Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Editorial note
- INTRODUCTORY ESSAY
- 1 Discourse of the Grounds and Reasons of the Christian Religion (1724), Chapters I, IV, V, VIII (less paragraph 4), IX, X (extracted), XI
- 2 Discourses on the Use and Intent of Prophecy (1726), Discourses II and III
- 3 Lectures on the Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews (1753, translated from Latin into English by Richard Gregory in 1787), Lectures IV (extracted), V (less the first and last paragraphs), XIV, XVII (less the first two paragraphs and the second half of the lecture, viz. pp. 377–387 of the 1787 edition), XIX
- 4 The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790), ‘A Memorable Fancy’
- 5 Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit (1825), Letters V, VI, VII
- 6 On the Right Interpretation and Understanding of the Scriptures (1829) (ending at page xl of the 1874 edition)
- 7 On the Interpretation of Scripture from Essays and Reviews (1860), Section 3
- 8 Literature and Dogma (1873), Chapters IV–VI
- Notes
- Select booklist
7 - On the Interpretation of Scripture from Essays and Reviews (1860), Section 3
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 May 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Editorial note
- INTRODUCTORY ESSAY
- 1 Discourse of the Grounds and Reasons of the Christian Religion (1724), Chapters I, IV, V, VIII (less paragraph 4), IX, X (extracted), XI
- 2 Discourses on the Use and Intent of Prophecy (1726), Discourses II and III
- 3 Lectures on the Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews (1753, translated from Latin into English by Richard Gregory in 1787), Lectures IV (extracted), V (less the first and last paragraphs), XIV, XVII (less the first two paragraphs and the second half of the lecture, viz. pp. 377–387 of the 1787 edition), XIX
- 4 The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790), ‘A Memorable Fancy’
- 5 Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit (1825), Letters V, VI, VII
- 6 On the Right Interpretation and Understanding of the Scriptures (1829) (ending at page xl of the 1874 edition)
- 7 On the Interpretation of Scripture from Essays and Reviews (1860), Section 3
- 8 Literature and Dogma (1873), Chapters IV–VI
- Notes
- Select booklist
Summary
The aftermath of Essays and Reviews is a famous story (well told by Owen Chadwick in his The Victorian Church, 1972, vol. II, pp. 75–90) of muddled persecution. All that it made clear was that biblical criticism was neither a safe nor an honoured pursuit for clergymen. But before the book came out its contributors were known and suspect to the orthodox. Publication exposed them as a target.
Jowett had been in hot water five years before. In his commentary on Romans he had included an essay on the doctrine of atonement. He attacked the version of it, as morally objectionable as it was fraught with psychological melodrama, in which Christ's death was seen as a substitutionary propitiation of God's anger against sinful humanity. He was denounced to the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford and summoned to his study to re-subscribe to the Thirty-nine Articles. It was a ludicrous episode. But the indignity of it hurt him – as a Christian believer and as an eminent don who had just missed the Mastership of his college, Balliol. Also, his appointment as Professor of Greek in the preceding year (1854) had set off a tangled and humiliating train of events. Pusey, mingling decency with vindictiveness, attempted to get Jowett paid a proper salary so long as this could be dissociated from any apparent endorsement by the authorities of Jowett's views. That conundrum was not solved until 1865.
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- Information
- Critics of the Bible, 1724–1873 , pp. 137 - 151Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1989