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Editorial Review Book Description
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. ... Read more Customer Reviews (32) 
Very Informative
I've studied the Book of Mormon and its history throughout my life, and I learned several things I didn't know or think about before.The author did an excellent job of reviewing how the Book of Mormon was perceived both within and without the LDS church.I did not realize how little emphasis the Book of Mormon received doctrinally in the early days of the church.I was also very interested in his discussion of dialogic revelation and its emphasis in the Book of Mormon as opposed to the Bible.Being a lifelong member of the LDS church it had never occurred to me how much it was emphasized in the Book of Mormon compared to the Bible.This book is highly recommended for both LDS and non-LDS readers.
Only book of its kind?
I would probably give this book 4 stars if there were competitors, but there are not. The only problem with it (if it is a problem) is that the author clearly wants to give the Book of Mormon the benefit of the doubt where there are controversial issues. This results in a mild apologetic/partisan flavor. But no one should get their knickers in a twist over this. It is absurd to get upset about the fact that an author has a personal stand. A slight bias can be a problem, but only if it leads a writer to distortion and denial. I don't think Givens can be accused of either. His approach is to present the debate, and he gives lots of air-time to the critics as well as the apologists on a wide variety of topics. Nor does he invariably side with the apologists. At most, he doesn't always acknowledge the full implications of certain criticisms.
The real value of the book is the exposure it gives to the history and topography of Book of Mormon criticism. In this respect, the book is wonderful and (as far as I know) unique. It can only be of service.
Good Show Professor Givens
Professor Givens gives us probably the most insightful and comprehensive study of the Book of Mormon to date.He begins by mapping the Book's discovery, translation and publication.He then deftly chronicles how the early Saints mostly frequently used the Book of Mormon (tangible sign of Joseph Smith's propehtic calling), before moving in the historicity controversies surrounding the Book.
It is in this historicity controversy section Given's study is weakest.He acknowledges numerous views questioning the Book of Mormon's historicity, but doesn't give them the same treatment he gives views supporting its historicity.Simply put, he somewhat shorchanges those who disagree with him.It's easy to understand why he does this: most of the theories are based on faulty logic or a complete misreading of the Book of Mormon (or both).This notwithstanding, Givens' study would have been more complete and accurate had he addressed them more fully.
Givens' chapters on Book of Mormon theology and dialogic revelation are a tour de force.He demonstrates how the Book of Mormon expounds an incredibly sophisticated understanding of Christ's atonement.In addition, he addresses how the Book of Mormon's view on personal revelation is wildly democratic, and quite unlike the Old Testament's treatment of revelation.The Book all but dares all readers to receive individual revelation, while the Old Testament normally limited revelation to the prophet's.Again, Givens' treatment of these issues is innovative and stunning.
I would suggest this to anyone truly interested in the Book of Mormon.
A Subtle Piece of Religious Propaganda
The subtleties and doubtful sources used by Givens earned him a one-star review in my opinion. The more I studied Givens' book the more I found it to be a highly flawed piece of religious propaganda. One Mormon reviewer said:
"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."
First of all, it is a fact that the LDS Church has spent millions of dollars funding archaeological excavations in Central America with the purpose of finding evidence for the Book of Mormon. Nothing has been found to indicate that Nephites ever existed, but non-Mormon archaeologists are grateful for the funding of these projects.
Second, the notion (and I emphasize "notion") that the Book of Mormon contains information that was not known in Joseph Smith's day is without foundation. In uncritically accepting the scholarship produced by FARMS (the BYU think-tank), Givens has committed a fatal error. He has four references to "chiasmus" in the Book of Mormon. These examples of chiasmus, or parallelisms in Hebrew poetry, are cited as proof that the Book of Mormon is an ancient document because chiasmus was unknown in Joseph Smith's day.
NOTHING, and I emphasize "nothing," could be further from the truth. Rather than being unknown, these parallelisms in biblical poetry were common knowledge among people interested in the Bible.
I own a copy of Thomas Hartwell Horne's "An Introduction to the Critical Study and Knowledge of the Holy Scriptures." This four-volume book was advertised for sale in 1825 in Palmyra on the front page of the Wayne Sentinel (April 6, 13, 20). The long ad outlines the entire content of Horne's massive work, including "the Poetry of the Hebrews and Harmony of the Scriptures" (quoted from the front-page advertisement).
Horne's book is full of diagrams and commentary on Hebrew poetry showing these parallelisms. The diagrams and commentary are also found in all editions Robert Lowth's "Isaiah" that have a "Preliminary Dissertation." They are found, of course, in Lowth's massively detailed "Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews." The diagrams serve as how-to examples of how to write pieces of Hebrew poetry.
Another book on parallelisms is "An Essay on Hebrew Poetry Ancient and Modern" (London, 1824), by Philip Sarchi.
The United States was awash in cheap books in Joseph Smith's youth. Some two-hundred-book wagons roamed the country selling books. In other words, the bookstore came to the farm, and these sellers accepted produce in payment for books. Bookstores also accepted "clean rags." These facts are not mentioned by Givens or other Mormon scholars. One Erie Canal boat was made into a floating bookstore.
The book trade between the United States and England was impressive--some 2.5 million dollars in 1823, and it made no difference whatsoever if a book was published in London or New York. It was available. American editions of British books were so cheap and popular in England that British publishers complained that the Americans were violating copyright laws. The Americans were amused and continued to manufacture the books.
