Reinterpreting nature in early modern Europe: natural philosophy, biblical exegesis and the contemplative life / Making sense of science and the literal: modern semantics and early modern hermeneutics / Reading the two books with Francis Bacon: interpreting God's will and pwer / Textual criticism and early modern natural philosophy: the case of Marin Mersenne (1588-1648) / Giordano Bruno's hermeneutics: observations on the Bible in De Monade (1591) / Vitriolic reactions: Orthodox responses to the alchemical exegesis of Genesis / Tycho the Prophet: history, astrology and the apocalypse in early modern science / 'Whether the stars are innumerable for us?': astronomy and biblical exegesis in the Society of Jesus around 1600 / Reading the book of God as the book of nature: the case of the Louvain humanist Cornelius Valerius (1512-78) / Fortunes of Babel: technology, history, and Genesis 11:1-9 / Duckweed and the word of God: seminal principles and creation in Thomas Browne / Days of the locust: natural history, politics, and the English Bible