Theological Speculation Research Articles

Cohesive Chains in the Transfiguration Narrative of Matthew 17:1-13

While much work in biblical studies has been offered in the form of theological exposition and historical critical speculation of literary origins of the gospels, few modern biblical studies scrutinize the language of these gospels from rigorous linguistic criteria. This paper takes a discourse analytic approach from the field of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) founded by M. A. K. Halliday. The notion of cohesive chaining is taken in order to evaluate the level of literary unity in the original Greek of the episode of the transfiguration narrative found within the Gospel of Matthew. Cohesive chaining will be defined; its function within the greater sociolinguistic theory of SFL will be examined, and then the concept will be directly applied. The study concludes with a unique contribution demonstrating how these cohesive chains are then unified via choices in verbal aspect as the grammar that not only solidifies semantic continuity among those chains, but contours the discourse using a scheme of markedness that signals the prioritization of its message. The hope of this study is to reinforce the recent paradigm shift of biblical research utilizing modern linguistic paradigms as tools to transform biblical interpretation and exegesis into a rigorously discourse-centered linguistic methodology.

Teologia i jej zadania w świetle wskazań Kongregacji Nauki Wiary

The article reflects on the theology and its assignments from the point of view of its own scientific method. The coherent method of the theological speculation cannot be totally indifferent to the essential bond between theology and deposit of the faith. To this respect, the indications offered by the teaching of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in the post-conciliar time are analyzed, reflecting on the doctrinal competence field, where the Dicastery advances with a new intensity the doctrinal orientations for the correct theological method.

Copernican Cosmotheism: Johann Jacob Zimmermann and the Mystical Light

Johann Jacob Zimmermann (1642–1693) is a forgotten proponent of heliocentrism in seventeenth-century Lutheran Germany. In Scriptura Sacra Copernizans (1690), he located himself within an unusual genealogy of Copernicanism, in which the usual heroes of the scientific revolution were missing. And in a pseudonymous work, Exercitatio theoricorum Copernico-coelestium (1689), there was no holding back for theological speculations. Zimmermann’s cosmology carried metaphysical and especially religious significance. Always interpreted morally and spiritually as well, light and darkness were responsible for the matter and fundamental physical forces of his world. In spite of Zimmermann’s appeal to Italian philosophers of the Renaissance, he was much more influenced by Johann Arndt and Jacob Boehme. Their contemplation of nature, and the sun in particular, was taken up by Zimmermann and carried further. According to him, light had Trinitarian properties because of which it was even identified with God. This latent cosmotheism can be placed in the context of contemporary debates on Boehme’s orthodoxy and Pietist enthusiasm.

Book Review: God and Charles Dickens: Recovering the Christian Voice of a Classic Author

God and Charles Dickens: Recovering the Christian Voice of a Classic Author. By Gary L. Colledge. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2012. ISBN 978-1-58743-320-7. Pp. xix + 202. $19.99. As I look up from my desk, I see a portrait of Charles Dickens, sitting at his desk, dreaming imaginatively about the characters in his novels, a picture I acquired visiting the Dickens home and museum in London, England. Through his characters, Charles Dickens portrays the Christian values we should portray as Christians, rather than through the study of doctrines and argumentative disputes in theology. Caring for children', widows, and orphans comes alive in the novels of Dickens. This imitation of Christ is what Gary L. Colledge attempts to describe as he gives a voice to Christian walk in his study, God and Charles Dickens: Recovering the Christian Voice of a Classic Author. His purpose is not a systematic theology of Christianity or theological speculation but to demonstrate that Dickens' Christian faith and Christian worldview undergirded all that he wrote (xii). As a boy, I too was enthralled by the imaginative characters in works, especially Scrooge in A Christmas Carol (1843), but I did not know the extent of Christianity until later, after my study of C. S. Lewis, George MacDonald, Dorothy Sayers, and others, and especially now, after my reading of Colledge's critique of works. Scrooge learns about his relationships with others from the teaching and example of being fully human. His messenger of the gospel, the good news of his transformation, comes, however, from Jacob Marley: But you were always a good man of business, Jacob. At this, Marley's ghost is filled with both outrage and regret, and almost chastising Scrooge, he cries, Business! Mankind was my business. common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all my business. dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business! (121) Marley's voice becomes Christ's character traits and the basis for Charles Real Christianity: giving oneself away in service to others. In addition to extensive reflection of Christian characters in works, Colledge presents a concise historical and theological review of the movements in nineteenth-century theology and the church in transition during the of times; the worst of times. He chastises, through voice, the theological arguments, the poor preaching, and pitfalls of the church, including the lack of community involvement. Instead, the reader finds a fresh voice advocating character formation and virtue in what Dickens calls Real Christianity, Authentic Christological Christianity is committing to follow the example and teaching of Jesus; to imitate as we give our lives in service to others; to be forgiving, generous, and compassionate (xvi) as his characters demonstrate in his novels. As C. S. Lewis suggests in Mere Christianity (1952), we are to be little Christs, or, for Dickens, simply imitating Jesus (xvi). For his support, Colledge uses letters and his novel characters as examples, addressing religious issues, rather than didactic treatises against the church or Christianity. Dickens especially cared for children and did not want to frighten children into desired religious and moral behaviors (5), a ploy of the Dissenters and Nonconformists of his day, including the Middle and Low Anglican Church movement against conservative High Church stand. He abhorred preacher jargon, including theological jargon, and especially the distorted Calvinism (6) of the Dissenters and Nonconformists; instead, he trusted the New Testament, telling his son, Edward, in a letter, The New Testament is the best book that ever was, or will be, known in the world; and because it teaches you the best lessons by which any human creature who tries to be truthful and faithful to duty, can possibly be guided (7). …

