Editors’ Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dirk Van Miert ◽  
Henk Nellen ◽  
Piet Steenbakkers ◽  
Jetze Touber
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Biblical Criticism ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Scholarship ◽  
Short Survey ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
God's Word ◽  
Rational Arguments

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.

Scriptural Authority and Biblical Criticism in the Dutch Golden Age

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henk Nellen
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Biblical Criticism ◽  
Dominant Position ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Dutch Golden Age ◽  
God's Word ◽  
Truth Claims ◽  
The One

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.

Witches and Forgers

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott Mandelbrote
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Republic Of Letters ◽  
The Bible ◽  
God's Word ◽  
1 Samuel ◽  
The Witch

Scepticism and loyalty represent the poles of van Dale’s career. Two contexts have been mentioned as relevant here: the seventeenth-century attack on magic and superstition, and the circles of friendship that created a contemporary Republic of Letters. This chapter evaluates both contexts, as well as others that may throw light on his relatively neglected attitude to the text of the Bible. It brings into focus two important intellectual episodes: his treatment of the account of the Witch of Endor (1 Samuel 28:3–25), and his engagement with Hellenistic sources relating to the text of the Old Testament, especially to the miraculous composition of the Septuagint. These issues brought van Dale to ask questions about God’s Word. The chapter explores the limits of his scepticism, the extent of his scholarship, and the role of friendship and isolation in his development. Finally, it draws attention to his place in contemporary Mennonite debates.

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.

scholarly journals Making the States’ Translation (1637): Orthodox Calvinist Biblical Criticism in the Dutch Republic

2017 ◽  
Vol 110 (3) ◽  
pp. 440-463
Author(s):  
Dirk van Miert
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
Dutch Republic ◽  
Biblical Text ◽  
Biblical Criticism ◽  
New Science ◽  
The Past ◽  
Biblical Scholarship ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
History Of

In the study of the history of biblical scholarship, there has been a tendency among historians to emphasize biblical philology as a force which, together with the new philosophy and the new science of the seventeenth century, caused the erosion of universal scriptural authority from the mid-seventeenth century onwards. A case in point is Jonathan Israel's impressive account of how biblical criticism in the hands of Spinoza paved the way for the Enlightenment. Others who have argued for a post-Spinozist rise of biblical criticism include Frank Manuel, Adam Sutcliffe, and Travis Frampton. These scholars have built upon longer standing interpretations such as those of Hugh Trevor-Roper and Paul Hazard. However, scholars in the past two decades such as Anthony Grafton, Scott Mandelbrote and Jean-Louis Quantin have altered the picture of an exegetical revolution inaugurated by Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), Spinoza (1632–1677), and Richard Simon (1638–1712). These heterodox philosophers in fact relied on philological research that had been largely developed in the first half of the seventeenth century. Moreover, such research was carried out by scholars who had no subversive agenda. This is to say that the importance attached to a historical and philological approach to the biblical text had a cross-confessional appeal, not just a radical-political one.

Roman Catholic Biblical Scholarship in the Age of Confessions

2019 ◽  
pp. 194-217
Author(s):  
Nicholas Hardy
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Institutional Factors ◽  
Greek Version ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Biblical Criticism ◽  
Republic Of Letters ◽  
Biblical Scholarship

This chapter considers the confessional and institutional factors that shaped the development of biblical criticism in seventeenth-century Rome. It concentrates on the German convert and noted scholar of Greek manuscripts, Lucas Holstenius, and his efforts to encourage the study of the ancient Greek version of the Old Testament, the Septuagint. These efforts were variously helped and hindered by Holstenius’s patrons and the Roman ecclesiastical authorities, depending on the extent to which they suited their religio-political ambitions. The same ambitions also had a bearing on the genres, publication formats and other modes of dissemination which Roman scholars used for their research, driving them to adopt habits of anonymity, discretion and dissimulation which were out of keeping with the practices of other participants in the contemporary republic of letters, and which differentiated them from later generations of Catholic scholars who advanced their intellectual agenda more openly and aggressively.

Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Thomas H. McCall
Keyword(s):  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Appropriate Use ◽  
Theological Interpretation ◽  
Constructive Theology ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Scholarship ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Theological Discourse

Recent years have seen the flowering of something called the “theological interpretation of Scripture.” This is, very roughly, what happens when biblical scholars and theologians alike read the Bible to see what it tells us about God. For several centuries, the discipline of biblical studies has been not only distinguished but also separated from theological discourse. There have been many notable exceptions, of course, but the all-too-common results have been these: biblical scholars often interpret the texts with other aims in mind (sometimes reading with a theological lens has been discouraged as unscholarly and thus improper), and theologians often do their work of constructive theology without serious engagement with biblical scholarship or even with the Christian Scriptures. Recent years have also seen the rise (or perhaps re-birth) of something now called “analytic theology.” Analytic theology is, very roughly, what happens when philosophers who are interested in doctrine and theologians who think that there is (or might be) value in the appropriate use of philosophical tools get together. It is now a burgeoning movement, and analytic theologians are making contributions on a wide range of issues and topics, and from a variety of perspectives and approaches. We have not, however, witnessed a great deal of interaction between those who engage in the theological interpretation of Scripture and those who practice analytic theology....

Nature, Revelation, and Grace in Psalm 19: Towards a Theological Reading of Scripture

2015 ◽  
Vol 108 (3) ◽  
pp. 376-401 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin D. Sommer
Keyword(s):  
Near East ◽  
Ancient Near East ◽  
Biblical Criticism ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Scholarship

Does biblical criticism have anything to contribute to a theologically engaged study of Scripture? The answer implicitly provided by many scholars, both within the guild of modern biblical scholarship and outside it, is clear: The biblical critic's findings are irrelevant to constructive projects. These findings may be the product of intensive philological, comparative, and historical work, but they are no more connected to the tasks of the modern thinker than artifacts dug up by an archaeologist. Indeed (some theologically and literarily minded readers assume), biblical critics often produce work that impedes an interpreter who is oriented towards larger ideas. Those ideas, after all, emerge from textual wholes that are subtle, creative, and innovative, while biblical critics (these readers believe) have a penchant for dismembering texts or reducing them to hackneyed representatives of types of thinking or textual genres found elsewhere in the ancient Near East. As a result, not a few theologians and philosophers who attend to the Bible shun the work of biblical critics.

The Bible in the Political Fabric of the Dutch Republic, 1660–1710

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jetze Touber
Keyword(s):  
The Political ◽  
Dutch Republic ◽  
Biblical Criticism ◽  
The Public ◽  
Reformed Church ◽  
The Bible ◽  
God's Word ◽  
Ecclesiastical Administration ◽  
Unexpected Outcomes ◽  
Public Church

Chapter 4 investigates the repercussions of biblical philology, including Spinoza’s, within ecclesiastical administration locally and regionally. The Public Church warded off the effects of biblical criticism by keeping God’s Word in the safe enclosure of the States’ Translation and credal documents. Nevertheless, within the clergy itself, individuals broke ranks and threatened to undo the hermeneutical concord. A sequence of protracted conflicts at various levels of ecclesiastical administration indicates the tensions that continuously undermined the aspirations to harmony. Biblical philology was only indirectly at play in Utrecht in the 1650s and 1660s, but it was central in the anti-Coccejan campaign in Friesland in the 1680s. The Frisian campaign in turn provoked a response from the minister Frederik van Leenhof, who became progressively more Spinozist. Van Leenhof’s example shows how humanist biblical philology and Spinozist hermeneutics could come together in the heart of the Reformed Church, leading to unexpected outcomes.

God Speak

1998 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
MICHAEL LEVINE
Keyword(s):  
Essential Role ◽  
Divine Revelation ◽  
Biblical Criticism ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Scholarship ◽  
Discourse Interpretation

Nicholas Wolterstorff has recently defended the acceptability of the belief that God speaks and examined various implications of such a belief. This paper examines several of his major hermeneutical and epistemological thesis. Among the issues discussed are the following (i) I examine Wolterstorff's claim to ‘honour’ the results of biblical criticism, and argue that excavative biblical scholarship challenges the plausibility of various crucial assumptions necessary for believing authorial-discourse interpretation of the Bible to be possible. (ii) I dispute his peculiar view that God's speech should not be included under the rubric of divine revelation. (iii) Contrary to Wolterstorff I claim that miracles would have to play an essential role in divine discourse. (iv) I critically examine and reject his claim that – in the case he describes – ‘we are entitled’ to believe God is speaking.

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