Language and Millennialism in the Evolving Editions of Thomas Wilson’s Christian Dictionary (1612–1678)

Bibliographic Data

ID11834236
AuthorsAndrew Crome (0000-0002-0263-0829, University of Manchester, corresponding author)
Year2011
Volume13
Issue3
Pages311-337
Publication date2011-01-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueReformation & Renaissance Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1462-2459 • E-ISSN: 1743-1727
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1558/rrr.v13i3.311
OpenAlexW2082713120
LanguageEN
References cited13

Thomas Wilson’s Christian Dictionary, published in eight different editions between 1612 and 1678, has generally been used uncritically in modern scholarship. This article highlights the importance of this text and calls for a greater awareness of the structural, textual and hermeneutical differences between editions, examining their implications for understandings of biblical interpretation in seventeenth-century England. It charts the change from the highly contextualized 1612 edition to the encyclopedic works of the 1650s and 1660s. These changes are used to trace shifting methods of Bible reading in early-modern England. In particular, this article emphasizes the ways in which changes in dictionary form could be used to promote potentially controversial readings, with a focus on the way in which forms of millenarianism were promoted in different editions

Art · Biblical studies · Dead Sea Scrolls · Focus (optics · Hebrew Bible · Interpretation (philosophy · Linguistics · Literature · Millenarianism · Reading (process · Scholarship · Classics · Historical and Literary Studies · Historical Linguistics and Language Studies · History · Lexicography and Language Studies · Philosophy

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