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

~ Terryl L. Givens (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

In 1830, Joseph Smith, founder of the Christian sect known as Mormons, published writings he had translated from golden plates reputedly delivered to him by the angel Moroni. These writings were to become the controversial sacred writings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) and were titled the "Book of Mormon." Although more than 100 million copies of the Book of Mormon are in print in 94 languages, it has been roundly ignored as a legitimate topic of academic study. To correct the situation, Givens (English, Univ. of Richmond; The Viper on the Hearth) has written a thickly detailed book covering the theology and history of the Book of Mormon and its influences on American culture. The result is not a casual read, and the depth of detail makes the reading difficult for those not familiar with basic theological concepts. Yet for scholars of American religious movements and those with more than a passing interest in the LDS Church, this book is a worthy place to begin one's research and study. Recommended for academic and theological libraries. Glenn Masuchika, Rockwell Collins Information Ctr., Cedar Rapids, IA
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

"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
"Givens is fair-minded, sympathetic, and knows his Mormon history, as well as the history of visionaries.... Givens's surest ground is in folding Joseph Smith in with the religious mystics who claimed immediate and intimate knowledge of the supernatural. The importance of his book lies in its scholarly, unbiased, and disinterested examination of a sacred text."--Harpers
"A closely written, thoughtful (if polemical) book by a devoted scholar. It is certainly provocative reading, whether you happen to be a Mormon or not."--Benson Bobrick, New York Times Book Review
"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

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (August 21, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195168887
• ISBN-13: 978-0195168884
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #79,565 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

133 of 158 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Genuinely Significant Book, July 12, 2002

By	Louis Midgley (Provo, Utah United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: By the Hand of Mormon: The American Scripture that Launched a New World Religion (Hardcover)

By the Hand of Mormon makes a fine contribution to Book of Mormon studies; Terryl Givens deftly surveys the twists and turns of the debate over the truth of the book. Givens, a Latter-day Saint scholar, has now made two extraordinary contributions to Mormon studies. If one wishes to understand the complex of interests and motivations-pecuniary, personal, and ideological-that fuel both sectarian and secular anti-Mormonism, Viper on the Hearth: Mormons, Myths, and the Construction of Heresy, published in 1997, is the book to consult. In By the Hand of Mormon, Givens examines the roles the Book of Mormon has played for both believers and detractors. He describes its coming forth, and the debate over its historical authenticity. This book is an extraordinary accomplishment.

With subtle understatement and exceptional skill in analysis and argumentation, Givens examines how the Book of Mormon has served for some as a kind of barometer of gullibility and for others as solid evidence of blasphemy, while for the faithful it has served primarily as a sacred sign that the heavens are once again open, that Joseph Smith is God's prophet, that the end time is approaching, and that the world is again pulsing with divine powers. The most original chapter describes "dialogic revelation"-the special divine revelations in the Book of Mormon that result from a kind of dialogue with God and that are radically different from traditional concepts of revelation. This revelatory process was exemplified by the way in which the Book of Mormon was recovered, and the Joseph Smith story. And the Book of Mormon its readers to experience it for themselves.

Givens shows why it has been impossible to understand Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon by finding some "new middle ground" between or beyond the polarities of authentic ancient history or fraudulent composition-and hence between Joseph Smith as seer or charlatan, prophet or blasphemer, kingdom builder or disturber of the peace. He shows that both the book and the story of its recovery work together to force those who receive it to choose between these different alternatives. Those who encounter the book are also invited to enter into a world not unlike that described within its pages, a world in which the heavens are open and God communicates in ways entirely unlike the vagaries and obfuscation found in mystical intuition or in subtle theological speculation. Givens explains why such controversial book has been such a successful conversion tool even though its contents have been virtually ignored for long periods.

He explains how this "most religiously influential, hotly contested, and, in the secular press at least, intellectually underinvestigated book in America" has been variously "understood, positioned, packaged, utilized, exploited, presented and represented by its detractors and by its proponents" (p. 6). This effort is necessary because, "in spite of the book's unparalleled position in American religion and its changing meaning for apologists, critics, and theologians, no full-length study has attempted to present to the wider public a study of this book and its changing role in Mormonism and in American religion generally" (p. 6).

Givens shows that the story of the Book of Mormon's recovery and the fact of the book's existence fixed for the Latter-day Saints the prophetic authority of Joseph Smith and his successors. It is the book's role as a sacred sign-more than its teachings-that fuels the hostility of its critics as it continues to shape the identity of the Latter-day Saints and distinguish them from their sectarian neighbors. He shows why and how the Book of Mormon has been read as a factual account of some pre-Columbian peoples, and why its detractors see it as a product of the 19th-century and not as an authentic ancient text and divine revelation.

Givens draws attention to the "artifactual reality" surrounding the Book of Mormon-to the gold plates and the relics found with them. LDS belief on this point diverges from the interiority and subjectivity of much religious discourse and hence away from the nebulous stuff of myth, magic, and mysticism. But having faith grounded on a historical record is a double-edged sword because it subjects the founding text to the scrutiny of scholarship, which has both advantages and disadvantages. These Givens examines in detail.

Givens shows that competent Saints are not trying to discover some dramatic archaeological evidence, as sectarian critics demand, that would "prove" the Book of Mormon. Instead, the increasingly sophisticated efforts of the book's defenders to draw upon literary, historical, and anthropological support for the ancient origin of the Book of Mormon has forced its more honest, better-informed detractors to abandon earlier explanations and to search for explanations of its authorship.

The driving force behind much sectarian theological discourse has been to emphasize the otherness of God and to stress the inability of language to describe divine things with any concreteness or in any detail. Those steeped in traditional theological perspectives are offended because the text Joseph Smith gave us, the story of its recovery, and the relics are difficult to explain away as allegorical, mythical, or merely highly symbolic ways of talking about what is ultimately ineffable and entirely mysterious. Among such hostile professors of religion, either sectarian or secular, is the dogma that angels simply do not bring books of new scripture.

Givens describes in some detail the Cold War taking place along the Wasatch Front over the historical authenticity of the Book of Mormon. He argues that the claims made by the Book of Mormon are, as others have already shown, open to critical inspection by scholars using whatever means they have at their disposal. The Book of Mormon does not ask to be shielded from such inspection. Of course, the faith of the Saints does not depend on the apparent results of such debate. This frustrates those who want a final proof one way or another right now.

90 of 114 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, March 16, 2002

By	Steve Jackson "stevejackson100atyahoocom" (New England) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

This review is from: By the Hand of Mormon: The American Scripture that Launched a New World Religion (Hardcover)

The Book of Mormon is a curious work. Jos. Smith, Jr., founder of the Mormon movement (whose largest branch is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Utah), claimed to receive it by divine revelation. It professes to be the history of ancient inhabitants of the Americas, who came to the New World centuries before Christ.

Upon first blush, the Book of Mormon seems to be little more than a pale imitation of the Bible written in exaggerated King James English (by the time your done with it, you won't want to hear the phrase "and it came to pass" again). Nonetheless, the book is quite complicated and appears unlikely to be the work of the generally unlettered Jos. Smith. What is most interesting about the Book is its complex nature. Opponents of the Book have had a hard time finding internal inconsistencies in it, although it has a fair number of anachronisms.

Although the LDS Church has produced competent apologists (such as the brilliant B.H. Roberts), the age of modern Mormons apologetics began with Hugh Nibley and has continued to the present with scholars associated with FARMS, now part of BYU. For example, while Jos. Smith believed that the events narrated in the Book of Mormon concerned the territory covered by North and South America, contemporary Mormon scholarship asserts that its events took place in a relatively small area of Central America. There is no archaeological evidence to support the authenticity of the Book, but it does appear to have numerous parallels to ancient Middle Eastern works.

Prof. Givens, who is professor of English at the University of Richmond, has written a comprehensive book about the Book of Mormon. It isn't a commentary on the Book of Mormon, but a background work on the role of the Book of Mormon in the Latter-day Saints Church, its authorship, and the controversy about it "revelatory significance" (i.e., whether or not it's inspired). It's fairly dense, but it I'm not aware of a work that provides such useful background information to anyone who wants to study the Book of Mormon or who has some familiarity with it.

30 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars First-rate, August 16, 2005

By	A. Reader - See all my reviews

In spite of the absurd things said in some of the reviews here, e.g. the idea that the Bible boasts characters of Proustian complexity while the Book of Mormon is content with stock figures, that Givens somehow cleverly duped his Oxford editors, that Joseph Smith's claims are disproved by the oh-so-simple measuring rod of "common sense" (as if famous biblical stories, such as Moses turning a river to blood or Jesus rising from the dead, can be authenticated by everyday experience), that Givens's status as a believer disqualifies him somehow from writing a scholarly book (F.F. Bruce, anyone? C.S. Lewis?), etc. etc. etc., Prof. Givens's work is a model of precise, enjoyable, well-organized writing and thinking and is an ideal introduction to one of the seminal holy texts of the modern age.