This study will examine how Mather navigates between conflicting viewpoints. The two major perspectives, radical and conservative, are painted broadly in this introduction, but, as will be seen, they were often grey rather than black and white. Generally, Mather uncovers a
multitude of interpretations of any given Biblical passage. Sometimes, he presents all of them, giving preference to none, but more often he specifically endorses particular readings. Overall, his remarks on the Synoptic Gospels reveal that as he tried to weigh radical arguments
objectively, so he often accepted the radical conclusions that undermined the Bible’s authority. While Mather seemingly did not recognize the significance of the concessions he made,
examination of his commentary on the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke reveals that Mather was a wholehearted participant in Enlightenment discourse and its radicalizing tendencies.
This study examines the major issues tackled by Mather in this portion of his
commentary and assesses what was at stake. The study is organized to demonstrate the spectrum of Mather’s responses to early Enlightenment hermeneutics – from acknowledgment to full- fledged engagement. The first two chapters illustrate Mather nodding towards the issues of rationalism and of miracles. Although he endeavors to address contemporary commentary on these topics, he does not acknowledge critics’ primary concerns. The following two chapters reveal Mather making concessions to critical hermeneutics; here, he engages with radicalism even as he claims to dismiss its validity. The final three chapters, perhaps the most surprising in the study, examine Mather’s full engagement with radical hermeneutics and his acceptance of readings that undermine the authority of the Bible.
Mather’s commentary on the Synoptic Gospels is of particular interest because of the rise of Unitarianism in England during Mather’s lifetime. Interpretations of the narratives of Jesus’s life and the credibility of stories about Jesus’s deeds and words naturally played heavily into the increasing instability of the established Church. The second chapter, Rationalism, addresses the rise of rationalist philosophy and its impact on hermeneutics. Inspired by Hobbes, Spinoza, and Locke, radical critics like Toland and moderate critics like the Cambridge Platonists challenged the Biblical passages that in their eyes did not make logical sense. Aware of this discourse, Mather tries to rationalize the otherwise inexplicable behaviors of Jesus, his disciples, and even his contemporary critics. However, Mather’s explanations are usually based on the
and in Puritan dogma – which held human faculties deficient – led him to privilege faith over reason and effectively not truly engage with rationalists.
The third chapter, Miracles, looks at how Mather weighs the miracles described in the Synoptic Gospels. While Mather addresses the scientific possibility of miracles at greater length
in his commentary on the Pentateuch (see BA 1), in his commentary on the Synoptic Gospels, he
shows more concern with explaining the reasons behind miracles. Mather asserts that Jesus’s miracles were performed to convince people of the validity of his mission. However, Mather does not shake his Calvinist belief in predestination and unconditional election; he argues that Jesus’s miracles would have only convinced followers who already had faith in Jesus. By implying that physical evidence was an unnecessary supplement to faith, Mather effectively suggests that Jesus’s miracles were performed in vain.
The fourth chapter, Jesus, examines how Mather confronted challenges to the Trinity. He ultimately focuses severely on proving that Jesus was a prophet. Ironically, the authors from whom he draws most heavily, Daniel Whitby and Samuel Clarke, eventually were recognized as Arians. Although Mather himself always believed in the Trinity, his commentary gives so much ground to Arian ideas that it fails to prove the divinity of Jesus.
The fifth chapter, Harmony, reveals how Mather attempted to harmonize the four Gospels. He effectively illustrates, as Griesbach would almost a century later, the many irreconcilable but minute differences between the four Gospels. As he addresses radical assertions about the lack of harmony in the four canonical Gospels, he essentially accepts the conclusions that question the provenance of surviving manuscripts. Most remarkably, he concedes that in some cases, one Gospel must be privileged over the others.
The sixth chapter, Typology, considers how Mather weaves together the historical narratives of the Old and New Testaments. Although Mather believed in typology, which is
addressed comprehensively by Smolinski in BA 1, he shies from using literal typological
explanations to connect the Testaments, instead often falling upon allegorical explanations and thereby serving radicals who argue that Old Testament prophecies were not directly about the New Testament. He hints that the Hebrew Bible foundations of Christianity were symbolic rather than literal.
The seventh chapter, Evidentialism, examines Mather’s integration of extra-biblical sources into his commentary. The reliance on outside sources to support the Bible inherently acknowledges the fracturing authority of the Bible as a measure of history. Furthermore, Mather sometimes stretches his interpretation of both the Bible and his external sources in order to make the two match. Unintentionally, he undermines the Bible’s centrality as a historic source and he raises doubts about its credibility.
The final chapter, Corruption of the Text, reviews Mather’s criticism of the King James Version of the Bible. Like some of his contemporaries, Mather considered the King James translation faulty. Using additional translations, he indicates potential corrections of the King James Version and subverts traditional Christian imagery that he attributes to erroneous
translations. Most radically, Mather also accepts the authority of non-canonical sources, granting their provenance and historical reliability the same value as that of the canon.
2 CHAPTER TWO: RATIONALISM