Biblia Americana

Scheduled to appear in 10 volumes, the scholarly edition of Cotton Mather's Biblia Americana (1693-1728) makes available for the first time the oldest comprehensive commentary on the Bible composed in British North America. Combining encyclopaedic discussions of biblical scholarship with scientific speculations and pietistic concerns, the Biblia represents one of the most significant untapped sources in American religious and intellectual history. Mather's commentary not only reflects the growing influence of Enlightenment thought (Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, and Newton) and the rise of the transatlantic evangelical awakening; it also marks the beginnings of historical criticism of the Bible as text in New England. The third volume of the Biblia Americana contains some 1250 of Mather's "illustrations," as he called them, on the books of Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles. It follows volumes presenting Mather's extensive commentaries on Genesis (vol. 1) and on Exodus through Deuteronomy (vol. 2, will be published in 2016), both edited by Reiner Smolinski. These entries reveal Mather as a sacred historian, marshaling an array of approaches and disciplines to illuminate and defend the Scripture accounts. He revisits certain themes throughout such as idols and idolatry, parallels between the Hebrew Bible and the history and mythology of "pagan" cultures, and typological significations of events and characters. Other topics warranted sustained attention in a long entry or a series of entries, such as accounts of when the sun stood still, human sacrifice, as instanced in Jephthah's vow, the building, running, and destruction of Solomon's Temple, the nature of prophecy, the dispersion of the Israelites in captivity, and the timing of their eventual return.