Modern Biblical Criticism as a Tool of Statecraft (1700-1900)

Modern biblical scholarship is often presented as analogous to the hard and natural sciences; its histories present the developmental stages as quasi-scientific discoveries. That image of Bible scholars as neutral scientists in pursuit of truth has persisted for too long.

This examination of the lesser known history of the development of modern biblical scholarship in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries seeks partially to fulfill Pope Benedict XVI's request for a thorough critique of modern biblical criticism by exploring the eighteenth and nineteenth century roots of modern biblical scholarship, situating those scholarly developments in their historical, philosophical, theological, and political contexts.

Picking up where Scott W. Hahn and Benjamin Wiker's Politicizing the Bible left off, Hahn and Morrow show how biblical scholarship continued along a secularizing trajectory as it found a home in the newly developing Enlightenment universities, where it received government funding. The book makes clear why the discipline of modern biblical studies is often so hostile to religious and faith commitments today.