Editing Cotton Mather (section)

== Historical and theological writings ==
Cotton Mather was an extremely prolific writer, producing 388 different books and pamphlets during his lifetime.{{sfn|Silverman|2002|p=197}}  His most widely distributed work was ''[[Magnalia Christi Americana]]'' (which may be translated as "The Glorious Works of Christ in America"), subtitled "The ecclesiastical history of New England, from its first planting in the year 1620 unto the year of Our Lord 1698. In seven books."  Despite the [[Latin]] title, the work is written in English.  Mather began working on it towards the end of 1693 and it was finally published in London in 1702.  The work incorporates information that Mather put together from a variety of sources, such as letters, diaries, sermons, Harvard College records, personal conversations, and the manuscript histories composed by [[William Hubbard (clergyman)|William Hubbard]] and [[William Bradford (governor)|William Bradford]].  The ''Magnalia'' includes about fifty biographies of eminent New Englanders (ranging from [[John Eliot (missionary)|John Eliot]], the first Puritan missionary to the Native Americans, to Sir [[William Phips]], the incumbent governor of Massachusetts at the time that Mather began writing), plus dozens of brief biographical sketches, including those of [[Hannah Duston]] and [[Hannah Swarton]].{{sfn|Silverman|2002|pp=156–166}}

According to [[Kenneth Silverman]], an expert on early American literature and Cotton Mather's biographer,

{{blockquote|If the epic ambitions of ''Magnalia'', its attempt to put American on the cultural map, recall such later American works as ''[[Moby-Dick]]'' (to which it has been compared), its effort to rejoin provincial America to the mainstream of English culture recalls rather ''[[The Waste Land]]''.  Genuinely Anglo-American in outlook, the book projects a New England which is ultimately an enlarged version of Cotton Mather himself, a pious citizen of "The Metropolis of the whole English America".{{sfn|Silverman|2002|pp=165–166}} }}

Silverman argues that, although Mather glorifies New England's Puritan past, in the ''Magnalia'' he also attempts to transcend the [[English Dissenters|religious separatism]] of the old Puritan settlers, reflecting Mather's more [[ecumenism|ecumenical]] and cosmopolitan embrace of a Transatlantic [[Protestantism|Protestant]] Christianity that included, in addition to Mather's own [[Congregational church|Congregationalists]], also [[Presbyterianism|Presbyterians]], [[Baptists]], and [[Low church|low church Anglicans]].{{sfn|Silverman|2002|p=161}}

In 1693 Mather also began work on a grand intellectual project that he titled ''Biblia Americana'', which sought to provide a commentary and interpretation of the Christian [[Bible]] in light of "all of the Learning in the World".{{sfn|Silverman|2002|p=166}}  Mather, who continued to work on it for many years, sought to incorporate into his reading of Scripture the [[Scientific Revolution|new scientific knowledge]] and theories, including [[geography]], [[heliocentrism]], [[atomism]], and [[Newtonianism]].  According to Silverman, the project "looks forward to Mather's becoming probably the most influential spokesman in New England for a rationalized, scientized Christianity."{{sfn|Silverman|2002|p=168}}  Mather could not find a publisher for the ''Biblia Americana'', which remained in manuscript form during his lifetime.  It is currently being edited in ten volumes, published by [[Mohr Siebeck]] under the direction of Reiner Smolinski and Jan Stievermann.  As of 2023, seven of the ten volumes have appeared in print.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Cotton Mather, Biblia Americana; America's First Bible Commentary |publisher=Mohr Siebeck GmbH & Co. KG |url=https://www.mohrsiebeck.com/en/multi-volume-work/biblia-americana-800100000?no_cache=1 |access-date=March 18, 2023}}</ref>