The Sacred Text

THe advances of geologic science, Darwinism, theological liberalism, and higher textual criticism converged in the nineteenth century to present an imposing challenge to biblical authority.  The meteoric rise in secular knowledge exerted tremendous pressure on the Protestant theological elite of the time.  Their ruminations, conversations, quarrels, and convictions offer penetrating insight into their world -- into their perspective on Scripture and authority and how their outlook was challenged, defended, and sometimes changed across time.  Moreover, the nineteenth-century imboglios greatly illuminate a recent controversy over biblical authority . . . The Sacred Text indicates that fundamentalists and conservative Protestants more generally are the standard-bearers of the ascendant theory of biblical authority commonly endorsed among many of the leading Protestant elite in nineteenth-century America.