Scholarly interest in the seventeenth-century English theologian John Owen (1616–83) continues to grow at an impressive rate, a phenomenon highlighted by the recent contributions of Tim Cooper (2011), Crawford Gribben (2016) and Martyn Cowan (2018). Now in his John Owen and Hebrews, John Tweeddale offers a fine addition to this expanding subfield. But what sets Tweeddale's contribution apart is that his principal subject is less Owen himself and more Owen's monumental Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews, an exegetical work of staggering size and ambition, the completion of which consumed the final third of its author's life and eventually comprised over two million words. In his treatment of Owen's Exposition, Tweeddale attempts to ‘recast Owen as a biblical exegete and theological interpreter of Scripture’ (p. 9) through detailed engagement not, in the main, with the commentary as a whole, but rather with the commentary's preliminary ‘exercitations’, a series of twenty-four introductory essays that ‘function as a “prolegomena” to [Owen's] exposition’, and, we are told, constitute the ‘the key to his commentary’ (p. 41). Tweeddale's work reflects and furthers the recent concern among Owen scholars to ground their subject firmly in the various historical contexts out of which he emerged, and to resist the temptation to portray him as a ‘one-dimensional’, ‘timeless theologian’ (pp. 8–9). Thus, Tweeddale notes, for example, the degree to which Owen's interest in the Epistle to the Hebrews reflected a growing, more general interest among English Protestants in Judaism and Hebraic studies. Similarly, Tweeddale demonstrates that Owen's commentary employed assumptions, terminology and methodology that had become standard among the Reformed orthodox theologians with whom Owen identified. Here the book is particularly useful, for in addition to analysing portions of Owen's commentary, Tweeddale also aims to utilise it as a case study that will ‘unveil … an everyday portrait of the exegetical endeavours of at least one major figure in the high orthodox period’ (p. 54). This laudable aim potentially expands the book's appeal beyond those scholars for whom the study of Owen is a worthy end in itself. And yet, despite this attempt to frame the ‘value of [Owen's] commentary … as a textual artefact’ that can ‘unlock for readers information about its author and the times he wrote it’ (p. 146), readers looking for significant historical analysis of nonconformity in post-Restoration England may be disappointed. The emphasis here ultimately falls squarely upon Owen as theological exegete, and far more attention is paid to the nuances of Owen's federal theology and hermeneutical method than to the social and political conditions under which he developed them. There is nothing wrong, of course, with such an arrangement, but readers unaccustomed to rigorous historical theology should be warned in advance. Overall, Tweeddale's work does a great service to early modern religious studies by providing fresh and stimulating insight into one of the seventeenth century's most ambitious intellectual achievements.
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