Misquoting the Hebrew Bible

Exegetes had long been aware of apparent misquotations from the prophets appearing in the New Testament and of facts related in the New Testament not according properly with details provided in the history books of the Hebrew Bible. These issues undermined the inerrancy of the Bible by raising questions about the accuracy of its translations, the inspired nature of the

Gospels, and the legitimate connection between the Old and New Testaments. Mather’s concern with this issue dominates his Bible commentary and his attempts to find resolutions are

sometimes transparently desperate. Although Mather did not doubt in the slightest degree the

184 _{In 1724, Mather’s study was robbed of six pounds – about three months’ salary – and at least one} private letter (Silverman 377).

185 _{Mather’s third wife, Lydia Lee George, fought with him regularly after their 1715 marriage. Silverman} remarks: “Only Mather’s account of these episodes survives, leaving it unclear whether Lydia suffered from a clinically severe emotional disturbance or was only fed up with Mather’s behavior” (382). In 1718, Lydia searched his study and stole some of his diaries, claiming he would never see them again

(Silverman 310). At some point around then, she encouraged him to write and sign “a ‘True Account’” of what he had written about her in his diary, illustrating his “approving and affectionate” remarks about her (310). Silverman labels this signed account “weirdly pathetic” and reveals that despite this supposed agreement, the domestic disruptions continued (309). In the summer of 1724, Lydia left him “in the dead of night” to stay with a neighbor, after, Cotton reported in his diary, she had “charged me with Crimes, which obliged me to rebuke her lying Tongue, with Terms I have not been used unto” (quoted in Silverman 386). This public humiliation happened within days of Cotton hearing about the death of his oldest son, Increase, at sea and the same summer that Cotton was declined for the presidency of Harvard.

legitimacy of the New Testament, he recognized that the numerous misquotations or false allusions pointed to human errors that undermined it.

Jesus himself appears to commit this error. In Luke 4:17, Jesus reads from the book of Isaiah, but one of the clauses he quotes does not appear in that prophet. Although some, Mather notes, suggest that the clause had been in the margin of the Septuagint, he explains that he “can by no means grant” the accuracy of that claim (“BA” 7: Luke 4:n.v.). Instead, he depends on the

insight of Maimonides, who asserts that readers might “skip from one Text to another” for the

purpose of clarification (“BA” 7: Luke 4:n.v.). Mather proposes that the mysterious clause appears in Isaiah 58:6, even though that text too is slightly different – by only “but one Syllable changed,” Mather excuses (“BA” 7: Luke 4:n.v.). Citing Lightfoot, Mather adds another gloss to describe the tradition of skipping passages. The tradition stemmed from the physical condition of the books: “Each of ye five Books of Moses, & ye Books of ye greater prophets, were single; only ye Twelve smaller prophets were bound up together” (“BA” 7: Luke 4:17, c.f. Lightfoot 2:407). A reader could skip from one passage to another in order to illustrate a matter, “but not from one prophet to another, but only in ye Twelve smaller prophets,” at least, according to “a Tradition” (“BA” 7: Luke 4:17, c.f. Lightfoot 2:407).

The genealogies present another such problem. Mather struggled at length with inconsistencies between Matthew and Luke’s genealogies, but another inconsistency, which Mather only addresses in his glosses on Matthew, is the number of generations in each pedigree. Between Abraham and Jesus, Matthew records forty-two generations, Luke fifty-six (“BA” 7: Matt. 1:n.v.). Mather argues that the difference is really only eleven generations, not fourteen, because there were three kings that “we all know, were omitted” from Matthew’s account because of their ancestor’s idolatry (“BA” 7: Matt. 1:n.v.).

Matthew relates Joseph’s descent from Abraham, but it does not match the pedigree

named in the Hebrew Bible. The interlocutor notes: “It is objected, I know, That here [v.9] Ozias

begat Joatham. Whereas tis clear [1 Chron.3.11,12] that Joash, Amaziah, and Azariah, were in between Ozias and Joatham” (“BA” 7: Matt. 1:n.v., brackets his). In this case, Mather replies that “Immediate Generations, are not in this Genealogie always pretended unto” and he adds that Matthew had “perhaps Mystical Reasons, for such Omissions” (“BA” 7: Matt. 1:n.v.). Needless to say, he elaborates on what they are, even though the word “perhaps” hints that he was

speculating. He argues that, in accordance with the Second Commandment which promises to “visit the sins of ye Fathers upon ye Children to the Third & Fourth Generation,” since Joram, the father of Ozias and grandfather of Joash, was an idolater, God “blots them out of this line to the Fourth Generation” (“BA” 7: Matt. 1:n.v., c.f. 2 Chron. 21:14).

