CLASS Distinguished Lecture | Science and Religion in the age of Newton: The case for Cotton Mather's Biblia Americana
The rise of natural philosophy dueing the early European Enlightenment (1650-1750) posed tremendous challenges to physico-theologians of the Royal Society of London who sought to reconcile their discoveries with the venerable stories of the Bible. The Rev. Cotton Mather, D.D., in colonial America was no exception. In the best philosopic manner of his age, he tried to provide a mechanistic explanation of the biblical creation account, the causes and extent of Noah's Flood, and the meaning of fossils. The debate involved the brightest minds of the time, among them Renee Descartes, Robert Boyle, Isaac Newton, William Whiston.
Smolinski's presentation focuses on how these philosophers achieved a remarkable consensus in upholding the authenticity of the Mosaic accound. In fact, English North America furnished some surprsing archeological evidence in its confirmation.
Reiner Smolinski is an expert in noncanonical documents in early American religious literature, history, and culture. Since 1984, he has been working on the Mather Family Papers, Puritan historiography, and hermencurics. His intellectual biography of Cotton Mather is forthcoming from Yale University Press. He is the general editor of Cotton Mather's Biblia Americana (c. 1693 - 1728), colonial America's first commentary on all the books of the Bible. Biblia Americana is the centerpiece of The Mather Project, an online database of the published and unpublished works of the Mather dynasty.
Date: 12 Sep 2018
Time: 4.30pm to 5.30pm
Venue: HSS Conference Room (HSS-05-57)
Contact: Christopher Trigg CPTrigg@ntu.edu.sg
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