La parola che salva: per un ritratto di Dante filosofo del linguaggio

In this essay I discuss some topics about the image of Dante as language philosopher who was concerned with a shifting of his writing from earthly and human values to signifiers of high theological speculation. So I analyze, by tracing critically some specific topics of the poem (together with the three twenty-sixth canti ) the ways in which the poet is going to attain the ordo originalis of biblical and theological writing. Here they are the places where Dante shows his purpose of overturning the platonic refusal of poetry — cause of its doubtful connection with truth — while aiming at transforming the volgare into the very language of philosophical knowledge, in whose sensus literalis we can discern universalia . We have here a gigantic phenomenon of shifting from the human word to a divine one: in it, historical and material individuality of the first is going to be defended in order to determine what we may define the first pattern of ‘metaphysical realism’. So I study the ways in which Dante shares the whole ‘earthly’ poetical tradition of previous and contemporary times, leading to the example of Arnaut who may represent the poetical key to a via salvationis which starts from the human «andar lacrimando» in order to obtain a language speaking «quasi come per se stesso mosso» and paired to the language of a new Adam. The whole universe of the senses is made speaking through the new language of sacrato poema, at last strenghtened onto the pattern of biblical writing which was eternally trusting more on believing than on seeing.

Sovereignty Forever: The Boundaries of Western Medieval and Modern Thought in a Quasi-Symptomatic Reading of Schmitt's Definition of Sovereignty

Schmitt's definition of sovereignty is also an attempt to read against the grain Western legal and political history. And yet, this highly unorthodox reconstruction not only reveals the boundaries of Western medieval and modern thought, but also hides them again behind new transhistorical principles. I construct Schmitt's ambivalent gesture by turning his short text into a series of quasisymptoms, which hint to his own historical context, as well as to more general features of Western thought. In particular, I propose reading the association of sovereignty with the state of exception as a rationalization of the catastrophe of the First World War, and I suggest an analogy with Freud's post-war invention of the death drive. Though Schmitt rightly emphasizes the contextual determination of past politico-legal conceptualizations, he puts forth a narrative that transcends these very historical determinations. Hence, whilst Schmitt underlines the theological roots of Western juridico-political discourse, he still operates within the decontextualized conceptual space produced by medieval theological speculation, and re-enacted by modern naturalism. From within this claustrophobic theoretical space, even the exception is recaptured as a principle. On the contrary, a genealogical understanding of sovereignty both discloses the latter's metaphysical underpinnings and undermines its foreverness.

