Review, Biblia Americana, RBL Review of Biblical Literature

RBL 06/2012 Mather, Cotton; Reiner Smolinski, ed. Biblia Americana, Volume 1: Genesis Grand Rapids: Baker, 2010. Pp. 1400. Hardcover. $250.00. ISBN 9780801039003. Mark Elliott University of St .Andrews St. Andrews, Fife, Scotland, United Kingdom From 1693 until 1728 (although he said he had finished it in 1706; from then on it was about adding more illustrations [19]) Cotton Mather wrote his whole-Bible commentary Biblia Americana. It is the task of the editor Reiner Smolinski and a team to make available with notes the 4,500 unpublished folio pages covering the whole Bible. Mather’s commentary itself was full of discussions of contemporary scholarship as well as “advice for practical piety.” The editor’s introduction to volume 1 (Genesis) gives an account of the whole project. Constructive engagement with the radical critics, and natural philosophy, not least as a response to his friend Robert Boyle (Mather was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1713) characterize the commentary. The “encyclopedic” task of the commentary in including so much information about the world showed a kinship to the encyclopedias of Bayle and Alsted. It was a “one-stop shop where educated readers could interface with Pagan antiquity, Newtonian science, and Old-Time religion” (6). Mather was a Renaissance man of Enlightenment stamp, one who kept a self-mortifying diary (there is a great footnote on p. 10 that shows how Franklin misunderstood Jonathan Edwards on “pride and humility”). Mather lent support to the Salem trials of the 1690s but opposed the admission of evidence that accused others through revelations made by demons This review was published by RBL 2012 by the Society of Biblical Literature. For more information on obtaining a subscription to RBL, please visit http://www.bookreviews.org/subscribe.asp. themselves. Mention is made of his Magnalia Christi Americana (1720), a history of New England in the previous century, a project that ran concurrently with the Biblia Americana. Descartes was preferred to Aristotle, and modern views co-existed with a belief in Christ’s imminent return, itself a judgment on the “fallible project” that was New England. The Biblia Americana afforded summaries of “critical debates,” yet these were not simply about the Bible times. Mather was a good friend of Robert Wodrow (History of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland, 1721—a work that likewise looked backward across a century.) The story of successive rejections of the commentary by publishers back in the Old World is depressing stuff. The key word is “illustration”—this is how more light would increasingly grow—as illustrations of the scripture were to be found in the world’s learning. “All done with a most Religious & Inviolate and Perpetual Regard unto the Principles of Religion, which are the Life of the Reformed Churches.” Even given that this was a more prolix age, one has a certain sympathy on reading his advertisement for the work for publishers and reluctant subscribers. In comparison with Walton’s Polyglot, “no such illustrious promoters were at hand for Mather’s Biblia Americana” (40). Smolinski gives his explanation of why the work was never published: “the competition from rivalling Bible commentaries by leading divines, whose works were published and republished in Mather’s lifetimes” (49). He leads us through the stages of the work’s composition: some of these pages are admittedly “for fans only.” The question-andanswer method allowed the commentary to be “conversational.” “Erudition not originality was in vogue” (61) The family library had swollen to touching eight thousand books, and much of it contributed to the commentary. The learned William Whiston’s Old Testament chronology (1702), informed by European scholarship, had replaced or corrected that of Ussher from the previous century. Essential were the Geographica Sacra of Samuel Bochart (1646) and a huge array of “modern theologians,” among whom the Swiss Reformed theologian and Hebraist Johann Heinrich Heidegger (1633–1698) deserves to be singled out, a Cocceian who composed the Formula Consensus Helvetica and more significantly wrote De Historia Sacra Patriarcharum (1671), “a study of Rashi’s Aboth and of his commentary on the Pentateuch by the renowned philosopher Rabbi Shlomo Yitzcaki (1040–1105)” (73). “Mather appears to be the first descendant of European colonists to designate himself an ‘American’ ” (75). He rejected the “Ham’s curse” theory of racial origins and respected “Native Americans.” Section 2 is Biblia Americana “in the context of Early Enlightenment Science.” Whiston had argued that Gen 1 was about the making of sublunary creation only. It is rewarding to see a biblical commentator working with the status questionis of contemporary science. Whiston