Mythology, Chronology, Idolatry

Pagan Antiquity and the Biblical Text in the Scholarly World of Guillaume Bonjour (1670–1714)

Series: 

This book offers the first major study of the Augustinian historian and missionary Guillaume Bonjour (1670–1714) and places Bonjour’s hitherto unstudied contributions to pagan mythography, biblical chronology, and ancient religion in their historical, intellectual context. It argues that Bonjour was part of a prominent scholarly tradition which advanced a new understanding of and approach to studying pagan antiquity, an approach which, if developed with the intention of elucidating and further confirming traditional assumptions about the authority of biblical history, nevertheless proved innovative for the way in which it postulated a new relationship between the “sacred” and the “profane” in ancient history.
Copyright Year:
2025
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Published
ISBN:
978-90-04-68496-6
Publication:
02 Dec 2024
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Published
ISBN:
978-90-04-68495-9
Publication:
06 Dec 2024
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Felix Schlichter received his Ph.D. from Trinity College, Cambridge, in 2022 and has since held fellowships at the Forschungszentrum Gotha and the Leibniz Institute of European History in Mainz. His research concerns early modern intellectual, religious, and scholarly history, with a particular focus on historiography.
Notes
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations

Introduction

1 Guillaume Bonjour: His Life and His World
 1 Bonjour in Toulouse
 2 Bonjour in Rome
 3 Bonjour in the Republic of Letters
 4 Bonjour in Montefiascone
 5 Bonjour in China – and Beyond

Part 1: Mythology


2 Sacred History and Profane Fables
 1 Historia sacra and historia exotica in the Seventeenth-Century
 2 Samuel Bochart and the Biblical Diffusionist Narrative
 3 Isaac La Peyrère and the Problematization of Sacred History
 4 Pagan Sources for Biblical History: the Case of the Flood
 5 Biblical Authority and the Limits of Pagan Evidence
 6 Sacred History and Profane Fables: a Contested Legacy

3 The Wisdom of the Egyptians
 1 Egypt, Israel, and the Origins of Human Civilization
 2 The Jewish Origins of Egyptian Culture: Serapis
 3 The Jewish Origins of Egyptian Culture: Minos, Menes, and Mercury
 4 Sacred History and the Origins of Human Civilization
 5 Greek Universal History in a Biblical Context

Part 2: Chronology


4 The Chronology of the Septuagint
 1 Biblical Chronologies in the Seventeenth Century
 2 Chronology and the Septuagint in Bonjour’s World
 3 Jewish and Pagan Sources in Bonjour’s Chronology
 4 Bonjour on the Septuagint
 5 Biblical Scholarship and the Septuagint in Post-Tridentine Rome

5 The Dynasties of Manetho
 1 The Antiquity of Egypt
 2 Manetho in Early Christian Chronography
 3 Manetho after Scaliger
 4 Bonjour’s Manetho and His Enemies
 5 Bonjour on Manetho
 6 La Peyrère and the Authority of Manetho

Part 3: Idolatry


6 The Gods of the Heathens
 1 Antiquarianism and the Study of Pagan Religion
 2 Early Modern Histories of Religion
 3 Divine Names and Pagan Onomatolatria
 4 Pagan Ancestor Worship

7 The Religion of China
 1 The Problem of China in the Seventeenth Century
 2 Chinese Debates in Bonjour’s Rome
 3 Patristic Apologetics and the History of Idolatry in the Chinese Rites Debate
 4 Pagan Animism and the Chinese Names for God
 5 Historical Context and Ancient Names for God
 6 Bonjour in China: Christian Apologetics at Work

Conclusion

Bibliography
 Manuscript Sources
 Primary Printed Sources
 Printed Secondary Sources

Index
For specialists in early modern religious, scholarly, and intellectual history, historiography, missionary studies, biblical scholarship, and classical reception. Keywords: mythology, chronology, idolatry, paganism, antiquity, biblical history, Moses, mythography, historiography, religion, Rome, missionaries, China, Republic of Letters, Guillaume Bonjour, Pierre-Daniel Huet, Samuel Bochart, Augustinian Order, Manetho, Isaac La Peyrère, Jesuits, Enrico Noris, Chinese Rites, Gisbert Cuper, antiquarianism, Septuagint.
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