendency to complicate and divide up the category of Aristotelianism into multiple ‘Aristotelianisms’, and the significance of this move for attempts to write a contextual history of the relationship of Hobbes and Descartes to their Aristotelian contemporaries and predecessors. In particular, it considers recent work on Cartesian and Hobbesian natural philosophy, and the ways in which historians have related the different forms of early modern Aristotelianism to the projects of the novatores.

scholarly journals Cinema/history

2011 ◽  
pp. 89-104
Author(s):  
Michael  Leonard
Keyword(s):  
Temporal Dynamics ◽  
Defining Moment ◽  
Historical Process ◽  
French Culture ◽  
Close Study ◽  
History Of ◽  
May 1968 ◽  
The Relationship

This article compares the engagement with the history of May 1968 in Philippe Garrel’s Les Amants réguliers/Regular Lovers (2005)and Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Dreamers (2004). Through a close study of both films, it demonstrates how Garrel finds a more nuanced and transformative aesthetic than Bertolucci in representing this defining moment in modern French culture and politics. The films share a number of aspects; most notably, they draw upon the history of cinema itself in recalling this period, an approach that can be related to Godard’s project in Histoire(s) du Cinéma (1988-1998). However, their differing approaches to cinematographic citation (metonymic in the case of Bertolucci, and metaphoric in the case of Garrel) have significant implications for the temporal dynamics of each film. The article argues that Bertolucci’s method is intrinsically conservative—reactionary, even—implying an historical linearity that reinforces the “pastness” of May, its significance as a piece of “heritage” rather than part of an ongoing historical process, or dialectic. Garrel’s practice of citation, by contrast, generates a more radical, heterochronous form that constitutes a testimony to May 1968 by evoking its continued presence. In the course of its discussion, the article also reflects on the relationship between Les Amants réguliers and the nouvelle vague, exploring in particular the relations between this film and Jacques Rivette’s Paris nous appartient (1961).

scholarly journals Towards a (radically) decolonial anthropology: revisiting the Iberian school of peace’s encounter with (the rights of) Amerindians / Rumo a uma antropologia (radicalmente) decolonial: revisitando o encontro da escola ibérica da paz com (os direitos d)os ameríndios

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bethânia De Albuquerque Assy ◽  
Florian Fabian Hoffman
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
International Law ◽  
Reception History ◽  
History Of Ideas ◽  
Radical Alterity ◽  
Culturally Different ◽  
History Of ◽  
Ius Gentium ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

Resumo: A resposta da Escola de Salamanca à crise cognitiva gerada pelo encontro entre europeus e ameríndios no século XVI tem se convertido em um dos momentos mais referenciados na historiografia colonial devido ao papel que desempenhou na formação do direito internacional (europeu). Embora a posição tradicional sobre o uso dos direitos naturais da Escola para enquadrar o relacionamento com os ameríndios tenha mitigado a universalidade colonizadora do incipiente ius gentium (europeu), (re)leituras post/descoloniais mais recentes expuseram esse movimento como uma mera estratégia para a subjugação epistêmica dos ameríndios. No entanto, de acordo com suas premissas historicistas, ambas as posições se concentraram no impacto da doutrina de Salamanca sobre a história europeia das ideias e deixaram (relativamente) sub-explorado seu significado como resposta à experiência de alteridade radical em relação ao encontro ameríndio. O recurso a linguagem de direitos dos salamanquianos também pode ser visto como uma maneira de lidar com o desafio perspectivista fundamental que a “razão” culturalmente diferente, ainda que epistemologicamente equivalente, dos ameríndios representou. A sua “solução” de um jusnaturalismo pluricultural historicamente concretizado não era inteiramente coerente nem livre do eurocentrismo. Mas sua gênese contrafactual por meio de uma combinação de realismo universalista escolástico tardio e de multinaturalismo indígena mostra que o encontro ameríndio era intelectualmente muito menos unilateral do que a recepção europeia histórica reconheceria. No entanto, essa abordagem exige não apenas uma virada (sutil) para uma perspectiva etnográfica, mas também uma reconstrução antropológica radical da historiografia do início da era moderna do direito internacional.Abstract: The School of Salamanca’s response to the cognitive crisis which the encounter between Europeans and Amerindians in the sixteenth century generated has become one of the most referenced moments in colonial historiography for the role it played in the formation of (European) international law. While the traditional position on the School’s use of natural rights to frame the relationship with Amerindians argued that it thereby sought to mitigate the colonizing universality of the incipient (European) ius gentium, more recent post/decolonial (re-)readings have exposed this move as a mere strategy for the epistemic subjugation of Amerindia. However, in line with their historicist premises, both positions have focussed on the impact of Salamancan thought on the European history of ideas and have left its significance as a response to the experience of radical alterity vis-à-vis the Amerindian encounte (relatively) underexplored. For the Salamancan’s resort to rights language can also be seen as a way to grapple with the fundamental perspectivist challenge that the culturally different yet epistemically equivalent ‘reason’ of the Amerindians represented. Their “solution” of a historically concretized pluricultural jusnaturalism was neither entirely coherent nor free from Eurocentrism, but its counterfactual genesis through a combination of late scholastic universalist realism and Amerindian multinaturalism shows that the Amerindian encounter was intellectually much less one-sided than its European reception history would acknowledge. Yet, this approach requires not only a (subtle) shift towards an ethnographic perspective but also a (radically) anthropological reconstruction of the historiography of early modern international law.

scholarly journals Testemunho da natureza social: O homem, espaço e tempo amazônico nas representações geográficas do amazonófilo Leandro Tocantins

