%0 Book Section %T Some Irreligious Uses of the Bible in the Early Modern Period %+ Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire Solidarités, Sociétés, Territoires (LISST) %A Cavaillé, Jean-Pierre %@ 978-90-04-41742-7 %B Lay Readings of the Bible in the Early Modern Period %E Erminia Ardissino, Elise Boillet %I Brill %P 49–61 %8 2020-01 %D 2020 %R 10.1163/9789004420601_005 %K libertinism %K Bible %K atheism %K irreligion %Z Humanities and Social Sciences/HistoryBook sections %X It may reasonably be claimed that, in the early modern period, the Bible constituted a reference equally important and inescapable for irreligious authors as for pious ones.1 By ‘irreligious authors’, I refer to all those who criticised, in part or globally, the established religions, in a way that exceeded confessional controversies. These critics and despisers of religion – in particular Christianity, omnipresent as it was – constantly used the Bible not only to shield themselves from accusations of impiety – all attacks on religion and the Scripture being highly suspect – but also against the Bible itself; that is, that which the Church considered as the essential vehicle of its message and teachings. %G English %L hal-02511571 %U https://univ-tlse2.hal.science/hal-02511571 %~ SHS %~ UNIV-TLSE2 %~ CNRS %~ EHESS %~ AO-HISTOIRE %~ HISTOIRE %~ LISST %~ SMS