Bible Culture and Authority in the Early United States / / Seth Perry.
Early Americans claimed that they looked to "the Bible alone" for authority, but the Bible was never, ever alone. Bible Culture and Authority in the Early United States is a wide-ranging exploration of the place of the Christian Bible in America in the decades after the Revolution. Attendi...
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Superior document: | Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter EBOOK PACKAGE COMPLETE 2018 English |
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Place / Publishing House: | Princeton, NJ : : Princeton University Press, , [2018] ©2018 |
Year of Publication: | 2018 |
Language: | English |
Online Access: | |
Physical Description: | 1 online resource (216 p.) :; 6 b/w illus. |
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Other title: | Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- A Note on Capitalization -- Introduction -- Part I. Print- Bible Culture in the Early United States -- Chapter One. Creating the American Bible Reader, 1777-1816 -- Chapter Two. Taking a Text -- Part II. Beyond Bibles -- Chapter Three. Joshua, When the Walls Fell -- Chapter Four. "Write These Things in a Book" -- Conclusion. Abandoned Quarries -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index |
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Summary: | Early Americans claimed that they looked to "the Bible alone" for authority, but the Bible was never, ever alone. Bible Culture and Authority in the Early United States is a wide-ranging exploration of the place of the Christian Bible in America in the decades after the Revolution. Attending to both theoretical concerns about the nature of scriptures and to the precise historical circumstances of a formative period in American history, Seth Perry argues that the Bible was not a "source" of authority in early America, as is often said, but rather a site of authority: a cultural space for editors, commentators, publishers, preachers, and readers to cultivate authoritative relationships. While paying careful attention to early national bibles as material objects, Perry shows that "the Bible" is both a text and a set of relationships sustained by a universe of cultural practices and assumptions. Moreover, he demonstrates that Bible culture underwent rapid and fundamental changes in the early nineteenth century as a result of developments in technology, politics, and religious life. At the heart of the book are typical Bible readers, otherwise unknown today, and better-known figures such as Zilpha Elaw, Joseph Smith, Denmark Vesey, and Ellen White, a group that includes men and women, enslaved and free, Baptists, Catholics, Episcopalians, Methodists, Mormons, Presbyterians, and Quakers. What they shared were practices of biblical citation in writing, speech, and the performance of their daily lives. While such citation contributed to the Bible's authority, it also meant that the meaning of the Bible constantly evolved as Americans applied it to new circumstances and identities. |
Format: | Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web. |
ISBN: | 9781400889402 9783110604252 9783110603255 9783110604245 9783110603248 9783110606591 |
DOI: | 10.23943/9781400889402?locatt=mode:legacy |
Access: | restricted access |
Hierarchical level: | Monograph |
Statement of Responsibility: | Seth Perry. |