Spectres of False Divinity: Hume’s Moral Atheism (review)

Reviewed by: Spectres of False Divinity: Hume’s Moral Atheism John J. Tilley Thomas Holden. Spectres of False Divinity: Hume’s Moral Atheism. Oxford-New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. Pp. xvi + 246. Cloth, $50.00. Thomas Holden argues that a key element of David Hume’s irreligious agenda is his case for moral atheism. According to Holden, Hume defends (conclusively, Hume believes) not merely weak moral atheism, according to which there is no morally praiseworthy deity, but strong moral atheism, according to which there is no deity with any moral characteristics. The idea here is that if any being approximates the traditional notion of God as a first cause or designer, it cannot meet the preconditions for having moral attributes. Holden also discusses arguments that some might expect to be central to Hume’s case but which, according to Holden, are not. For instance, Holden maintains that Hume does not even endorse the evidential argument from evil, let alone use it to support moral atheism. Instead, Hume intends it as a parody of traditional natural theology. Holden closes with several points about the historical and philosophical import of Hume’s moral atheism. Right from the start, Holden faces challenges. How can he square his interpretation of Hume as a moral atheist with Hume’s repeated strictures against theological speculation? And how can he square his interpretation with the fact that Hume never explicitly advocates moral atheism? Holden skillfully meets these challenges. Regarding the first challenge, for example, he distinguishes “core natural theology,” which aims at knowledge of the deity’s distinctive, intrinsic properties, from “liminal natural theology,” which lacks such aims. This distinction, Holden contends, reconciles two elements of Hume’s philosophy that seem to conflict. The first is Hume’s rejection of theological speculation as beyond our cognitive capacities. The second is Hume’s frequent willingness to draw conclusions about divine attributes. Holden argues that although Hume’s strictures against theological speculation pertain to [End Page 297] core natural theology, they are not aimed at liminal natural theology—that is, at speculation about the deity’s non-distinctive or relational properties. Hume’s defense of moral atheism, Holden believes, falls within liminal natural theology. After addressing challenges to his reading of Hume, Holden discusses Hume’s arguments for strong moral atheism. These do not stand out in Hume’s writings (though many of their components do), but Holden finds them there. He does so not through overly imaginative reconstruction but through careful interpretation, with an eye on many texts. Hume’s first argument, the “argument from sentimentalism,” draws on Hume’s theory of the passions and his sentimentalist metaethics. Holden reconstructs it as follows. S1: The deity is not a natural object of any human passion. S2: Moral sentiments are a species of human passion. S3: If a being is not a natural object of the moral sentiments, then it cannot have moral attributes (either virtues or vices). Therefore, S4: The deity cannot have moral attributes. The first premise is the least familiar of the three, and Holden devotes considerable effort to clarifying it, examining Hume’s rationale for it, and addressing objections to it. He performs similar tasks regarding S2, S3, and the argument in general. For instance, he addresses at length three possible objections to the argument, his concern being that if they were sufficiently damaging (he argues that they are not), this might tell against interpreting Hume as advancing the argument. Hume’s second argument, the “argument from motivation,” goes roughly as follows. Although we know nothing about the deity’s distinctive intrinsic properties, we have good reason to think that most likely, the deity (like any unknown being picked out in advance) lacks a sentimental nature anything like ours. But without a sentimental nature akin to ours, a being’s behavior is not intelligible in human terms—for example, it cannot be said to reflect moral concern or such motives as malice and benevolence. And if a being’s behavior is not intelligible in human terms, that being is not morally assessable, which is to say that it lacks moral attributes. Thus, we should conclude that the deity most likely lacks such attributes. Holden...

The Theological Foundation of Hobbesian Physics: A Defence of Corporeal God

In 1668, the octogenarian Hobbes finally affirmed openly a doctrine that was unavoidable given his longstanding embrace of both theism and materialism: God is corporeal. However, this doctrine has generally been downplayed or dismissed by scholars, who have alleged that Hobbes's corporeal theism is irreconcilable with his more orthodox theological pronouncements or with his fundamental metaphysical principles. This paper defends the coherence of Hobbes's corporeal God against particularly vigorous criticisms of Douglas Jesseph and others. The aim of the paper is not, however, to situate Hobbes's deity safely within the boundaries of seventeenth century protestant theology, as defenders of Hobbesian theism have often wanted to do. Rather, the paper places the corporeal God at the metaphysical foundations of Hobbes's natural philosophy. Despite his early reticence about theological speculation, Hobbes eventually relied on God to provide a continuous, resistance-free source of motion or conatus to a material plenum whose parts would otherwise quickly slow to an infinitesimal crawl. Hobbes's late theology, while certainly heterodox in content, is not so different in function from that of contemporaries like René Descartes and Henry More, whose religious sincerity is rarely questioned. Hobbes' corporeal deity deserves a place in the seventeenth century pantheon.

