Victoria Brownlee is the author of an exciting new contribution to discussions of early modern religion and literature. Her new book, Biblical Readings and Literary Writings in Early Modern England, 1558-1625 (Oxford University Press, 2018), offers an illuminating account of how, why, when, where and by whom Bibles were read in early modern England, as well as a series of case studies of particular characters or passages in the Old and New Testaments. Why did Bible reading matter so much in the England of Elizabeth I and James VI/I? Did it matter that the Bible was an illustrated text? Why did expositors work so hard to limit the language of the Song of Songs, when creative writers worked so hard to expand its reference? Join us on this podcast as Dr. Brownlee suggests answers to these and other questions about readings of the Bible in early modern England.Crawford Gribben is a professor of history at Queen’s University Belfast. His research interests focus on the history of puritanism and evangelicalism, and he is the author most recently of John Owen and English Puritanism (Oxford University Press, 2016). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices