By the Hand of Mormon: The American Scripture that Launched a New World Religion

by Terryl L. Givens

Overview

With over 100 million copies in print, the Book of Mormon has spawned a vast religious movement, but it remains little discussed outside Mormon circles. Now Terry L. Givens offers a full-length treatment of this influential work, illuminating the varied meanings and tempestuous impact of this uniquely American scripture.
Givens examines the text's role as a divine testament of the Last Days and as a sacred sign of Joseph Smith's status as a modern-day prophet. He assesses its claim to be a history of the pre-Columbian peopling of the Western Hemisphere, and later explores how the Book has been defined as a cultural product—the imaginative ravings of a rustic religion-maker. Givens further investigates its status as a new American Bible or Fifth Gospel, one that displaces, supports, or, in some views, perverts the canonical Word of God. Finally, Givens highlights the Book's role as the engine behind what may become the next world religion.
The most wide-ranging study on the subject outside Mormon presses, By the Hand of Mormon will fascinate anyone curious about a religious people who, despite their numbers, remain strangers in our midst.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195168884
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	08/21/2003
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	521,673
Product dimensions:	9.41(w) x 5.96(h) x 0.74(d)
Lexile:	1660L (what's this?)

About the Author

Terryl L. Givens did graduate work at Cornell University in intellectual history and at UNC Chapel Hill, where he received his PhD in comparative literature. He holds the Jabez A. Bostwick Chair of English and is Professor of Literature and Religion at the University of Richmond, where he teaches courses in nineteenth-century studies and the Bible's influence on Western literature. His writing has been praised by the New York Times as "provocative reading," and his numerous books include When Souls Had Wings, a history of the idea of premortal life in Western thought, as well as The God Who Weeps (with Fiona Givens) and Wrestling the Angel.

Editorial Reviews

"This outstanding book investigates the history and theology of the Book of Mormon, which Givens calls 'perhaps the most religiously influential, hotly contested, and, at least in the secular press, intellectually underinvestigated book in America.' Givens persuasively demonstrates how the Book of Mormon was trumpeted by early Latter-Day Saints more for the fact of its existence—which to them indicated an imminent apocalypse—than for its content per se. He notes that it was only during the late 20th century that Mormons began to regard the Book of Mormon as a cultural and spiritual 'keystone.' Givens's well-argued, engagingly written book takes the emerging field of Book of Mormon Studies to a new level."—Publishers Weekly

"By the Hand of Mormon, Terryl L. Givens's study of the Book of Mormon, is vastly informative, particularly to the general reader who seeks for insight into this extraordinary work. There are enigmatic splendors in the Book of Mormon, whether it was revealed to Joseph Smith or whether it emerged from his indubitable religious genius." —Harold Bloom, author of The American Religion: The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation

"This is an exceptional study. Terryl Givens has written an important work that increases our understanding of both the Book of Mormon and of Mormonism generally. He demonstrates how a single literary work gave rise to an enduring community, a theology, a religion, and a culture, and helps to explain not only the book's history but also the persisting success of Mormonism as an enduring belief system and worshipping community. By the Hand of Mormon is an achievement of real distinction." —Jan Shipps, author of Sojourner in the Promised Land: Forty Years Among the Mormons and Mormonism: The Story of a New Religious Tradition

"Until now, the Book of Mormon has not been on anyone's list of canonical literary works, but it may be added soon as Mormonism assumes the dimensions of a budding world religion. Thus far no one has been able to situate this much-contested work in our intellectual history. Givens does, and offers a striking appraisal of just what the Book of Mormon means to our culture." —Richard Lyman Bushman, Gouverneur Morris Professor of History Emeritus, Columbia University, and co-author of Mormons in America

Reviews of Viper on the Hearth:
"A remarkably lucid and useful study of the patterns of American prejudices against the Mormon people. It provides also a valuable paradigm for the study of all religious heresy."—Harold Bloom, Yale University
"An impressive achievement that should interest not just Mormons or other religious believers but anyone who cares about how 'freedom-loving,' 'tolerant' Americans turned 'heretics' into subhuman monsters deserving destruction."—Wayne C. Booth, University of Chicago

From the Publisher