The Apocryphal Apocalypse: The Reception of the Second Book of Esdras (4 Ezra) from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment (Oxford-Warburg Studies) - Hardcover

Hamilton, Alastair

9780198175216: The Apocryphal Apocalypse: The Reception of the Second Book of Esdras (4 Ezra) from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment (Oxford-Warburg Studies)

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0198175213 ISBN 13: 9780198175216

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1999

This is the first study of the reception of the apocryphal Second Book of Esdras from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century. The author discusses the concepts of biblical apocrypha and canonicity in connection with the increasingly critical attitude to religious authority that developed with the humanists and intensified with the Reformation.

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About the Author:

Formerly Professor of English, University of Urbino, Italy; Dr C. Louise Thijssen-Schoute Professor of the History of Ideas, University of Leiden, Holland, since 1986; Professor of the History of the Radical Reformation, University of Amsterdam, since 1987

Review:

`This is a book in which the learning would be breathtaking if it were not worn so lightly. It ranges over a full range of confessional and natinal examples, in every case with a clarity of exposition and judicious judgements that are quite faultless. Sensibly, and as one would wish, the
complete text of 2 Esdras is provided as an appendix. The bibliography is full, the scholarship impeccable. This is scholarly writing of the highest level.'
Ecclesiastical History, vol. 52/4

`This book is especially interesting for the light it sheds on different attitudes to the apocrypha'
Ecclesiastical History, vol. 52/4

`This is a delightful book that will repay the attention of almost any reader interested in the scholarship, thought world or contemporary culture of Renaissance and Reformation Europe.'
Ecclesiastical History, vol. 52/4

`Hamilton's book is an outstanding and very original contribution to the history of changing religious and scholarly attitudes towards biblical texts; a history in which woof and warp of the rich intellectual texture of dissent and prophecy in early modern times become clearly visible, to the
delight of the reader'
Church History (Nederlands Archief voor Kerkgeschiedenis Vol.81 No.1)

`Alastair Hamilton has rescued this prophetic text from scholarly oblivion'
Church History (Nederlands Archief voor Kerkgeschiedenis Vol.81 No.1)

`This erudite tour de force is something more than a simple bibliographical examination of 2 Esdras, it is also an important contribution to the intellectual history of the period ... Hamilton's ... study ... fills in some of the gaps left by mainstream histories of ideas that tend to focus on
dominant thinkers and their contributions to the development of civilization.'
Journal of The Society for Utopian Studies, Vol. 11, No.2, 2000

`Hamilton's study is a fascinating, and different, study of how a relatively obscure apocryphon was made use of at a crucial period in European history by some significant and influential writers, and indeed by a few artists ... This monograph could and should stimulate renewed study of this
apocalypse.'
J.K. Elliott, Novum Testamentum, Vol.XLII, 2 (2000)

`Hamilton's monograph betrays wide learning and scholarship. The bibliography and footnotes are full and impressive. His writing style is clear and fluent'
J.K. Elliott, Novum Testamentum, Vol.XLII,2 (2000)

`The remarkably thorough and engaging history of hte reception of the apocryphal book of 2 Esdras will be important to historians of the Reformation, particularly those with an interest in dissenting and millenarian movements. ...also worthwhile reading for biblical scholars who are
interested in the history of interpretation, because the diversity of hermeneutical approaches during this period is often overlooked. ... Hamilton commands an admirable array of sources, some of them very obsure, and weaves them into a fascinating historical narrative.'
Karina Martin Hogan, Journal of Religion, Vol 81, No 1, January 2001.

`a significant contribution to our knowledge of the reception of apocryphal writings in the early modern period ... One of the most interesting sections of Hamilton's study is devoted to Wolfgang Lazius' use of the book to prove the eventual triumph of the Church of Rome and the House of
Habsburg.'
Irena Backus, Comptes Rendus.

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