David Holland
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199753611
- eISBN:
- 9780199895113
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199753611.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, History of Christianity
What belongs in the Bible? Could a New World inspire new chapters of scripture or render old ones obsolete? This book shows that these questions factored more prominently into early American history ...
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What belongs in the Bible? Could a New World inspire new chapters of scripture or render old ones obsolete? This book shows that these questions factored more prominently into early American history than we have appreciated. It depicts the boundaries of the biblical canon as a battleground on which a diverse cast of early American characters, from elite theologians to charismatic slave prophets, fought for their versions of divine truth. Puritans, deists, evangelicals, liberals, Shakers, Mormons, Catholics, Seventh-day Adventists and Transcendentalists took distinctive positions on how to define the borders of scripture. This book recreates those canonical borderlands, reconsiders the colorful figures that occupied them, and reflects on their place in the cultural topography of early America. By carefully exploring the history of this scriptural boundary, it provides a new angle of inquiry onto such matters as religious freedom and textual authority, national identity, and historical consciousness. It offers a fuller view of early America and of the Americans—male and female, white and black, enthusiastic and educated—who shaped a new nation.Less
What belongs in the Bible? Could a New World inspire new chapters of scripture or render old ones obsolete? This book shows that these questions factored more prominently into early American history than we have appreciated. It depicts the boundaries of the biblical canon as a battleground on which a diverse cast of early American characters, from elite theologians to charismatic slave prophets, fought for their versions of divine truth. Puritans, deists, evangelicals, liberals, Shakers, Mormons, Catholics, Seventh-day Adventists and Transcendentalists took distinctive positions on how to define the borders of scripture. This book recreates those canonical borderlands, reconsiders the colorful figures that occupied them, and reflects on their place in the cultural topography of early America. By carefully exploring the history of this scriptural boundary, it provides a new angle of inquiry onto such matters as religious freedom and textual authority, national identity, and historical consciousness. It offers a fuller view of early America and of the Americans—male and female, white and black, enthusiastic and educated—who shaped a new nation.
