EDWARDS, JONATHAN

born Oct. 5, 1703, East Windsor, Conn. died March 22, 1758, Princeton, N.J. greatest theologian and philosopher of British American Puritanism, stimulator of the religious revival known as the Great Awakening, and one of the forerunners of the age of Protestant missionary expansion in the 19th century. Additional reading John E. Smith, et al. (eds.), The Works of Jonathan Edwards (1957 ), will be a complete critical edition. Ola Elizabeth Winslow, Jonathan Edwards, 17031758 (1940, reprinted 1973), containing a delineation of Edwards the man; and Arthur C. McGiffert, Jr., Jonathan Edwards (1932, reprinted 1980), containing a good understanding of his thought, are regarded as the best biographies. Perry Miller, Jonathan Edwards (1949, reprinted 1973), an intellectual biography, is a brilliant interpretation that has been accused of unduly modernizing Edwards. Other interpretive studies include: Douglas J. Elwood, The Philosophical Theology of Jonathan Edwards (1960), which stresses the Platonic and Augustinian elements; and Conrad Cherry, The Theology of Jonathan Edwards: A Reappraisal (1966), an excellent theological study.