The Bible, Protestantism, and the Rise of Natural Science

An examination of the role played by the Bible in the emergence of natural science.

Peter Harrison (Author)

9780521591966, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 5 March 1998

328 pages
23.6 x 15.9 x 2.4 cm, 0.625 kg

'This is an impressive and important contribution to the burgeoning literature on the interrelations between science and religion in the early modern period.' Geoffrey Cantor, University of Leeds

Peter Harrison examines the role played by the Bible in the emergence of natural science. He shows how both the contents of the Bible, and more particularly the way it was interpreted, had a profound influence on conceptions of nature from the third century to the seventeenth. The rise of modern science is linked to the Protestant approach to texts, an approach which spelt an end to the symbolic world of the Middle Ages and established the conditions for the scientific investigation and technological exploitation of nature.

Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Introduction
1. Worlds visible and invisible
2. Sensible signs and spoken words
3. The two reformations
4. Re-reading the two books
5. The purpose of nature
6. Eden restored
Conclusion
References
Index.

Subject Areas: Christian theology [HRCM]