Envisioning Scripture: Joseph Smith's Revelations in Their Early American Contexts

by Colby Townsend (Editor)

Overview

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 Scripture: 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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781560854180
Publisher:	Signature Books, Incorporated
Publication date:	05/16/2022
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	290
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Colby Townsend is a PhD student in the English department at Indiana University Bloomington. He has published essays in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Journal of Mormon History, and Intermountain West Journal of Religious Studies.

Table of Contents

Editor's Introduction vii

1 Writing Religious Experience 1

Women's Authorship in Early America Catherine A. Brekus

2 Reassessing Joseph Smith Jr's Formal Education William Davis 21

3 Open Canons 73

Sacred History and American History in The Book of Mormon Elizabeth Fenton

4 Scripture, Time, and Authority among Early Disciples of Christ Seth Perry 97

5 Translating Time 123

The Nature and Function of Joseph Smith's Narrative Canon Kathleen Flake

6 The Golden Bible in the Bibles Golden Age 157

The Book of Mormon and Antebellum Print Culture Paul Gutjahr

7 Joseph Smith's Uses of Pseudo-, Intralingual, and Intersemiotic Translation in the Creation of the Mormon Canon 179

The Book of Mormon, the Bible, and the Book of Abraham Roberto A. Valdeón

8 Narrative Revolutions in Nat Turner and Joseph Smith Laura Thiemann Scales 205

9 Demagogues or Mystagogues? 237

Gender and the Language of Prophecy in the Age of Democratic Revolutions Susan Juster

10 The Book of Mormon as Amerindian Apocalypse Jared Hickman 269

Contributors 303