Pusey is perhaps best known for his sacramental doctrine and his emphasis on the early Church fathers. His appointment as Regius Professor of Hebrew, therefore, may well seem an oddity given this reputation: it is easy to assume that, at most, his work as a biblical scholar was parallel, and unrelated to, his more familiar work. But in fact, Pusey’s biblical scholarship is intrinsically involved with the better-known aspects of his thought. This article examines Pusey’s engagement, as a biblical scholar, with three sets of questions: hermeneutics (which led to his engagement with the Fathers), philology and the nature of language (which informed his sacramental theology) and the centrality of the reader in interpreting Scripture (which is linked to his concern with Christian spirituality and sanctification). Appreciating Pusey’s perspective as a biblical scholar is therefore essential to understanding his theological project.

Contemporary studies of Anglican biblical interpretation in the nineteenth century are scant. Those that do exist tend to paint the biblical interpretation of the period as unidimensional and flat. This paper highlights diverse ways the Bible was interpreted by Anglicans in the nineteenth century by looking at the writings of Charles Simeon, Benjamin Jowett, and Christina Rossetti. Each has interesting and distinct ways of approaching the Bible. The paper analyzes their interpretive practices before tracing them to the present and drawing out significant historical themes in each.