What is Wrong with Pagan Studies?

Abstract This review essay takes a critical look at the new field of “pagan studies” by examining the Handbook of Contemporary Paganism. It demonstrates that pagan studies is dominated by the methodological principles of essentialism, exclusivism, loyalism and supernaturalism, and shows how these principles promote normative constructions of ‘pure’ paganism, insider interpretations of the data, and theological speculations about gods, powers, and a special “magical consciousness.” It seems thus that the methodological discussions in MTSR have little effect on pagan scholars. In the concluding discussion, I raise the questions why this is so, and how we might do better in promoting a naturalist and theoretically oriented approach to studying religion.

Coleridge's theory of symbol and the distinction between reason and understanding: A genealogical recovery of the Baconian method of science

Samuel Taylor Coleridge's thought has been seen by many scholars to be derivative of German Idealism, especially Kantian critical philosophy. The present article challenges that claim by offering an analysis of Coleridge's interpretation of Francis Bacon's founding of the empirical method. Through the course of this discussion, Coleridge's understanding of the distinction between the intellective faculties of reason and understanding will be established, and will be shown to run counter to Kantian epistemology. Coleridge's dialectical approach to the role of reason in the operations of the understanding will be applied to their uses in scientific discovery, aesthetics, and religious thought. The various uses of symbolic representation in the context of these different endeavors will be given critical expression, revealing the unity of the human mind and nature, of subject and object. Ultimately, it is by appeal to the existence of God that the intelligibility of these various fields of symbolic representation are established. Coleridge's interpretation of Bacon offers a way of reconciling Baconian empiricism with Platonic Forms, in a genealogical recovery of the concealed methodology established in his Novum Organum. The overall argument proceeds critically, through a discussion of the subjective operations of the symbol-making powers of human thought, in the sciences and mathematics, in aesthetic, and in theological speculation and religious representation, revealing the Romantic origins of modernity.

The Place of the Hypotyposeis in the Clementine Corpus: An Apology for "The Other Clement of Alexandria"

The received scholarly view on Clement of Alexandria's Excerpta ex Theodoto, Eclogae propheticae, Adumbrationes , and Hypotyposeis dismisses these writings as inferior in style, dubious in content, and certainly marginal in importance for Clementine studies. This article follows the path suggested by Christian von Bunsen, Theodor von Zahn, André Méhat, and Pierre Nautin, and argues that the Excerpta, Eclogae , and Adumbrationes represent, on the contrary, the pinnacle of Clement's exposition of doctrine. Consequently, further research should pay special attention to the theological speculations contained in these writings, as they are likely to lead to significant insights into Clement's theology.

Evolution and Education: Lessons from Thomas Huxley

Thomas Huxley more than anyone else was responsible for disseminating Darwin’s theory in the western world and maintained that investigating the history of life should be regarded as a purely scientific question free of theological speculation. The content and rhetorical strategy of Huxley’s defense of evolution is analyzed. Huxley argued that the classification of humans should be determined independent of any theories of origination of species. Besides providing evidence that demonstrated the close relationship between apes and humans, he also argued that a pithecoid ancestry in no way degraded humankind. In his broader defense of evolution he drew on his agnosticism to define what science could and could not explain. Theology made empirical claims and needed to be subject to the same standards of evidence as scientific claims. He maintained that even most scientific objections to evolution were religiously based. The objections to the theory fundamentally remain the same as in the nineteenth century and much can be learned from Huxley to develop effective strategies for educating the public about evolution. Huxley’s own scientific articles as well as his popular writings provide numerous examples that could be harnessed not only for the teaching of evolution, but also for understanding science as a process.

Quand s’ouvre un «ciel nouveau»

From the 12th to the 15th century, narratives of visionary experiences, saints’ lives, exempla and also traditions of ritual magic still little known to mediaevalists grant a place of choice to angelic mediation, give form to the messengers of God and draw the outlines of an angelologic culture tangentially linked to the cult of Saint Michael. This article, looking beyond the theological speculations on the subject which multiplied in the wake of Peter Lombard’s Sentences, aims to brush a panorama of culturally anticipated angelical presence in the literature and society of the last centuries of the Middle Ages at a time when demonology was gaining ground.