The intensity of this concern is evident in Mather’s replying to a “further” objection, that Jeremiah had announced a curse on Jechonias, making him “childless, a man that shall not prosper in his days” (Jer. 22:30). Unwilling to overlook an inconsistency or unclear detail,

Mather retorts that the entire curse includes the following: “No man of his seed shall prosper

sitting upon the throne of David, & Ruling any more in Judah” (“BA” 7: Matt. 1:n.v.). Therefore,

“Tho’ hee had a son, Salathiel by Name, yett that Son was not a successor in ye Kingdome”

(“BA” 7: Matt. 1:n.v.). Likewise, Matthew states that “Josias begat Jechonias and his brethren,” but, Mather’s interlocutor asserts, “Josias did not beget Jechonias, who was his grandson, and it

appears not that this Jechonias had any Brethren” (“BA” 7: Matt. 1:11). Mather explains that

both Josephus and the Septuagint use the same name for Jechonias and his father, Jehojakim, and while the son did not have brethren, the father did, and so the text refers to Jehojakim (“BA” 7: Matt. 1:11). This also reveals, he argues in another gloss, why Matthew seems to claim falsely

that there were three sets of 14 generations – called tesseradecades – when the third set only has

13 names. It is because “ye Jechonias, who concludes ye Second of ye Tessaradecads, was ye

Jehojakim, who was the Father of ye Jechonias that begins the Third” (“BA” 7: Matt. 1:n.v., c.f. Matt. 1:17). Returning to the problem of the three missing generations between Ozias and

Joatham, Mather stretches credulity when he asserts that “Matthew does not say, There were no

more than Fourteen Generations from David unto the Captivity” (“BA” 7: Matt. 1:n.v.). He

admits that for the first tesseradecade, “he saies, Fourteen were All,” which indeed appears

conclusive, “but,” he argues, “coming to the Second Interval, he leaves out the word, All” (“BA”

7: Matt. 1:n.v.).186

Equally problematically, neither of the Gospel genealogies matches the Old Testament genealogies. His handling of incompatibility with the Hebrew Bible genealogies indicates the extent to which Mather had grown frustrated with the genealogies of Jesus. He acknowledges a “grevious disturbance Raised” about Cainan, an individual appearing in Luke’s genealogy but not in the Old Testament (“BA” 7: Luke 3:36). Mather provides a full answer that fills half of a folio page, proposing that Cainan was a transcription error in Greek copies of Luke and does not appear in ancient copies of the New Testament (“BA” 7: Luke 3:36). Then he adds a supplement that drips of exhaustion: “Since ye writing of this I have read (among many other discourses on

this matter) a Chapter on this matter in Dr Kidders, Demonstration of the Messias, which does

more fully Assert & confirm, all that I have here more briefly propounded” (“BA” 7: Luke 3:36, parenthesis his).187 Too tired to copy out all of the details, Mather refers his readers directly to another author.

186 _{Similarly, in his harmony, Whiston observes that “it seems reasonable to suppose that St. Matthew’s} third as well as first Period had just fourteen Generations” (182).

187 _{Possibly the second edition, which was published in 1726. The first edition, one volume, was} published in 1684. A Boyle lecture was published in 1699 as the second part of the Demonstration.

Another, though less common, problem Mather finds is what appears to be

misrepresentation of Hebrew Bible history. Paraphrasing Kidder, he responds to “a cavil” from “The Jewes.” Jesus refers to King David having visited the high priest. “The Jewes” charge that Jesus mistakenly names the high priest as Abiathar, when the actual high priest was Abiathar’s father, Ahimelek (“BA” 7: Mark 2:26). Kidder refuses to admit to an error in the text, so instead he seeks historical evidence that can support legitimately calling Abiathar the high priest. Unsurprisingly, he finds what he is looking for. Citing Kimchi, Selden, and Victor Antiochenus, he argues that, conveniently, “Ahimelech was also called Abiathar, and Abiathar was also called Ahimelekh” (“BA” 7: Mark 2:26, c.f. Kidder 2:72). In case this argument is not enough, he adds that an Ahimelech, who was called the son of Abiathar, was a priest in David’s reign, according to 1 Chronicles 18:16 and 2 Samuel 8:17 (“BA” 7: Mark 2:26, c.f. Kidder 2:72). If the men interchanged names, then both were priests. The Old Testament texts Mather cites both read: “And Zadok the son of Ahitub, and Ahimeleck the son of Abiathar, were the priests” (2 Sam. 8:17). Kidder reads these passages as confirming Jesus’s statement, since they make the son, not the father, the priest. Mather triumphantly adds “And yet more;”188 _{the word for a high priest at} that time would have meant only an “eminent man,” and, “More than this,” Jesus’s words for “in the days of Abiathar” in Greek truly mean “not yet present Time, but ye Time which soon after succeeds it” (“BA” 7: Mark 2:26, c.f. Kidder 2:72). Furthermore, the high priest’s son is “Deputed by his Father in his stead,” according to “the Book of Sephra,189 an ancient book

