The Authority of the Old Testament in Enlightenment Britain

My project examines the influence of the Old Testament on the politics, theology and culture of Britain in the long eighteenth century. It intends to contribute to a scholarly reassessment of the role and place of religion in the enlightenment period by studying the reception history of the Bible - a relatively under-explored aspect of eighteenth-century life. Taking the Old Testament figures of Moses and David as my case studies, I study the ways that these characters were read, taught and invoked in sermons, commentaries, tracts, political writings and artistic works, in order to understand the extent and nature of the Old Testament's authority in various spheres of eighteenth-century life. I am going to investigate whether and how the enlightenment intellectual context changed the way the Old Testament was received across society, and to what extent it remained a significant cultural resource in the eighteenth century. My project therefore seeks to produce not only a study into the intersection between religion, culture and politics in enlightenment society, but also a contribution to the history of the reception of the Bible in early modern Britain.