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<p>This dissertation begins with questions about the epistemic methods that late-nineteenth
and early-twentieth-century American Protestants used to create confidence in new
religious ideas, and particularly the role of scientific rhetoric in this confidence
making. It concentrates on early Protestant fundamentalists and the emergence of dispensationalism
modernism. Distinct from dispensational premillennialism--a set of theological ideas
about prophecy belief and the end times--dispensational modernism was a constellation
of epistemic ideas and methods used to interpret texts and time.</p><p>Historians
have traditionally portrayed fundamentalists and dispensationalists as anti-modern,
reactionary foes of modern scientific reasoning. Yet early dispensational thinkers
created new, modernist methods for readings texts (particularly the Bible) and structuring
time (through elaborate interpretations of prophecy). These ideas emerged amidst popular
beliefs about the power of quantification, classification, and scientific analysis
to construct firm religious knowledge. While liberal higher critics adopted practices
of interpreting texts in light of the times--particularly historicism--dispensationalists
took a contrary approach and interpreted the times in light of the text of the Bible.
Seeing time as divinely ordered and classified with distinct divisions, dispensationalists
argued that the meaning of time came from without, through supernatural ruptures in
the temporal order.</p><p>Dispensationalism thrived in the interdenominational networks
of mainstream and conservative Protestant clergy who sought to retain intellectual
authority for biblical interpretation. As knowledge production became increasingly
specialized and professionalized--the domain of elites--dispensational methods provided
clergy means to navigate the tension between the need for specialized expertise and
popular appeal. These ideas took canonical form in the Scofield Reference Bible, first
published in 1909 and still the best-selling reference Bible in American history.
The reference notes in Scofield's Bible--condensed expert interpretations and taxonomic
divisions--promised methodological proficiency and theological confidence to anyone
who studied it.</p>
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