The Bible, Protestantism, and the Rise of Natural Science

by Peter Harrison

Overview

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 that spelled an end to the symbolic world of the Middle Ages, and established the conditions for the scientific investigation and technological exploitation of nature.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521591966
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	03/05/1998
Pages:	328
Product dimensions:	6.26(w) x 9.29(h) x 0.94(d)

About the Author

Peter Harrison is Professor of Philosophy at Bond University in Australia. He has published widely in the area of the history of ideas and in particular on philosophy and religion in the early modern period. He is the author of Religion and the Religions in the English Enlightenment (Cambridge, 1990).

Table of Contents

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.

Editorial Reviews

"The achievements of this ambitious book should be debated by scholars." Religious Studies Review

"Harrison has written a very interesting addition to the literature about Protestants and science, one that expands our understanding of the history of science and of ideas about nature." Mark Stoll, Environmental History

"Harrison's book is well written and his arguments are easy to follow...I am convinced of the importance and fruitfulness of his approach in investigating the study of nature and the study of the Bible as inextricably linked." Church History

"peter Harrison's splendid new book adds to the mounting evidence that the relationship between science and religion has been much more complicated than the military metaphor of an incessant "warfare" allows." Journal of Religion

From the Publisher