Lay Learning and the Bible in the Seventeenth-Century Atlantic World

Early modernity has long been seen as a crucial period in the history of biblical scholarship, witnessing rapid advances in studies of Hebrew, Greek, and the ancient Jewish and Christian past. Historians have devoted much attention to how these developments were received by the academic and clerical elite, and yet there is little research on their reception beyond such exclusive circles. Some have even argued that ordinary believers had no interest in the demanding world of elite scholarship. According to current narratives, the Protestant laity were preoccupied by practical piety, scripture-reading, and devotional exercises, all of which were far removed from the dazzling polyglot erudition of the scholar.

Lay Learning and the Bible in the Seventeenth-Century Atlantic World offers an alternative account of popular religion in early modernity by reconstructing a striking and unstudied community of seventeenth-century puritan immigrants to North America. Composed of tradespeople without a university education, this community offers unparalleled evidence for lay engagement with even the most abstruse and challenging concerns of contemporaneous biblical scholarship. Drawing on whatever resources they could find, this group taught themselves the languages of biblical criticism; immersed themselves in the most specialized questions of controversial theology; and then promulgated, through their hard-earned learning, an unprecedentedly inclusive vision of education, society, and the church. By recovering their lives and interests, this book presents a new vision of lay puritanism in the Atlantic world, one marked by far greater ambition, critical thought, and intellectual boldness than ever before suspected.

Kirsten Macfarlane, Associate Professor of Early Modernities, University of Chicago

Kirsten Macfarlane is Associate Professor of Early Modernities at the University of Chicago Divinity School. Her interests span early modern Europe and North America, lying at the intersection of religious, cultural, and intellectual history. She was previously an associate professor at the University of Oxford, where she also received her BA, MSt, and DPhil. Her research has been supported by fellowships from Trinity College, Cambridge; the Houghton Library; the Massachusetts Historical Society; the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies; the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study; KU Leuven; and Lund University.