Astrology and Reformation
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Abstract
between Cotton Mather’s and Jonathan Edwards’s biblical hermeneutics (220–22). This is the result of Mather’s intent to expand both the figurative and literal readings of the biblical text. Given Stievermann’s interest in the relation between historicity and prophecy in the interpretation of Scripture, one might have expected a more thorough historical, theological, and philosophical treatment of the understanding of time in Mather’s interpretation of the Bible. However, a proper discussion may have to wait until the full consequences of Mather’s commentary will have come into view. Stievermann makes clear that Mather ‘saw no essential difference in substance and reality between the two covenants’ (the ‘old’ and the ‘new’, 292). Why the difference between the covenants in Christian theology has gradually been dissolving is a question worth pursuing, both comparatively and inter-theologically. None of this critique is meant to detract from the major achievement of this detailed study. Its strength consists in offering expertise on a limited selection of Old Testament books. The challenges posed by Mather’s multifarious excerpts make Stievermann’s work all the more impressive. Given that Stievermann discusses pietism and refers to Richard Lovelace’s The American Pietism of Cotton Mather: Origins of American Evangelicalism (1979), his repeated reference to Mather as ‘Puritan’ is striking (cf. 10–12). This term belongs to an outdated paradigm. The broader issue concerning Christian theology and evangelicalism warrants more thorough treatment in light of the new perception of Mather offered by the new edition of the Biblia Americana and the Mather biographies. Current efforts to interpret Mather’s life and work stand between two paradigms. In focusing on Mather’s personality (13) and responding to a long tradition of ad personam Mather criticism that may have sprung from an unwillingness to comprehensively engage with his four hundred plus publications, Stievermann may still have over-emphasized his personality at the expense of his theology. Methodologically, this tendency jars with his claim that Mather was partly ‘representative of developments in Puritanism’ (12). The book lacks a Scripture index, and the bibliography reproduces for the most part the useful corpus which is part of the present edition of Biblia Americana. While this study will have to be complemented by more theological research, one hopes it will draw attention to the complexities of early eighteenth-century Christianity.