The Bible was at the center of Jonathan Edwards' intellectual and ministerial life. As an eighteenth century theologian-pastor, the Scriptures were the focus of his work and the perspective through which he viewed his world. Edwards had a particular interest in the interpretation of the Apocalypse, devoting a notebook to the collection of observations and thoughts from his reading and reflection. This book examines Edwards' interpretation of Revelation 4-8 as seen in his working notebooks and theological treatises and sermons and then compares his views with some of his major contemporary biblical interpreters. Edwards employs a typological hermeneutical method, arguing that typology is the language God uses to communicate and this language can be learned both from explicit typology in Scripture as well as from the biblical author's implicit use of types. In the application of this typological hermeneutics, Edwards not only interprets all of Scripture Christologically, but also views the natural world and secular history as types of Christ.

Scholars have long recognized that Jonathan Edwards loved the Bible. But preoccupation with his role in Western "public" life and letters has resulted in a failure to see the significance of his biblical exegesis. Douglas A. Sweeney offers the first comprehensive history of Edwards' interpretation of the Bible.

"... the Edwards of Cherry sits for a[n]... intellectual portrait, done with concepts as colors and with reason as the brush. It is a... picture... faithfully and competently drawn." -- New York Times Book Review, 1967 "... this is a very good book.... It stresses the integral relationship of heart and mind, intellect and will throughout Edwards.... an important book... required reading for any student of Edwards." -- Church History, 1967

The Christ-centered exegesis of Jonathan Edwards Jonathan Edwards is remembered for his sermons and works of theology and philosophy--but he has been overlooked as an exegete. Gilsun Ryu's The Federal Theology of Jonathan Edwards explores how exegesis drove Edwards's focus on the headship of Christ as second Adam--and likewise formed a foundation for his broader theological reasoning and writing, especially on Christ and the covenants. Edwards's distinctive emphases on exegesis, redemptive history, and the harmony of Scripture distinguish him from his Reformed forebears. Ryu's study will help readers appreciate Edwards's contribution as an exegetically informed Reformed theologian.

Over the past half century, there has been a proliferation of scholarship on the great American theologian Jonathan Edwards. However, the vast majority of this output confines itself to the details of his work. With some welcome exceptions, the forest has often been missed for the trees. In this ground breaking study William Schweitzer presents a new reading of Edwards: He starts with the question what is distinctive in Edwards' theology? The answer comes in Edwards' insight into Trinitarian life. God is eternally communicative of his knowledge, love, and joy among the Three Persons of the Trinity, and this divine communicativeness was for Edwards the explanation for why God created the universe. More specifically, however, Edwards believed that God's communication carries with it the Trinitarian hallmark of “harmony.” This hallmark is not always east to discern, even for the regenerate. Edwards' lifelong project-as demonstrated by the common purpose of all three unfinished “Great Works”-was to interpret the harmony found in and among the several media of revelation.

Avihu Zakai analyzes Jonathan Edwards's redemptive mode of historical thought in the context of the Enlightenment. As theologian and philosopher, Edwards has long been a towering figure in American intellectual history. Nevertheless, and despite Edwards's intense engagement with the nature of time and the meaning of history, there has been no serious attempt to explore his philosophy of history. Offering the first such exploration, Zakai considers Edwards's historical thought as a reaction, in part, to the varieties of Enlightenment historical narratives and their growing disregard for theistic considerations. Zakai analyzes the ideological origins of Edwards's insistence that the process of history depends solely on God's redemptive activity in time as manifested in a series of revivals throughout history, reading this doctrine as an answer to the threat posed to the Christian theological teleology of history by the early modern emergence of a secular conception of history and the modern legitimation of historical time. In response to the Enlightenment refashioning of secular, historical time and its growing emphasis on human agency, Edwards strove to re-establish God's preeminence within the order of time. Against the de-Christianization of history and removal of divine power from the historical process, he sought to re-enthrone God as the author and lord of history--and thus to re-enchant the historical world. Placing Edwards's historical thought in its broadest context, this book will be welcomed by those who study early modern history, American history, or religious culture and experience in America.

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