PEOPLE OF THE COVENANT AND THE ENGLISH BIBLE

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe paper shows how the important theological and Anglo-biblical term ‘Covenant’ was formulated in the course of successive biblical translations, from the original Hebrew and Greek to the King Kames Bible. It suggests that the use of the term in English biblical versions reflected – and in turn propelled – the increasingly prominent Covenant theology. Once coined in the vernacular Scriptures, moreover, the term was applied to religious political alliances: from the Scottish Covenants of the 1590s to the English Solemn League and Covenant, 1644, studied in the paper.