This volume of essays is the first to embrace both orthodox and heterodox treatments of scripture in early modern England, and in the process to question, challenge and redefine what historians mean when they use these terms. The collection dispels the myth that a critical engagement with sacred texts was the preserve of radical figures: anti-scripturists, Quakers, Deists and freethinkers. While the work of these people was significant, it formed only part of a far broader debate incorporating figures from across the theological spectrum engaging in a shared discourse.

Ariel Hessayon is Lecturer in Early Modern History at Goldsmiths College, University of London, UK. Nicholas Keene is Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at Royal Holloway, University of London, UK.

Contents: Notes on contributors; Introduction, Ariel Hessayon and Nicholas Keene; Og king of Bashan, Enoch and the Books of Enoch: extra-canonical texts and interpretations of Genesis 6:1-4, Ariel Hessayon; The Genesis narrative in the circle of Robert Hooke and Francis Lodwick, William Poole; Moral tales at the hearth: Jephthah's daughter in the 17th century, Nicholas Cranfield; English scholarship and the Greek text of the Old Testament, 1620-1720: the impact of Codex Alexandrinus, Scott Mandelbrote; 'A two-edged sword': biblical criticism and the New Testament Canon in early modern England, Nicholas Keene; 'To us there is but one God, the Father': antitrinitarian textual criticism in 17th- and early 18th-century England, Stephen D. Snobelen; Friendly criticism: Richard Simon, John Locke, Isaac Newton and the Johannine Comma, Rob Iliffe; Thomas Beverley and the 'Late Great Revolution': English apocalyptic expectation in the late 17th century, Warren Johnston; The ghost in the marble: Jeremy Taylor's Liberty of Prophesying (1647) and its readers, Nicholas McDowell; Iconisms, enthusiasm and Origen: Henry More reads the Bible, Sarah Hutton; 'Directions for the profitable reading of the Holy Scriptures': biblical criticism, clerical learning and lay readers, c 1650-1720, Justin Champion; 'I resolved to give an account of most of the persons mentioned in the Bible': Pierre Bayle and the prophet David in English biblical culture, Alex Barber; Afterword: the Word became flawed, John Morrill; Index.