Francisco Suarez, On Real Relation (Disputatio Metaphysicae XLVII) A translation from the Latin, Edited with an Introduction and Notes by John P. Doyle Suarez: Between Scholasticism and Modernity (Marquette Studies in Philosophy 52). By Jose Pereira

Francisco Suarez, On Real Relation (Disputatio Metaphysicae XLVII) A translation from the Latin, Edited with an Introduction and Notes by John P. Doyle Suarez: Between Scholasticism and Modernity (Marquette Studies in Philosophy 52). By Jose Pereira

Laboratories of faith: mesmerism, spiritism, and occultism in modern France

At a fascinating moment in French intellectual history, an interest in matters occult was not equivalent to a rejection of scientific thought; participants in seances and magic rituals were seekers after experimental data as well as spiritual truth. A young astronomy student wrote of his quest: am not in the presence or under the influence of any evil spirit: I study Spiritism as I study mathematics. He did not see himself as an ecstatic visionary but rather as a sober observer. For him, the darkened room of occult practice was as much laboratory as church. In an evocative history of alternative practices in France in the second half of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries, John Warne Monroe tells the interconnected stories of three movements-Mesmerism, Spiritism, and Occultism. Adherents of these groups, Monroe reveals, attempted to modernize faith by providing empirical support for metaphysical concepts. Instead of trusting theological speculation about the nature of the soul, these believers attempted to gather tangible evidence through Mesmeric experiments, seances, and ceremonial magic. While few French people were active Mesmerists, Spiritists, or Occultists, large segments of the educated general public were familiar with these movements and often regarded them as fascinating expressions of the modern condition, a notable contrast to the Catholicism and secular materialism that prevailed in their culture. Featuring eerie spirit photographs, amusing Daumier lithographs, and a posthumous autograph from Voltaire, as well as extensive documentary evidence, Laboratories of Faith gives readers a sense of what in a seance or a secret-society ritual might actually have felt like and why these feelings attracted participants. While they never achieved the transformation of human consciousness for which they strove, these thinkers and believers nevertheless pioneered a way of being religious that has become an enduring part of the Western cultural vocabulary.

Quantum Mechanics and its Interpretations

Quantum Mechanics is an elegant and indeed beautiful formal- ism, and enables the results of many physical measurements to be calculated with great accuracy. But from the earliest days there has been intense debate about the interpretation of quantum mechan- ics, and it shows no signs of being settled; if anything, it is becoming more intense over the years. It should therefore be evident that the most that can be done here is to try to show where the real difficul - ties lie, and how the failure to recognize that quantum mechanics is an essentially statistical theory has led to a series of confusing quantum paradoxes. It is just these paradoxes that have often been used to support theological speculations.

The Otherness that Is Only Difference: Theological Speculation for a Post-Traditional World

AbstractThis essay creates a dialogue between George Steiner, Jacques Derrida, and Mark C. Taylor that seeks to address the need for new theological perspectives in a world overcome by the absence of God. In claiming that the current crisis of religious identity that plagues the Western world is the product of the breakdown of theological traditions, the essay attempts to explore the potential of that breakdown as the source for a new type of theological speculation that seeks the ultimate source of authentic religious identity in an otherness that is only difference. The result is a type of "atheology" that seeks to ground theological speculation in a Wholly Other whose inexplicable call leads us past the concept of "God" and toward an unknowing that is the only source of true knowledge.

