Most theologians of the Reformation era would have found the idea of distinguishing some aspect of theology as “biblical” very surprising. It was axiomatic in the medieval church that Scripture was the authoritative source from which all Christian doctrine and ethics were derived.1 At the beginning of this period magisterial lectures in theology often took the form of extended expositions of whole books of Scripture.2 While theologians of the Reformed era did write theological works of a confessional or thematic nature, probably the largest single category of theological writing, by the number of words expended or pages printed, consisted of works of scriptural exposition and commentary. Only gradually over the course of the early modern centuries would a divide open up between practitioners of “sacred philology,” the science of the language and literature of the Bible, on one hand, and the systematic exploration of theological doctrines, on the other.