Call for Papers
Biblical Exegesis and the Emergence of Science in the Early Modern Era
We invite submissions for papers for a conference to be held at
Birkbeck College, University of London, on November 27th 2004.
The conference will examine how biblical hermeneutics in the early
modern period contributed to the natural philosophy of the era. The
emphasis of the conference – on biblical reading practices, rather
than ‘religion’ in general – is intended to focus on the
specific procedures of interpretation and to propose models for how
they interacted with scientific thought and discourse on the natural
world.
We take ‘science’ in a broad sense, to encompass both residual and
emergent models of nature. We include alchemical, natural magical, and
emblematic views of the natural world within our definition, as well
as chemical and paracelsian models of reality. We also include
emergent natural history, medical theory, and ideas of corporeality
from atomism to monism. Topics might include:
* Exegesis and the natural world
* Scripture and the Signatures of Natural Things
* The book of Scripture and the book of Nature
* The bible and Animals
* Natural philosophy in biblical commentary
* Scripture and the nature of corporeal being
* Interpretation as prediction – comets, astronomy, apocalypse and
biblical commentary.
* Alchemy, cabala and exegesis
* Scriptural physics / the physics of creation in the early modern
mind
Keynote Speaker: Peter Harrison, Bond University, Australia. Author of
‘The Bible, Protestantism and the Rise of Natural Science’
(Cambridge University Press, 1999).
Deadline for proposals: 15th June 2004
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