This book describes the later life of Joseph Scaliger (1540-1609), the most original scholar of the late Renaissance. It concentrates on his efforts to date the main events of ancient and medieval history, a study that required him to use both astronomical data and philological methods. Volume I of this study was published in 1983, and received wide critical attention.

The intellectual legacy of Andrew Melville (1545-1622) as a leader of the Renaissance and a promoter of humanism in Scotland has been obscured by "the Melville legend." In an effort to dispense with 'the Melville of popular imagination' and recover 'the Melville of history,' this work situates his life and thought within the broader context of the northern European Renaissance and French humanism and critically re-evaluates the primary historical documents of the period, namely James Melville's Autobiography and Diary and the Melvini epistolae. By considering Melville as a humanist, university reformer, ecclesiastical statesman, and man, an effort has been made to determine his contribution to the flowering of the Renaissance and the growth of humanism in Scotland during the early modern period.

For much of the history of both Judaism and Christianity, the Pentateuch—first five books of the Bible—was understood to be the unified work of a single inspired author: Moses. Yet the standard view in modern biblical scholarship contends that the Pentateuch is a composite text made up of fragments from diverse and even discrepant sources that originated centuries after the events it purports to describe. In Murmuring against Moses, John Bergsma and Jeffrey Morrow provide a critical narrative of the emergence of modern Pentateuchal studies and challenge the scholarly consensus by highlighting the weaknesses of the modern paradigms and mustering an array of new evidence for the Pentateuch’s antiquity. By shedding light on the past history of research and the present developments in the field, Bergsma and Morrow give fresh voice to a growing scholarly dissatisfaction with standard critical approaches and make an important contribution toward charting a more promising future for Pentateuchal studies.

According to conventional wisdom, by the late 1800s, the image of Bible as a supernatural and infallible text crumbled in the eyes of intellectuals under the assaults of secularizing forces. This book corrects the narrative by arguing that in America, the road to skepticism had already been paved by the Scriptures' most able and ardent defenders.

Biblical scholars by and large remain unaware of the history of their own discipline. This present volume seeks to remedy that situation by exploring the early history of modern biblical criticism in the seventeenth century prior to the time of the Enlightenment when the birth of modern biblical criticism is usually dated. After surveying the earlier medieval origins of modern biblical criticism, the essays in this book focus on the more skeptical works of Isaac La Peyrere, Thomas Hobbes, and Baruch Spinoza, whose biblical interpretation laid the foundation for what would emerge in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as modern biblical criticism.

This study deals with Latin texts from the twelfth to the fifteenth century that discuss the emendation of the Latin Bible. After consideration of the medieval terminology for different versions of the Bible, it offers an overview of the transmission of the Latin Bible in the Middle Ages and its medieval editions. A survey of the cult of Jerome precedes an investigation of statements by textual critics about the status of the Vulgate and other versions of the Bible. The main body of the work is dedicated to the authors’ views of the textual tradition by examining their statements on the status of Hebrew, Greek and Latin manuscripts for the emendation of the Latin Bible. Finally, this study explores the struggle between consuetudo and veritas and the role of grammar in the emendation of the Latin Bible.

Distinguished scholars discuss editorial theory and how it is applied across the humanities

In Johann Jakob Wettstein's Principles for New Testament Textual Criticism Silvia Castelli investigates the genesis, development, and legacy of Wettstein’s criteria for evaluating New Testament variant readings, and offers a critical text and annotated English translation of Wettstein’s text-critical guidelines.

Across early-modern Europe the confessional struggles of the Reformation touched virtually every aspect of civic life; and nowhere was this more apparent than in the universities, the seedbed of political and ecclesiastical society. Focussing on events in Scotland, this book reveals how established universities found themselves at the centre of a struggle by competing forces trying to promote their own political, religious or educational beliefs, and under competition from new institutions. It surveys the transformation of Scotland's medieval and Catholic university system into a greatly-expanded Protestant one in the decades following the Scottish Reformation of 1560. Simultaneously the study assesses the contribution of the continentally-educated religious reformer Andrew Melville to this process in the context of broader European social and cultural developments - including growing lay interest in education (as a result of renaissance humanism), and the involvement of royal and civic government as well as the new Protestant Kirk in university expansion and reform. Through systematic use of largely neglected manuscript sources, the book offers fresh perspectives on both Andrew Melville and the development of Scottish higher education post-1560. As well as providing a detailed picture of events in Scotland, it contributes to our growing understanding of the role played by higher education in shaping society across Europe.

Campegius Vitringa (1659–1722) of Franeker University was a biblical scholar of considerable influence for the first half of the 18th century. Similar to that of Calvin, his exegetical methodology attempts to walk a via media between the historicism of Grotius (1583-1645) and the Christocentrism of Cocceius (1603–1669). His magnum opus was a widely-acclaimed commentary on Isaiah (1720). Vitringa scholars have charted his influence along a historical-critical trajectory (including Schultens, Venema, Alberti, Manger, Delitzsch, and Gesenius) and along a Pietistic trajectory (including Franke, Lange, and Bengel, leading toward Lessing, Herder and German Idealism). The book includes the first biography in English and compares his hermeneneutical theoria with his praxis. It analyzes Vitringa's exegetical presuppositions, his remarkably high view of the Bible, and his canones hermeneuticos (highly valued by J.J. Rambach [1693–1735]). It shows Vitringa's contextual sensitivity at every level of exegesis, commitment to New Testament normativity in the reading of Isaiah (in which redemptive history is the ultimate hermeneutical horizon), nuanced views on the historical fulfillment of prophecy, and concern for pastoral application. A scholar's scholar, widely admired for his mastery of the languages and his intense historical focus in exegesis, Vitringa was also appreciated for his orthodox views, warm-hearted piety, and love for the church.