did not think, as Newton did, that God could on rare occasions accelerate This review was published by RBL 2012 by the Society of Biblical Literature. For more information on obtaining a subscription to RBL, please visit http://www.bookreviews.org/subscribe.asp. processes: it was better to see the “days” as not having a literal sense. Newton had already admitted that “seven days” was perhaps how it would have appeared to an eyewitness on earth, had there been any. But Mather could not follow Whiston’s arguments all the way to his deistic conclusions. Gravity for Mather was proof of God’s literally keeping all things together at all times. He strenuously tried to see how the books of Scripture and nature could agree. The work of Leclerc of Geneva around 1700 denied the miraculous in the Bible and would explain that at Babel they did not all start speaking new languages but just fell out with each other (as even Vitringa suggested). Leclerc argued that Moses knew the Red Sea tidal forces: yes, but God acted on secondary causes to make it happen (108); perhaps Leclerc was right, thought Mather, making quite a concession. A third section about Mather as theologian, exegete, controversialist and his work in general follows. Scriptural authority and verbal inspiration had been under attack. Mather was careful not to mention these radical critics yet at the same time counseled that no damage would ensue were one to suppose that Moses himself did not write Num 12:3, where his own character is described as “meek,” although self-praise was not uncommon in the ancient world. There are very good summaries of debates, and Mather, while troubled by his notorious denial of inspiration nevertheless liked Leclerc’s solution, where the latter argued that Moses’ original had not undergone much change in those who published it, leaving its rough edges. Mather dealt with Spinoza more harshly: he did not read the Bible closely enough and missed that Ezekiel prophesied that Zedekiah would not see Babylon, having been blinded. The Sentiments anonymously produced by Leclerc showed enough problems of inconsistencies (e.g., Exodus and Deuteronomy’s “two Decalogues”) to discount “verbal inspiration.” Mather’s “agile mind” was “open” to all this criticism. Signs of holy madness suggested that prophets were possessed and not just inventing their revelations. All this is told in perhaps too leisurely a fashion. There are places where large excerpts are paraphrased—from parts of the commentary not yet published. His Reformed Augustinianism resisted Locke’s confidence in reason, the rejection of Westminster’s “original sin” with his universalism and insistence that historical and justifying faith are one and the same. Mather in his The Everlasting Gospel (1700) insisted that a infusion of grace was required for justifying faith. Mather is evidence that the divide between Bible and natural philosophy had not yet quite taken place or even that such a thing was inevitable. There then follows a wonderfully rich bibliography, followed by a section comprising notes on the text and editorial principles. Then there is a chronology of the Bible, Old and New Testaments, and about ten pages of comment from Mather on that, and then we are at last (on p. 302 of the book) into the commentary on Genesis. Even before reading the commentary, one is amazed by the scholarly achievement here. This review was published by RBL 2012 by the Society of Biblical Literature. For more information on obtaining a subscription to RBL, please visit http://www.bookreviews.org/subscribe.asp. Here is a taste of the wit and the confidence that the world of Scripture was the real world. On page 623 on Gen 6: Q. “You are not insensible. That some little, flashy, silly Pretenders to Witt, endeavour, to Ridicule the Account of Noahs Ark, as if it were a Fabulous Connivance? v.22 A. One saies well; They betray their Ignorance in Naval Philosophy; That nothing improbable is asserted in the Scripture concerning the Capacity, or Manageableness of that Ship, ha’s been confirmed, from an Experiment, which a celebrated Historian ha’s recorded. Tis in Hornius’s Arca Noe. Peter Janslan ordered a Ship to be built, according to the Proportion of Noah’s Ark. At first the Contrivance was entertained with Laughter and Contempt, by the Seamen, who supposed it to be a ridiculous Business. But afterwards it was found to be most convenient for a Merchant-man in a Time of Peace, as being a swift Sailor, and managed with fewer Hands than other Ships. But the Inconvenience was, it did not carry great Guns; and in that Respect, it had a greater Resemblance to Noah’s Ark, which was not intended for a Man of War.” This review was published by RBL 2012 by the Society of Biblical Literature. For more information on obtaining a subscription to RBL, please visit http://www.bookreviews.org/subscribe.asp.