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Envisioning Scripture: Joseph Smith’s Revelations in Their Early American Contexts
The first fifty years of United States history was a period of seemingly endless possibility. With the birth of a new country during the age of revolutions came new religions, new literary genres, new political parties, temperance and abolitionist societies, and the expansion of print and marketing networks that would dramatically change the course of the century. Envisioning Joseph Smith’s Revelations in Their Early American Contexts brings together ten essays from leading scholars on the history of early American religion and print culture. Covering issues of gender, race, prophecy, education, scripture, real and narrative time, authority and power, and apocalypticism, the essays invite the reader—scholar, student, etc.—to expand their knowledge of early Mormon history by grasping more fully the American contexts that Mormonism grew out of.
Contributors include Catherine A. Brekus, William Davis, Elizabeth Fenton, Kathleen Flake, Paul Gutjahr, Jared Hickman, Susan Juster, Seth Perry, Laura Thiemann Scales, and Roberto A. Valdeón.
Contributors include Catherine A. Brekus, William Davis, Elizabeth Fenton, Kathleen Flake, Paul Gutjahr, Jared Hickman, Susan Juster, Seth Perry, Laura Thiemann Scales, and Roberto A. Valdeón.
378 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 16, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 12, 2022
"Envisioning Scripture" is a collection of ten essays from scholars on early American religion, with seven of the essays directly dealing with Joseph Smith's revelations. The volume contextualizes Joseph's revelations and translations and shows how these scriptural productions parallel and diverge from religious trends of the times.
My favorite essay in the volume is one I've read before and is the best thing I have ever read about the Book of Mormon: Jared Hickman's "The Book of Mormon as Amerindian Apocalypse." This essay delves deeply into both the racism and anti-racism of the Book of Mormon, arguing that a meta-critical reading of the text challenges and critiques its racist passages. Nephite racism is deconstructed by the Book of Mormon's "radical racialized apocalypticism" in the latter-day exaltation of the Lamanites, as well as by the voices of Samuel the Lamanite and Jesus, whose prophetic voices critique Nephite self-conceptions. Hickman brilliantly shows how the Book of Mormon's first-person narrative voices invite us to read the book critically, as a book written and edited by actual authors, rather than as a text literally and transcendentally written by God.
My second favorite essay in the book was Gutjahr's "The Golden Bible in the Bible's Golden Age: The Book of Mormon and Antebellum Print Culture." This chapter contextualizes the Book of Mormon in the Biblical translation and print culture of the time. At a time that Bible translations took great interest in sorting through available biblical manuscripts to arrive at the most accurate renditions possible, the Book of Mormon stood out as a record that declared itself directly translated from original plates and as restoring "plain and precious" truths lost from the extant manuscripts. In relying on genealogies and timelines to show the process of writing the book, the Book of Mormon establishes itself as credible and authoritative in the context of concerns about the accuracy of Biblical translation. The Book of Mormon also self-consciously uses the archaic language of the King James Bible, at a time when some translations had started updating the Bible to a more modern English, and was even deliberately bound in a way to make it look similar to some of the most common editions of the Bible at the time.
Other notable essays include a full assessment of the extent of Joseph Smith's formal education (likely around seven years, give or take), the challenge of the open canon-nature of the Book of Mormon to traditional Protestant readings of the Bible, and the nature of biblical translation and interpretation in the Stone-Campbell movement. I also found Juster's "Demagogues or Mystagogues?" interesting in its treatment of gender and prophecy in early America.
A useful collection and recommended reading for anyone interested in better understanding the early American context of Joseph Smith's revelations.
My favorite essay in the volume is one I've read before and is the best thing I have ever read about the Book of Mormon: Jared Hickman's "The Book of Mormon as Amerindian Apocalypse." This essay delves deeply into both the racism and anti-racism of the Book of Mormon, arguing that a meta-critical reading of the text challenges and critiques its racist passages. Nephite racism is deconstructed by the Book of Mormon's "radical racialized apocalypticism" in the latter-day exaltation of the Lamanites, as well as by the voices of Samuel the Lamanite and Jesus, whose prophetic voices critique Nephite self-conceptions. Hickman brilliantly shows how the Book of Mormon's first-person narrative voices invite us to read the book critically, as a book written and edited by actual authors, rather than as a text literally and transcendentally written by God.
My second favorite essay in the book was Gutjahr's "The Golden Bible in the Bible's Golden Age: The Book of Mormon and Antebellum Print Culture." This chapter contextualizes the Book of Mormon in the Biblical translation and print culture of the time. At a time that Bible translations took great interest in sorting through available biblical manuscripts to arrive at the most accurate renditions possible, the Book of Mormon stood out as a record that declared itself directly translated from original plates and as restoring "plain and precious" truths lost from the extant manuscripts. In relying on genealogies and timelines to show the process of writing the book, the Book of Mormon establishes itself as credible and authoritative in the context of concerns about the accuracy of Biblical translation. The Book of Mormon also self-consciously uses the archaic language of the King James Bible, at a time when some translations had started updating the Bible to a more modern English, and was even deliberately bound in a way to make it look similar to some of the most common editions of the Bible at the time.
Other notable essays include a full assessment of the extent of Joseph Smith's formal education (likely around seven years, give or take), the challenge of the open canon-nature of the Book of Mormon to traditional Protestant readings of the Bible, and the nature of biblical translation and interpretation in the Stone-Campbell movement. I also found Juster's "Demagogues or Mystagogues?" interesting in its treatment of gender and prophecy in early America.
A useful collection and recommended reading for anyone interested in better understanding the early American context of Joseph Smith's revelations.
October 10, 2022
A nice collection of essays.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews