Date of Award

Spring 1-1-2025

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

History

First Advisor

Gordon, Bruce

Abstract

Contributing to the latest thematic trends in early modern studies, this dissertationproject maintains that contested historical memory, or the competing ways that European Christians envisioned themselves as part of an ancient and authoritative biblical tradition, constituted the creative engine at the heart of shaping the early modern Bible (c.1450- 1660). In an era when successful claims to custom and antiquity conferred the highest legitimacy, historical memory was a critical source of identity and authority, even if, as recent theorists of early modern memory assert, memory itself meant something different in the period. The Bible in myriad forms served as its most important cultural text and as a discursive site of what I contend to be the phenomena of contested historical memory. Working with rare manuscripts and printed Bibles in German, French, English, and Latin, this project highlights how particular translations and genres shaped new historically informed identities for emerging religious groups in the context of an increasingly diverse early modern Christianity. Each represents an effort to envision a particular translator or group as grafted into an authoritative biblical tradition, even as their assertions of precedence unleashed unprecedented religious change. The project further transcends traditional temporal, geographic, and confessional boundaries to address how the early modern Bible answered the most pressing questions of identity and authority through historical memory, both in its own era and into the present through ongoing cultures of commemoration. Interdisciplinary in nature, this research draws upon and contributes to vibrant debates in several subfields including the history of religion, cultural history, translation studies, memory studies, biblical studies, and book history.

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