Abstract
The volume presents the illuminating research carried out by international scholars of Locke’s thought and the early modern period in general. The essays address the theoretical and historical contexts of Locke’s analytical methodology and come together in a multidisciplinary approach that sets biblical hermeneutics in relation to his philosophical, historical, and political thought, and to the philological and doctrinal culture of his time. Centring on the last decade of Locke’s life and the publication of his posthumous works, these studies illustrate the influence that his interpretation of the Bible and the Christian tradition had on eighteenth-century thinkers and controversialists. The contextualization of Locke’s biblical hermeneutics within the contemporary reading of the Bible contributes to the analysis of the figure of Christ and the role of Paul’s theology in political and religious thought from the seventeenth century to the Enlightenment. The volume sheds light on how Locke was appreciated by his contemporaries as a biblical interpreter and exegete. It also offers a reconsideration that overarches interpretations confined within specific disciplinary ambits and his own intellectual biography to address Locke’s thought in a global historic context.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
- 2.
The question had already been emphasised and restated in the early 1930s by Fred G. Bratton. See Bratton 1931. Among the numerous important publications on the diffusion of the Bible in the early modern period, see Dupuigrenet Desroussilles et al. 1991; Pelikan 1996; Schwarzbach 1999; Fragnito 2007.
- 3.
Jeanneret 2006, 13: ‘Assujetti à l’exigence de fidélité, le traducteur, en principe, s’efface. Le commentateur, quant à lui, prend soin de distinguer ce qui appartient à l’original et ce qui relève d’apports ultérieurs; il ne confond pas non plus les niveaux de sens: le littéral et le figuré, la signification patente et les valeurs latentes. Moins contraint, le paraphraste n’est pas lié à un protocole précis; il n’éprouve pas l’autorité absolue de l’Ecriture comme une servitude, mais y puise au contraire un élan qui stimule et propulse sa recherche.’
- 4.
On Spinoza and Locke vis-à-vis the eighteenth-century concept of toleration, see Israel 2000.
- 5.
In addition to the scholars who have contributed to this book and who have devoted important studies to this aspect of Locke’s thought, see in particular the essays by Higgins-Biddle, Sina, Rogers, Giuntini, Lascano, Corbett, and especially Chapter 5, in the John Locke Bibliography website, constantly updated by John C. Attig: https://www99.libraries.psu.edu/tas/locke/bib/ch5.html
References
Attig, John C. (ed.). John Locke Bibliography. https://www99.libraries.psu.edu/tas/locke/bib/ch5.html
Bratton, Fred G. 1931. Precursors of biblical criticism. Journal of Biblical Literature 50: 176–185.
Corbett, Ross J. 2012. Locke’s biblical critique. The Review of Politics 74: 27–51.
De Jonge, Henk Jan. 1988. Strong, coherent reasonings: John Locke’s interpretatie van Paulus’ Brieven. Leiden: Brill.
Dupuigrenet Desroussilles François, et al. 1991. Dieu en son royaume:La Bible dans la France d’autrefois. XVIIIe – XVIIIe siècle. Paris: Bibliothèque nationale de France et les Éditions du Cerf.
Fragnito, Gigliola. 2007. Per una geografia delle traduzioni bibliche nell’Europa cattolica (sedicesimo e diciasettesimo secolo). In Papes, princes et savants dans l’Europe moderne: Mélanges à la mémoire de Bruno Neveu, ed. Jean-Louis Quantin and Jean-Claude Waquet, 51–77. Gèneve: Droz.
Glass, Solomon. 1705. Philologia sacra, qua totius SS. Veteris et Novi Testamenti Scripturae tum stylus et literatura, tum sensus et genuinae interpretationis ratio et doctrina libris quinque expenditur ac traditur, ed. Johann Gottfried Olearius. Leipzig: Johann Friedrich Gleditsch.
Israel, Jonathan. 2000. Spinoza, Locke and the Enlightenment battle for toleration. In Toleration in Enlightenment Europe, ed. Ole Peter Grell and Roy Porter, 103–113. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Jeanneret, Michel. 2006. Introduction. In Les paraphrases bibliques aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles: Actes du Colloque de Bordeaux des 22–24 septembre 2004, ed. Véronique Ferrer et Anne Mantero, 11–15. Genève: Droz.
Locke, John. 1976–1989. The correspondence, ed. E. S. de Beer, 8 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Locke, John. 1987. A paraphrase and notes on the Epistles of St Paul to the Galatians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Romans, Ephesians, ed. Arthur W. Wainwright, 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Numao, J. K. 2010. Reconciling human freedom and sin: A note on Locke’s Paraphrase. Locke Studies 10: 95–112.
Pelikan, Jaroslav. 1996. The Reformation of the Bible: The Bible of the Reformation, with contributions by Valerie R. Hotchkiss and David Price. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Santayana, George. 1933. Some turns of thought in modern philosophy: Five essays. New York: Charles Scribner’s sons.
Schwarzbach, Bertram Eugene (ed.). 1999. La Bible imprimée dans l’Europe moderne. Paris: Bibliothèque nationale de France.
Sell, Alan P. F. 2006 [1997]. John Locke and the eighteenth-century divines. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers.
Simonutti, Luisa. 2009. Les réformes. In Histoire de la philosophie, ed. Jean-François Pradeau, 271–289. Paris: Seuil.
Simonutti Luisa. 2014. Deism, biblical hermeneutics and philology. In Atheism and deism revalued: Heterodox religious identities in Britain, 1650–1800, ed. Wayne Hudson, Diego Lucci and Jeffrey R. Wigelsworth, 45–62. Farnham: Ashgate.
Tetlow, Joanne. 2009. John Locke’s covenant theology. Locke studies 9: 167–199.
Van Miert, Dirk, and Henk Nellen, Piet Steenbakkers, Jetze Touber (eds). 2017. Scriptural authority and biblical criticism in the Dutch Golden Age: God’s word questioned. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Yolton, Jean S. (ed.). 2000. John Locke as translator: three of the ‘Essais’ of Pierre Nicole in French and English. Oxford: Voltaire Foundation.
Acknowledgements
I should like to express my heartfelt thanks to the distinguished contributors to the volume and to Sarah Hutton, editor of the International Archives of the History of Ideas series, for her extraordinarily intellectual support and generous friendship. I would also like to thank the anonymous referees for their most helpful suggestions and the Springer publishing staff. Thanks also to Aelmuire Helen Cleary for her invaluable editorial assistance.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Simonutti, L. (2019). Introduction. In: Simonutti, L. (eds) Locke and Biblical Hermeneutics. International Archives of the History of Ideas Archives internationales d'histoire des idées, vol 226. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19903-6_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19903-6_1
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-19901-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-19903-6
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)