In a pier-glass: The transformation of the Bible in 'Middlemarch'

From the time in which George Eliot's Middlemarch is set (it opens in 1829) to the time in which it was written (1870--1872) an intense debate about the origin and nature of the Bible was taking place in England. Was it a supernatural product, verbally inspired by the Holy Spirit and inerrant in consequence (the orthodox infallibilist position)? Or was it a human product, a number of historical texts which may be examined and interpreted in the same fashion as other texts (the new critical position)? Eliot's position is well known: "I regard these writings as histories consisting of mingled truth and fiction...." Less well known is the degree to which this debate figures in Middlemarch.;But while rejecting biblical infallibilism, Eliot still believed that the texts of the Bible constituted the premier traditionary annals of Western culture; a major source of ethics and a wonderful work of literature. In Middlemarch, she uses the Bible in such a way as to preserve its status in these areas, while at the same time presenting her case against the orthodox position. Eliot's project of conservation is carried out in two ways. First, through a sustained use of biblical allusion, which is the subject of the first chapter of this dissertation. Second, through the use of Jesus' most famous teaching strategy, the parable, which is the focus of the second chapter.;Eliot's researches included the rapidly developing fields of philology and mythography, both of which greatly influenced the development of Anglican theology in the nineteenth century. These are the two areas of supposed expertise of Middlemarch's Casaubon, whose scholarly enterprise was a speculative etymological defense of the historical accuracy of the Genesis account. Eliot's rejection of both the infallibilist position and this particular defense of it in Middlemarch is presented in third and final chapter.