Religion and the Enlightenment: A Review Essay |
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| Authors: | Robertson Ritchie |
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| Affiliation: | St John's College, Oxford
The Enlightenment Bible By Jonathan Sheehan. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 2005. xvi + 273 pp. $37.95 / £24.95. Enlightenment Contested: Philosophy, Modernity, and the Emancipation of Man 1670–1752. By Jonathan I. Israel. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2006. xxiv + 993 pp. £30 |
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| Abstract: | Recent studies of the Enlightenment suggest that its relationto religion is far more complex than a simple process of increasingsecularization. The book by Sheehan shows, by examining translationsof the Bible into English and German in the Enlightenment, howreligion was reshaped, leading eventually to the dogma-freeChristianity proposed by Matthew Arnold. Israel's book arguesthat alongside the relatively cautious mainstream Enlightenmentthere was always a radical Enlightenment, heavily indebted toSpinoza, that was rationalist, atheist, and libertarian, andanticipated the dominant liberal values of the present day.Neither of these important studies, however, considers two areasthat remain under-researched: the popular Enlightenment (Volksaufklärung),that is to say, the diffusion of Enlightenment thought amonguneducated people; and the Catholic Enlightenment which flourishedparticularly in Italy, Austria, and south Germany. |
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| Keywords: | Enlightenment radical Enlightenment Catholic Enlightenment secularization Spinoza translations of the Bible Religion Jonathan Sheehan Jonathan Israel |
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