The Authority of the Bible and the Rise of the Modern World

Preface......Page 4
Foreword by James Barr......Page 5
Abbreviations......Page 6
Introduction  The Task......Page 7
Part I  Preparatory Developments......Page 10
(a) The problem of the Renaissance and Humanism......Page 11
(b) Late mediaeval Spiritualism......Page 18
(c) John Wyclif......Page 20
2. Erasmus......Page 24
3. The ‘Left Wing of the Reformation’......Page 29
4. Martin Bucer......Page 38
Part II The Crisis over the Authority of the Bible in England......Page 46
1. The Age of the Puritans......Page 47
(a) Problems for research......Page 48
(b) The history of the Puritan struggles......Page 52
(c) The understanding of the Bible among Puritans and Conformists down to the beginning of the seventeenth century......Page 55
(d) The century of transition......Page 75
2. Lord Herbert of Cherbury: his Epistemology and Philosophy of Religion......Page 95
3. Thomas Hobbes: the Philosophical Presuppositions of his Biblical Criticism......Page 99
(a) Preachers and theological writers from the Restoration to the Glorious Revolution (1660-l 689)......Page 114
(b) John Locke......Page 124
Part III The Climax of Biblical Criticism in English Deism......Page 145
1. The Beginning of the Deistic Debate......Page 146
(a) Charles Blounf......Page 148
(b) John Toland......Page 150
(c) Shaffesbury......Page 157
(d) Matthew Tindal, The Rights of the Christian Church Asserted......Page 163
(e) Party politics and the authority of the Bible at the beginning of the eighteenth century......Page 166
(a) Isaac Newton and his. school......Page 169
(b) Rationalist apologetics: Samuel Clarke and Joseph Butler......Page 172
(c) At the opposite pole: Jonathan Swift......Page 178
(a) Anthony Collins......Page 181
(b) William Lyons......Page 184
(c) Anthony Collins and the Whiston Debate......Page 185
(d) Woolston and Annet......Page 187
(e) Tindal, Christianity as Old as the Creation......Page 191
(a) Thomas Chubb......Page 196
(b) Thomas Morgan......Page 202
(c) Anti-deistic apologetic......Page 207
Conclusion......Page 208
Notes......Page 211
Index......Page 317