Joseph Meade

Joseph Mede (1586 in Berden – 1639) was an English scholar with a wide range of interests. He was educated at Christ's College, Cambridge, where he became a Fellow from 1613. He is now remembered as a biblical scholar. He was also a naturalist and Egyptologist. He was a Hebraist, and became Lecturer of Greek.

His Clavis Apocalyptica (1627 in Latin, English translation 1643,Key of the Revelation Searched and Demonstrated) was a widely influential work on the interpretation of the Book of Revelation. It projected the end of the world by 1716: possibly in 1654. The book also posited that the Jews would be miraculously converted to Christianity before the second coming.

Christopher Hill considers that Mede deliberately refrained from publication. His interpretation of the Book of Daniel and The Apostasy of Latter Times were published posthumously. On demons, he took the position that possession was to be explained as mental illness. His collected Works were published in 1665, edited by John Worthington.

Those following Mede in part as a chronologist and interpreter included Thomas Goodwin, Pierre Jurieu, Isaac Newton, and Aaron Kinne (1745–1824). As a critical scholar of the Bible, he started the discussion of the possible multiple authorship of the Book of Zechariah, subsequently taken up by Richard Kidder (1633–1703) and many others.

Richard Popkin attributes Mede's interpretation to countering scepticism, which gave it power to convince others, including the Hartlib circle. John Coffey writes:

The ecumenist Scotsman John Dury, the German scientist Samuel Hartlib, and the Czech educationalist Comenius had each been profoundly influenced by the millenarianism of Alsted and Mede, and seem to have seriously entertained the idea that London was the centre from which human knowledge and divine rule would spread.

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