Biblical Commentaries as Prose

Abstract

The Victorian biblical commentary has been woefully and unjustly neglected. In the nineteenth century, authors viewed writing a biblical commentary as an effective way – sometimes even the ideal way – to change religious opinion in society at large. Likewise, readers often found biblical commentaries to be exciting, even potentially explosive, works. These convictions about the genre were widely held across the religious and skeptical spectrum. This article explores this largely un-mapped terrain with special reference to the lives, thought, writings, and arising controversies of the Tractarian priest and scholar E.P. Pusey; the theologically liberal Anglican bishop, William Colenso; the popular atheist leader, Charles Bradlaugh; the preeminent Baptist preacher, Charles Spurgeon; and the Anglo-Catholic and leading poet, Christina Rossetti.