American Scriptures: Transformations of Scriptural Authority and the Canon in Eighteenth-and Nineteenth-Century American Protestantism

基于两个案例研究，本项目探讨了早期美国（主要是改革宗）新教的基本张力：一方面，它的特点是强烈的圣经虔诚与内部规范形式的注释，肯定了公认的圣经的权威。另一方面，已经在1700年左右，有强烈的唯心主义倾向，不仅强调了一个精神充满注释的必要性，但也暗示了直接照明和新的启示的可能性。从这些倾向中产生了“targumizing”的解释实践，推动了正典的边界。在19世纪，新的宗教运动发展，然后公开声称是扩大和完成圣经。因此，整个项目的重点是解释和挪用现有的神圣化文本和新文本的生产之间的相互关系。第一个案例研究探讨了两个十八世纪的新英格兰神学家，棉花马瑟（1693年至1728年）和乔纳森爱德华兹（1703年至1758年），谁是清教主义和早期福音派之间的过渡时期。两者都表现出一个更“科学”的训诂学和深化的精神化的同时趋势，后者被告知神秘的深奥的传统。这个子项目的目标是更好地理解马瑟和爱德华兹在理性主义、学术性和内在规范解释学和“热情”的奉献创造力这两个两极之间航行的方式。特别令人感兴趣的是，在解释《启示录》和关于圣灵恩赐的末世恢复的辩论中，注释是如何渗入预言话语的。第二个案例研究着眼于“启发”奠定exegetes和自称先知的背景下，瑞典，唯心主义，先验论在19世纪，如安德鲁杰克逊戴维斯（1826年至1910年），阿莫斯布朗森奥尔科特（1799年至1888年），和科拉哈奇（1840年至1923年）。在不同的方式，他们的文本都结合了联合收割机与预言，有远见的索赔圣经的灵性解释。该子项目旨在研究这些文本如何准确地理解它们与正典圣经和基督教的关系，据称它们揭示了更深层次的“精神”意义。这些人物是如何将启示和灵感概念化的？他们把什么样的权威归于斯韦登堡和他的著作？将特别注意这些新的宗教运动将特定著作神圣化的做法和过程。

Based on two case studies, this project examines a basic tension in early American (primarily Reformed) Protestantism: On the one hand, it was characterized by an intense biblical piety with inner-canonical forms of exegesis that affirmed the authority of the recognized Holy Scriptures. On the other hand, already around 1700, there were strongly spiritualistic tendencies that not only emphasized the necessity of a Spirit-filled exegesis, but also implied the possibility of immediate illumination and new revelations. From these tendencies grew “targumizing” practices of interpretation that pushed across the boundaries of the canon. During the 19th century, new religious movements developed that then openly claimed to be expanding and completing the Bible. The project as a whole thus focuses on the reciprocities between interpreting and appropriating existing sacralized texts and the production of new ones. The first case study examines two eighteenth-century New England theologians, Cotton Mather (1693-1728) und Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758), who are situated in the transitional period between Puritanism and early evangelicalism. Both exhibit a simultaneous trend toward a more “scientific” exegesis and toward its deepened spirtualization, with the latter being informed by mystical-esoteric traditions. The goal of this sub-project is to better understand the ways in which Mather and Edwards were navigating between these two poles of a rationalistic, academic and inner-canonical hermeneutic and an “enthusiastic” devotional creativity. Of particular interest is how exegesis bleeds into prophetic discourse in interpreting Revelation and the debates over an eschatological restitution of the gifts of the Spirit. The second case study looks at “inspired” lay exegetes and self-declared prophets in the context of Swedenborgianism, Spiritualism, and Transcendentalism during the 19th century, such as Andrew Jackson Davis (1826-1910), Amos Bronson Alcott (1799-1888), and Cora Hatch (1840-1923). In different ways, their texts all combine spiritualistic interpretations of Scripture with prophetic-visionary claims. The subproject aims to examine how exactly these texts understood their relation to the canonical Bible and Christianity, whose deeper “spiritual” meaning they were purportedly revealing. How did these figures conceptualize revelation and inspiration? And what kind of authority did they ascribe to Swedenborg and his writings? Special attention will be paid to the practices and processes through which these new religious movements were sacralizing particular writings.