The Bunyan Church Book, 1656-1702

长期以来，学者和约翰·班扬的传记作者都认为《贝德福德基督会众的行为记录》是研究他的生活和时代的重要文献，也是理解贝德福德会众作为17世纪不国教聚会的原则和实践的重要文献。这份手稿记录了17世纪晚期贝德福德教会的活动，记录了会议的几分钟和大量的信件，提供了关于班扬教会如何建立和组织，以及如何在迫害中幸存下来的重要信息。特别有价值的是抄录在里面的信件（连同那些最初签名的教会官员的名字，最著名的是班扬的名字），这些信件占了《教会书》从1656年（记录开始的时间）到1702年（班扬的继任者埃比尼泽·钱德勒担任牧师十年）期间内容的一半左右。然而，教会之书是一个容易被忽视的资源。尽管它很重要，但很少有研究关注它。例如，文学学者和历史学家大多没有注意到的是，教会的会众通信构成了丰富的迷人的材料，但在很大程度上尚未得到研究。这些信件——以及整个《教会书》——可能被认为是约翰·班扬未编辑的文学遗存中最重要的部分。部分问题在于可访问性。没有令人满意的“可读”或正确注释的教会书籍版本。原始手稿在贝德福德的班扬博物馆展出，只有两个版本被印刷出来：1928年印刷的小版复制品，以及贝德福德郡历史记录协会1976年出版的基本抄本。这两个版本都不是特别用户友好，或令人满意的当前编辑标准；这两本书目前都没有出版。本研究项目的目的是首次提供一个完整的注释学术版的《一本书包含了1656年至1702年在贝德福德的基督会众的行为记录》。在这段时间里，班扬一直担任会众的牧师，直到1688年去世。在复辟之前和复辟期间，以及光荣革命之后的几年里，贝德福德教会经历了重大危机。这项研究将把教会书牢牢地放在它的关键背景中：文学和书信，传记和历史，教义和教会。它将使文学学者和教会历史学家，以及学生和有见识的普通读者，接触到一种资源，这种资源“把我们带到了原始材料”的基础上，正如罗杰·沙罗克在《约翰·班扬杂文》的《总编辑序言》中所说，“我们在《天路历程》中呼吸到的英国清教主义精神”。《班扬教会书，1656-1702》将由牛津大学出版社出版，全世界的班扬学者、社会和教会历史学家、以及对17世纪清教主义和非一致性感兴趣的神学家都将阅读。它也适用于研究十七世纪历史，复辟和十八世纪文学的学生。这个版本也将呼吁学者在英国地方历史，并在班扬，不符合，或贝德福德郡的地方历史感兴趣的一般读者。因此，这个项目的目的是为未来研究班扬和17世纪的不一致性建立一个持久的、可访问的资源。然而，进一步的目标是通过为期一天的论文和阅读活动向公众开放，并与2012年在贝德福德的班扬博物馆出版的《班扬教会书》相一致，将教会书回归社区的根源，同时在博物馆举办“聚光灯”展览。

A Booke Containing a Record of the Acts of a Congregation of Christ in and about Bedford has long been recognised by scholars and biographers of John Bunyan as a key document in the study of his life and times, and for understanding too the Bedford congregation's principles and practices as a seventeenth-century Nonconformist gathering.Recording the Bedford congregation's activities during the late seventeenth-century, in minutes of meetings and in numerous letters, this manuscript provides essential information about how Bunyan's church was established and organized, and how it survived persecution. Especially valuable are the letters that have been copied into it (along with the names of those church officers who originally signed them, most notably Bunyan's) and which comprise around half of the Church Book's contents for the period from 1656 (when the record begins) to 1702 (when Ebenezer Chandler, Bunyan's successor, had served as pastor for a decade).The Church Book is, however, a much overlooked resource. Despite its significance, very little research has focused on it. Largely unnoticed by literary scholars and historians, for example, the church's congregational correspondence constitutes a wealth of fascinating but as yet largely unexamined material. These letters - and indeed the Church Book as a whole - might be considered the most significant of John Bunyan's unedited literary remains. Part of the problem has been accessibility. There is no satisfactorily 'readable' or properly annotated edition of the Church Book. The original manuscript is on display in the Bunyan Museum, Bedford, and only two versions have been seen into print: a small-run facsimile printed in 1928, and a barebones transcription published in 1976 by the Bedfordshire Historical Record Society. Neither version is particularly user-friendly, or satisfactory by current standards of editing; neither is currently in print.The purpose of this research project is to make available for the first time a fully annotated scholarly edition of A Booke Containing a Record of the Acts of a Congregation of Christ in and about Bedford, for the years 1656-1702. This period saw Bunyan serve as the congregation's pastor until his death in 1688, and it witnessed significant crises emerge for the Bedford church before and during the Restoration, and throughout the years immediately following the Glorious Revolution. This research will place the Church Book firmly within its key contexts: literary and epistolary, biographical and historical, doctrinal and ecclesiological. It will put literary scholars and ecclesiastical historians, as well as students and informed general readers, in touch with a resource that 'brings us up against the raw material' upon which is founded, as Roger Sharrock put it in his 'General Editor's Preface' to the Miscellaneous Works of John Bunyan, 'the spirit of English Puritanism which we breathe in The Pilgrim's Progress'.The Bunyan Church Book, 1656-1702 will be published by Oxford University Press and read world-wide by Bunyan scholars, social and ecclesiastical historians, and theologians with interests in seventeenth-century Puritanism and Nonconformity. It is intended for use too by students of seventeenth-century history and of Restoration and eighteenth-century literature. This edition will also appeal to scholars in English Local History, and to general readers with an interest either in Bunyan, Nonconformity, or Bedfordshire local history. The aim of this project is thus to establish a lasting, accessible resource for future research into Bunyan and seventeenth-century Nonconformity.A further aim, however, is to return the Church Book to its roots in the community, through a one-day event of papers and readings open the public and coinciding with the publication of the Bunyan Church Book in 2012, to be held atBunyan Museum, bedford, alongside a 'spotlight' exhibition on the Church Book at the Museum.