Richard Kidder (1634-1703), bishop of Bath and Wells, was a popular preacher who befriended other famous English scholars, including botanist John Ray, a major influence on Mather’s Christian

Philosopher, and John Tillotson (Marshall). He graduated Cambridge with his M.A. in 1656 and received his D.D. in 1690 (Marshall). He was tutored by a Presbyterian minister but remained loyal to the Church of England (Marshall). His Demonstration of the Messias, quoted by Mather, was aimed at converting Jews and deists (Marshall).

188 _{This transition is Mather’s phrasing; Kidder has numbered paragraphs without transitions.} 189 _{Actually Siphra, the Aramaic word for “book.”}

among the Jewes” (“BA” 7: Mark 2:26, c.f. Kidder 2:73). In other words, Mather spews a fountain of flimsy excuses and allows his readers to take their pick. Kidder concludes his

discussion with: “What hath been said is enough to justifie the Evangelist” (2:73). He makes it

clear that his purpose was to defend scriptural authority.

However, then Mather contradicts himself by adding a lengthy gloss detailing William Whiston’s view of the topic, which is that Abiathar, the son, was the high priest, not his father, and that “the Assertion [by Jesus] is no where contradicted in the Scripture” (“BA” 7: Mark 2:26,

c.f. Whiston 285). Neither is directly labeled a high priest, Mather notes (“BA” 7: Mark 2:26).190

Likewise, Whiston and Mather point out, the details about which one David visited are vague: “no Circumstances are mentioned” (“BA” 7: Mark 2:26, c.f. Whiston 285). He also conjectures that the Abiathar mentioned by Jesus was not the same figure named in Chronicles and Samuel (“BA” 7: Mark 2:26, c.f. Whiston 286-288). But he dismissively concludes: “However, these

Conjectures are hardly worthy to be mentioned, after such a Certainty, as we have seen in our

Catalogue. It is very certain, David did Eat ye Shew-bread in the Dayes of Abiathar ye High- Priest” (“BA” 7: Mark 2:26).191 The inerrancy of the Bible is such a foregone conclusion for Mather that he does not even need to provide a single, irrefutable piece of evidence.

Primarily, in resolving biblical harmony, Mather confronts what appear to be

misquotations. He offers numerous explanations ranging from blame on translators to blame on interpreters, but never blame on an error in the text itself. For example, Mark 1:2 reads: “As it is written in the prophets, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy

190 _{Whiston, making an oversight: “Is Ahimelech call’d the High-Priest any where in the Bible, or even} his Son Abiathar? By no means. All we meet with is Ahimelech the Priest” (285).

191 _{Whiston: “But indeed, since the foregoing Arguments seem to me certain, such little conjectures do} not deserve to be nam’d, much less particularly answer’d in comparison with them. To me therefore it seems abundantly evident that, according to our Saviours words, David eat the shew-bread in the days of Abiathar the High-Priest” (289).

way before thee” (Mark 1:2). The text quoted, Mather relates, comes from Malachi, which is almost identical, except for a change of voice in the latter clause: “Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me” (Mal. 3:1). The prophecy implies that God will send a messenger before Him. The Gospel quotation has God sending a messenger before Jesus. Mather’s interlocutor quotes both - although he erroneously writes “my face” in Malachi instead of “me”- and asks, “you see it?” (“BA” 7: Mark 1:2). Mather replies that he does, and

argues, remarkably, that “ye Face of God is ye Name for ye Messiah” (“BA” 7: Mark 1:2). In

other words, the prophecy means that God will send a messenger before the Messiah. The prophecy therefore refers to John the Baptist serving as a messenger before Jesus, not Jesus the Messiah serving as a messenger before Yahweh. Mather gloats that “In this one Remark, I have given you, a golden key, to open, it may be, Thousands of Scriptures” (“BA” 7: Mark 1:2). From

that one remark, readers can also understand why Mather has a reputation for arrogance.192 He

deduces this reading by using one passage to illuminate another. Quoting Lightfoot, Mather exults: “ye Majesty of Scripture doth often show itself, in Requoting of places, with such a Variety, that ye Holy Ghost Expounds one by another” (“BA” 7: Mark 1:2). The interchanging in this passage, he suggests, was deliberate, done to give “Instruction,” and it illustrates “a peece of Hebrew Rhetoric” (“BA” 7: Mark 1:2). This blanket excuse can justify any apparent

misquotation; no wonder Mather felt so elated.

