By James C. Ungureanu In his Autobiography, Charles Darwin (1809-1882) gave three specific reasons for his growing religious doubts. He became morally revolted by the God of the Old Testament, whom he characterised as a “revengeful tyrant.” Moreover, the discovery of the “fixed laws of nature” made belief in miracles seem “incredible” to him. Finally, he concluded that recent historical-critical scholarship—or biblical criticism—demonstrated that the Gospels were completely unreliable. These alleged difficulties gradually led Darwin to “disbelieve in Christianity as a divine revelation.” (1) Among scholars of the Victorian period, much has been written on the so-called “moral critique” of Christianity and the “crisis of faith.” But few have examined the complex relationship between the rise of biblical criticism and the Victorian conflict between science and religion.(2) Darwin, for instance, was surrounded by friends interested in biblical criticism.(3) Most historians of science are not biblical scholars. It is perhaps for