2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 177
Author(s):  
Márcio Silveira Nascimento ◽  
Jaqueline Do Espírito Santo Soares Dos Santos
Keyword(s):  
Forest Products ◽  
Amazon Region ◽  
Social Formation ◽  
The World ◽  
Man And Nature ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Vision ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
Two Stages ◽  
The Relationship

Resumo Este artigo objetiva a análise do espaço amazônico por meio das representações geográficas contidas na obra Amazônia: Natureza, Homem e Tempo, a qual apresenta a história da região em dois tempos: o primeiro num período de expedições em nossos rios, descrito nas obras de cronistas europeus nos séculos XVI e XVII. E num segundo tempo onde ressalta a economia regional baseada nos produtos da floresta. Elucida-se como se deu a descoberta do principal vetor de riqueza daquela época, a borracha, seu uso pelos indígenas e sua consagração na economia mundial. No entanto, a borracha teve seu declínio e levou consigo toda a riqueza, deixando apenas a paisagem bucólica. Também, destacamos a ocupação populacional, mostrando personagens fundamentais na formação social amazônica. Descreve-se ainda um terceiro tempo amazônico que mostra uma nova perspectiva para a região, enaltecendo a relação homem e natureza pautada no viés ecológico que ganhou força com os movimentos sociais e ambientalistas, uma nova visão acerca do espaço da floresta, divergindo das ambições ou da lógica da economia mundial.Palavras-chave: espaço amazônico, representações geográficas, formação social, borracha. AbstractThis article aims to analyze the Amazon region through geographic representations contained in the Amazon work: Nature, Man and Time, which presents the history of the area in two stages: the first a period of expeditions in our rivers, described in the works of chroniclers Europeans in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. And a second time it emphasizes the regional economy based on forest products. it elucidates how was the discovery of the main vector of wealth that time, rubber, its use by indigenous people and their consecration in the world economy. However, the rubber had its decline and took all the wealth, leaving only the bucolic landscape. Also, we highlight the population occupation, showing key characters in the Amazon social formation. also describes a third Amazonian time showing a new perspective for the region, highlighting the relationship between man and nature guided the ecological bias that gained momentum with social movements and environmentalists, a new vision of the forest space, diverging ambitions or the logic of the world economy.Keywords: amazon region, geographic representations, social formation, rubber. ResumenEste artículo objetiva el análisis del espacio amazónico por medio de representaciones geográficas contenidas en la obra de Amazonia: La  Naturaleza, El Hombre y El Tiempo, a cual presenta la historia de la región en dos etapas: la primera en un período de expediciones en nuestros ríos, que se describen en las obras de cronistas europeos en los siglos XVI y XVII. Y la segunda etapa donde rebota la economía regional basada en los productos forestales. Aclara como se dio la descubierta del principal vector de la riqueza en aquella época, el caucho, y su uso por los indígenas y su consagración en la economía mundial. Sin embargo, el caucho tuvo su declive y se llevó toda la riqueza, dejando sólo el paisaje bucólico. También, destacamos la población ocupacional, que muestra personajes clave en la formación social del Amazonas. Aún se describe una tercera etapa amazónica que muestra una nueva perspectiva para la región, destacando la relación entre el hombre y la naturaleza enumerada en el oblicuo ecológico que ganó fuerza con los movimientos sociales y ambientalistas, una nueva visión acerca del espacio forestal, divergiendo de las ambiciones o de la lógica de la economía mundial.Palabras clave: región amazónica, representaciones geográficas, la formación social, caucho.

Sesquisyllabicity, Chữ Nôm, and the Early Modern embrace of vernacular writing in Vietnam

2020 ◽  
pp. 251385021993735
Author(s):  
John D. Phan
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
East Asia ◽  
17Th Century ◽  
Syllable Structure ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship

In East Asia, the relationship between script and language is determined to a great extent by the typological character of the languages involved. This is particularly so because sinographic writing generally relies on the syllable as the smallest unit of sound expressible. However, many languages that have adapted Sinitic writing throughout history display complex syllable structure not easily expressible by the monosyllabically inclined sinograph. Moreover, some languages have even displayed changing syllable structure throughout documented history. This article examines the so-called “monosyllabicization” of the Vietnamese language, and its impact on the history of the sinographic vernacular script known as Chữ Nôm. I argue that by the 17th century, the emergent monosyllabic character of Vietnamese was remarked upon by elites as a new justification for embracing vernacular writing, previously considered uncouth.

The Scandal of Kabbalah

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yaacob Dweck
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Jewish Life ◽  
Religious Tradition ◽  
Culture War ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Central Feature ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Jewish Mysticism ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship

This is the first book about the origins of a culture war that began in early modern Europe and continues to this day: the debate between kabbalists and their critics on the nature of Judaism and the meaning of religious tradition. From its medieval beginnings as an esoteric form of Jewish mysticism, Kabbalah spread throughout the early modern world and became a central feature of Jewish life. Scholars have long studied the revolutionary impact of Kabbalah, but, as this book argues, they have misunderstood the character and timing of opposition to it. Drawing on a range of previously unexamined sources, this book tells the story of the first criticism of Kabbalah, Ari Nohem, written by Leon Modena in Venice in 1639. In this scathing indictment of Venetian Jews who had embraced Kabbalah as an authentic form of ancient esotericism, Modena proved the recent origins of Kabbalah and sought to convince his readers to return to the spiritualized rationalism of Maimonides. This book examines the hallmarks of Jewish modernity displayed by Modena's attack—a critical analysis of sacred texts, skepticism about religious truths, and self-consciousness about the past—and shows how these qualities and the later history of his polemic challenge conventional understandings of the relationship between Kabbalah and modernity. The book argues that Kabbalah was the subject of critical inquiry in the very period it came to dominate Jewish life rather than centuries later as most scholars have thought.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document