5.3.7 Conclusion

Although exegetes already knew about conflicts in the New Testament, from variations among the Gospels to apparent misquotations of the Old Testament, orthodox scholars had more to fear in the early Enlightenment, as Latitudinarians like Tillotson and radicals like Spinoza and

192_{Mather’s biographer, David Levin, comments on his ego: “In these heady moments, vanity becomes an} inadequate word for what Mather expresses” (Levin 284).

Toland encouraged dismissing anything in Scripture that appeared illogical. Mather often tried to resolve the inconsistencies the way that his favorite authors did, by “harmonizing” with

narratives that compiled all of the accounts. However, harmonizing did not work for outright contradictions, such as non-matching genealogies of Joseph, and Mather’s desperation to find a solution is apparent in his spinning out theory after theory and thereby drawing attention to the irreconcilable nature of the incongruities. As a means of resolving these conflicts, Mather engages in textual criticism, recognizing that some variations could not be reconciled, and supports privileging Matthew over the other Gospels. By introducing contextual details, particularly in his analysis of the genealogies, he encourages his readers to use reason and empirical evidence to interpret conflicting narratives.

6 CHAPTER SIX: TYPOLOGY

6.1 Introduction

A traditional method of illustrating the relationship between the Old and New Testaments, typology lost its strength as a dependable hermeneutical approach in the early eighteenth century. This chapter examines Mather’s conflicted views regarding typology. The first section briefly considers the significance of typology within twentieth-century American studies. Although scholars today recognize that to colonists, typology was at best symbolic and at worst outdated, in the mid-twentieth century, historians misconstrued colonial typological rhetoric in order to support a narrative of American exceptionalism. This narrative has been discredited by scholars but it continues to pervade public discourse and therefore deserves a concise overview in this study.

The bulk of this chapter focuses on the devolution of typological hermeneutics in the early Enlightenment as the result of the Whiston-Collins debate. This discussion considers

Mather’s reaction to the debate and draws attention to the opportunity presented by “Biblia Americana” to study, in both broad-strokes and on a micro level, the impact of the debate on Biblical exegesis. When he began working on his commentary, Mather believed, like many exegetes, in double fulfillment: that an Old Testament prophecy had an initial fulfillment in ancient times and a second fulfillment in Jesus’s lifetime. As Section 1.7, Radical Attacks on Typology, explained, this belief system was shaken by Richard Simon and especially William Whiston, who argued that fulfillment was the completion of a prophecy and therefore could not happen twice. Furthermore, Simon observed that the Old Testament prophecies did not

correspond perfectly to their New Testament fulfillments; sometimes the prophecies were phrased differently, sometimes they appeared in entirely different contexts, and, in a few cases, the prophecy claimed by an Evangelist to be “fulfilled” in a Gospel did not appear in the Old Testament at all. In response to this issue, Whiston asserted that the prophecies in the Old Testament had been deliberately changed by second-century Jews who wanted to undermine the foundation of Christianity. In turn, Anthony Collins mused that Whiston had proven that the Old Testament prophecies supposedly fulfilled in the New Testament had never been uttered to begin with.

Not only did Mather feel required to reinterpret the corresponding passages in the Synoptic Gospels, but he faced additional challenges that inherently arose out of this debate. Mather refused to concede to Collins’s assertion that the prophecies had not been uttered, yet he also hesitated to accept that the Old Testament had been completely corrupted. Instead, he admits, agreeing with Spinoza and Toland, that prophets did not always understand their own words. Analyzing the historical and literary context of ancient Israel, Mather also agrees with critics that the prophets may have spoken allegorically rather than literally. Most radically,

Mather broadens his interpretation of prophecy. He allows that common expressions and the general expectations of ancient Jews could be considered prophecies that Jesus fulfills in the Gospel of Matthew. The Old Testament antecedents, he determined, need not even have appeared in the Old Testament itself. Going to great lengths to demonstrate that the prophecies fulfilled by Jesus had been foretold in the time of the prophets, Mather makes major concessions that undermine the authority of the Bible. In accepting that the exact words of the Bible were not inspired, in agreeing that prophecies may not correspond literally to their fulfillments, and in