Scripture and Royal Supremacy in Tudor England: The Use of Old Testament Historical Narrative

Bibliographic information:

Gazal, Andre A. Scripture and Royal Supremacy in Tudor England: The Use of Old Testament Historical Narrative . Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2013.

Description:

Description:

The main argument of this book is that the supporting hermeneutic of the biblical doctrine of royal supremacy was the interpretive priority and prescriptive function assigned to Old Testament narrative by apologists of the national church. After surveying the development of the doctrine of royal supremacy from the reign of Henry VIII through the passage of the 1559 Act of Supremacy under Elizabeth I, the work proceeds with an examination of the Scriptural discussions regarding royal Supremacy in the polemical works of Elizabethan apologists beginning with John Jewel (1522-71), the first major theological defender of the national Protestant church, and ending with Richard Hooker (1554-1600), who shifted the primary basis of the doctrine from Scripture to natural law. The monograph studies the writings of the Elizabethan apologists against the background of controversies with both Catholic and Presbyterian opponents. An examination of the Recusant writings also shows that Jewel’s opponents recognized that his biblical doctrine of royal supremacy depended on the interpretive priority of the narrative material of the Old Testament. Furthermore, an analysis of representative Presbyterian works demonstrates that the Presbyterians attempted to undermine this hermeneutic in order to bolster their case for a precise form of church government prescribed by the New Testament.

Publisher:

Edwin Mellen Press (website: http://mellenpress.com/)

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