| dc.description.abstract | Much of scholarship on Early Modern England widely acknowledges the central importance of the Bible for understanding the period while also noting that it has often been neglected by scholars. This work situates itself within this dearth of scholarship on biblical interpretation during the period through examining the ways in which the biblical story and figure of Noah was interpreted in seventeenth and eighteenth–century England. Chapter two examines the importance of Jewish readings of Noah on seventeenth–century concerns over religious toleration for both Jews and religious dissenters. Chapter three shows the wide use of allegorical interpretation of the Bible amongst English Protestants as a means to illustrate their theological commitments. Chapter four narrates wide ranging debates over the prohibition against blood given to Noah in Gen. 9:4 and other such prohibitions in Leviticus and Acts 15:20, 29. These seemingly esoteric debates over the moral standing of consuming blood widely animated writers during the period because at its core were questions over how the Old Testament related to the New Testament. Chapter five outlines the different ways in which the Curse of Ham, Gen. 9:19–27, was understood during the period. The chapter shows that writers during the period were largely concerned with explaining what was the sin of Ham, why Canaan was curse, and what the curse entailed. Readings of the curse along racial and pro–slavery lines, which has dominated scholarship on the topic, was a present, but minority reading during the period. Chapter six argues that within the eighteenth–century interpretations of Noah followed similar patterns to the previous century; there was no noticeable narrative of decline. The conclusion argues that this exploration of the story and figure of Noah evidences broader trends about how English Protestants read the Bible during the period: they read the Bible with reference to the voice of past and present traditions, as a means to illustrate and defend the doctrines and ethics of the church, and as old account of the past that nevertheless impacted and shaped present concerns. | |
