Notes on Scripture (The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 15 | WJE)

by Jonathan Edwards

Publisher:

Yale University Press

, 1998

Overview

This is the first complete edition of the private biblical notebook that Jonathan Edwards compiled over a period of nearly thirty-five years. Edwards’ “Notes on Scripture” confirms the centrality of the Bible in his thought and provides more balance to earlier depictions of his writings that emphasized the scientific and philosophical while overlooking the biblical dimension. In this critical edition the entries appear in the order in which Edwards wrote them, beginning with a short commentary on Genesis 2:10–14 that he penned in 1724, and ending with his last entry, Number 507 on the Book of Solomon’s Song, written two years before his death.

This volume provides direct access to one of America’s most influential religious thinkers. Edwards’ entries range across the entire scriptural canon and reveal his creativity in the interpretation of particular biblical texts and his fascination with typology. The notebook also documents Edwards’ engagement with the intellectual currents of his day, in particular his response to the challenge associated with the Enlightenment critique of biblical revelation. Stephen J. Stein’s introduction situates Edwards as an exegete in the larger tradition of biblical commentary and in the intellectual world of eighteenth-century Western thought.

Contents

Top Highlights

“ Christ’s descending from several harlots and Gentiles intimates unto us that all that are saved by Christ were sinners” (Page 51)

“Edwards’ defense of Mosaic authorship included an argument based on the internal witness of Scripture” (Page 14)

“And it seems to me likely that he should speak of his body in two senses: in one sense of the church, which is called his body, and is also called the temple of God, of which the temple of Jerusalem was a type. The temple of Jerusalem may signify the Jewish church, which Christ put an end to by his coming,⁶ and in three ages after erected his spiritual temple, the Christian church.” (Page 63)

“The collective result of his exegesis is a scriptural organon with the typological principle at its foundation, a system composed of biblical themes that Edwards regarded as central to Christianity and that he used in his public ministry as the basis for sermons, occasional writings, and major treatises.” (Page 3)

“saw connections between the natural and the spiritual worlds as well as between historical events and divine truths” (Page 10)

Product Details

• Title: Notes on Scripture
• Author: Jonathan Edwards
• Series: The Works of Jonathan Edwards
• Volume: 15
• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Print Publication Date: 1998
• Logos Release Date: 2014
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
• Subject: Bible › Commentaries--Early works to 1800
• ISBNs: 9780300071986, 0300071981
• Resource ID: LLS:EDWARDS15
• Resource Type: text.monograph.collected-work
• Metadata Last Updated: 2022-09-29T23:37:17Z

About Jonathan Edwards

Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) is considered one of America’s greatest theologians. While attending Yale College, he encountered the same Calvinism that had influenced his own Puritan upbringing.

Three years after Edwards was ordained as a minister, the First Great Awakening began in his church, which prompted Edwards to study conversion and revival within the context of Calvinism. During the revival, Edwards preached his most famous sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” and penned many of his most popular works, including Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God, A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections, and Life and Diary of the Rev. David Brainerd.

In 1757, Edwards reluctantly became president of the College of New Jersey (Princeton University), where he hoped to complete two major works—an expansion of his treatise on the history of redemption and a study of the harmony of the Old and New Testaments. The Works of Jonathan Edwards (26 vols.) is a massive collection containing five decades’ worth of study and scholarship on and from Edwards.