Deuteronomy 24:5 and King Asa's Foot Disease in 1 Kings 15:23b

(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.) 1 Kings 15:22-24 provides one of the few notations of royalty with a disease in the books of Kings. (22) Then King Asa made a proclamation to all Judah, none was exempt: they carried away the stones of Ramah and its timber, with which Baasha had been building; with them King Asa built Geba of Benjamin and Mizpah. (23) Now the rest of all the acts of Asa, all his power, all that he did, and the cities that he built, are they not written in the Book of the Annals of the Kings of Judah? But in his old age he was diseased in his feet. (24) Then Asa slept with his ancestors, and was buried with his ancestors in the city of his father David; his son Jehoshaphat succeeded him.1 This summary of Asa's reign shows several classic indicators of Deuteromonistic (Dtr) redaction. These include references to a source, to the king's death and burial, and to the name of his successor.2 Likewise, the introduction to Asa's reign earlier in the chapter (vv. 9-15) presents Asa as a praiseworthy king, in part, because he follows laws presently recorded in Deuteronomy. According to vv. 12-13, he removed temple prostitutes (cf. Deut 23:17; 1 Kgs 14:24) and an Asherah image (cf. Deut 12:3; 1 Kgs 14:23). The use of Deuteronomic standards to evaluate Asa in his introduction as well as notations of his age at his accession to the throne, his length of reign, and his mother's name suggest Dtr editorial work. the material surrounding the notation about Asa's disease reflects common Dtr concerns, scholars have often puzzled over the comment in v. 23b, since Dtr rarely records royal diseases. While commenting on Asa's illness, Mordechai Cogan observes, As a rule, Dtr did not note royal illnesses; the only other instance recorded in Kings concerns the leprosy of Azariah (2 Kgs 15:5), which led to his quarantine and removal from office, and Hezekiah's disease (2 Kgs 20).3 For some scholars, the scarcity of such notations in Dtr suggests that these notations do not help to articulate Dtr's theological or ideological positions.4Moreover, the fact that Dtr praises all three of the kings who have a recorded illness (Asa [1 Kgs 15:11-13]; Azariah [2 Kgs 15:3]; and Hezekiah [2 Kgs 18:3-7a]) may argue against interpreting Dtr's notations of their illnesses as divine punishments. Thus, although the early history of interpretation speculates on possible theological meanings of Asa's foot disease, contemporary scholars often prefer diagnostic to theological speculation. Recent diagnoses include gout, dropsy, gangrene, peripheral obstructive vascular disease, and prostate cancer, among others.5 Diagnostic speculation alone, however, does not explain why the notation regarding Asa's foot disease in v. 23b appears in the middle of a text that otherwise contains several indicators of Dtr redaction. After all, Dtr does not show a concern for medical diagnosis in its rare notations of royal illnesses elsewhere in Kings. Instead, it explicitly attributes Azariah's skin disease to divine causation (2 Kgs 15:5a) and presents Hezekiah's illness as under divine control (2 Kgs 20:1-11).6 Since Dtr places these other royal illnesses within a theological rather than diagnostic framework,7 one should take into account the (largely Deuteronomic) theological standards by which Dtr evaluates Asa (e.g., 15:12-13) when interpreting his foot disease. This article argues that v. 23b develops a connection between Asa's building projects in vv. 22-23a and a law presently recorded in Deut 24:5. with his removal of temple prostitutes and Asherah images earlier in the chapter, Dtr evaluates Asa's building projects by Deuteronomic standards. Interpreters have noticed links between Deut 24:5 and 1 Kgs 15:22-23 since at least the time of the Talmud, which understood Asa's disease as a form of punishment for violating Deut 24:5 and identified the disease as a type of gout (...), which felt like needles in Asa's flesh (b. …

Religion and the Fable of Liberalism The Case of Hobbes

Because Hobbes is understood to be a proto-liberal thinker, a great deal hinges on how we understand his writings. Does he contribute to the development of a purely secular political self-understanding, as many liberals today claim? And, by extension, does that mean that liberal thought today best stands on a purely secular foundation? What, then, should we make of the extensive theological speculation throughout his Leviathan ? Here, I argue that to reconcile the seemingly purely secular claims in Leviathan with the obviously religious claims found there we must move beyond reading him in terms of what I here call 'the fable of liberalism', and comprehend Leviathan as a whole in terms of Reformation era debates between Protestants and Roman Catholics about the limits and purview of reason. Understood in that way we see his claims about 'reason' in a new and important light. Rather than being an inevitable development that comes to supercede honour and glory, as the fable of liberalism suggests, 'reason' is seen to have an historically contingent character, whose parameters are established by wagers about the meaning of religious experience.

‘Mark Well the Gloom’: Shedding Light on the Great Dark Day of 1780

This essay is about one of the most extraordinary natural events in early American history, the great “Dark Day” of May 19, 1780. On that morning a preternatural gloom settled upon the New England landscape, and by noon the sun had been all but blotted from the sky. Using accounts drawn from contemporary diaries, journals, newspapers, broadsides, and other sources, this essay reconstructs the events of the Dark Day and explores the manifold ways—from theological speculation to amateur scientific inquiry—in which New Englanders sought to explain and rationalize the sudden darkness.