Matthew Poole was an English Presbyterian minister and commentator best known for the Latin Synopsis Criticorum and the English Annotations upon the Holy Bible.
Setting: English Presbyterian and Westminster Reformed Nonconformity.
Matthew Poole was an English Presbyterian minister and commentator best known for the Latin Synopsis Criticorum and the English Annotations upon the Holy Bible. After ejection in 1662, he continued scholarly and ministerial work and later died in Amsterdam.
Poole matters because he gathered a broad range of textual, philological, Jewish, patristic, Catholic, and Protestant interpretation without making the critical apparatus the church’s master. His entries must be read as a synopsis of attributed views rather than assumed to be his own conclusion at every point.
Bibliological positions
Textual and exegetical learning is gathered for ministerial use under the canonical Scriptures. Competing readings and interpretations can be recorded without treating Scripture as absent until critics reconstruct it.
Qualifications and disputes
The Synopsis often reports views without adopting them. Attribution labels and the distinction between Latin Synopsis and English Annotations are essential.
Poole’s own preferred conclusions may require inference from structure and wording, and later editions can alter presentation.
Sources
- PRDL search — Matthew Poole — Digital works catalogue
- Public-domain DNB entry — Biographical orientation
Principal works
- Synopsis Criticorum Aliorumque Sacrae Scripturae Interpretum (1669–1676); legacy
WRK-0030; WRK; Ready after permanent-ID allocation and duplicate scan
Historical person network
People, doctrines, texts, and reported interactions
Relationship labels distinguish contact, refutation, later reporting, accusation, textual agreement, compatibility, and causation. A connection does not silently inherit the force of another connection.
Interaction chart
No reviewed graph relationships are attached yet.
- Record
- PER-3067
- Status
- Preliminary
- Version
- 1.1-profile
- Review
- Level B — Editorial synthesis
- Editor
- Chris Thomas
- Reviewer
- Independent reviewer pending assignment
- First date
- 2026-07-22 · Exact Day
- Last revised
- 2026-07-22
Evidence and editorial controls
- Verification
- Recovered project data; bibliographic and source-level verification remains record-specific.
- Rights and access
- Original editorial synthesis; cited sources retain their stated rights.
- Known limitations
- Sourced orientation record. Education, dated offices, languages, confessional subscription, verified quotations, and independent review may remain incomplete.
Links from this record
No public outgoing links are recorded.
Records that cite or connect here
No public backlinks are recorded.
Corrections and evidence submissions
No correction submission is presently attached to this record. Submit evidence or read the correction policy.
Chris Thomas, “Matthew Poole,” PER-3067, Confessional Bibliology Research Center, version 1.0-staging.
Revision history
- — Chris Thomas
- — Chris Thomas