References to Palmyra as a "wilderness" or a "frontier" are not justified by reality. Palmyra was settled farming community with some manufacturing, and right on the Erie Canal, the freeway of its day (opened to Palmyra several years before its official dedication in 1825--there is an 1821 lock in Palmyra).
One Palmyra newspaper ad had some 200 books advertised on the front page in 1818--more histories and more religious books than you will ever see in a Sunday newspaper today. One traveling show with an elephant came through Palmyra, and the biblical "witch of Endor" was even in Palmyra as part of a traveling wax museum. Not quite the world painted by Mormon scholars.
The Hebrew origin of the American Indians found front-age coverage in 1825 in the speech of Mordecai Noah when he founded "A World Refuge for the Jews" at "Ararat" on an island in the Niagara River at Buffalo ("Noah's Ark" with Indians aboard sailed the Erie Canal). I own many books about the Hebrew origins of the American Indians published in Joseph Smith's youth.
As for the Erie Canal, it is eye-opening that Henry and Elihu Phinney imported books straight from New York City and Philadelphia and distributed them throughout the towns and villages of upstate New York. The Phinney brothers used large book wagons with moveable tops and counters. They even converted a canal boat into a floating bookstore (see Margaret T. Hills, "The English Bible in America," p. 69).
These facts about the distribution of religious books and histories are not mentioned in Given's book, nor in the books by Richard Bushman, another Mormon historian. Regrettably, both these scholars uncritically accept the claims made by FARMS and also the bogus "scholarship" of Hugh Nibley, whoses sources do not check out.
In contrast to the real world of Joseph Smith's youth, Givens has constructed a sophisticated, though false, architecture. By ignoring the real world of books in America, these scholars produce arguments that are satisfying to educated Mormons who do not have the time or inclination to explore the sources used by this new generation of Mormon scholars.
A false methodology: By tracing words back to the beginning of time, it is easy to produce boatloads of outwardly impressive commentary. Such word games satisfy those who demand a sophisticated answer to criticisms of the Book of Mormon. In this, the "scholarship" churned out by FARMS, for example, is a house of cards that Mormon intellectuals uncritically accept.
Here is an example: In an article entitled "How Could Joseph Smith Write So Accurately About Ancient America?" BYU scholar John Sorenson says of Humboldt's book ("Researches" about ancient America) that: "Besides, the chance is vanishingly small that the learned German's esoteric work would have been accessible anywhere in America except at a handful of the best libraries on the Atlantic seaboard, to which Joseph Smith had no access before the Book of Mormon was published" (p. 274).
Such an erudite display of confidence in speaking absolute nonsense.
In fact, Humboldt's "Researches" was advertised for sale on the front page of the "Palmyra Register" (Oct. 6, 1818), along with dozens of other histories. My copy Humboldt's book has a color engraving of a leaf from the Maya "Dresden Codex" as well as an engraving of the Aztec calendar stone.
In other words, all the materials needed for producing the "Anthon Transcript" were available in Palmyra. All kinds of "fac-simlies" of ancient codices were available to the farmers and townsfolk of the Palmyra area. This is a fact that all Americans should be proud of, not something to hide, which FARMS has done with impressive subtly. Think about it: a page of the Dresden Codex was in Palmyra.
On page 119, Givens uncritically quotes Hugh Nibley, who had the bizarre idea that: "If you want proof of the Book of Mormon, you must go to the Old World. You won't find it in the New World."
Such nonsense--where were the Book of Mormon civilizations? In the Old World or the New? And, why won't we find proof of the Book of Mormon in the New World? Because Nibley thinks the Nephites lived in "quickly built wooden cities." Hence, quickly disappearing.
I must mention another thing Nibley wrote: "The only weapons that have survived from prehistoric times are far more suited to their purpose than a modern rifle. The deadliest of all hunting weapons remains to this day the stone-headed (not steel-headed arrow)." Parenthesis by Nibley.
Modern rifle and bow hunters raise your hand if you believe this! Nibley's weird theories should be an embarrassment to educated Mormons. In "In Lehi in the Desert" (p. 32), Nibley said Joseph Smith was "illiterate" and Cowdery "half-educated."
These are completely unfair descriptions of both men. An illiterate translator? Now that's a new idea, as well as the Jaredites living in a "dateless age." What's that mean? Givens didn't ask.
Givens writes (p. 50): "Looking out upon a quarter-million of his own dead, (Mormon) records his pathetic farewell...." Where did these quarter-million die? Where exactly? That is a lot of bones and weapons. In Nibley's "Old World," or the New? Neither writer provides an answer.
Givens refers to the Jaredites many times, but he fails to even mention the Jaredite voyage in 2,000 BC voyage aboard submarines for 344 days. By ignoring the fanciful Jaredite voyage, Givens has conceded that it cannot be defended as real history.
In short, the Book of Mormon stands in stark contrast to the findings of New World archaeology. Consider Robert J. Sharer's heavy and authoritative 753-page "The Ancient Maya." Sharer is Professor of Anthropology and Curator of the American Section of the University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, at the University of Pennsylvania. Sharer writes:
"After more than a century of gathering and analyzing archaeological evidence, we have discovered nothing to support the idea of intervention by people from the Old World." "This is not to say that accidental contacts between the Old and New World peoples could not have occurred before the age of European exploration" (p. 6).
After reading Givens' book, I shook my head in disbelief that "Oxford University Books" would even publish it.
If you what a fair and unbiased history, then read another book. If you want a faith massage, then you will love this book. Producing a book full of footnotes and fine print does not necessarily make that book a fair or honest history.
Please read my reviews of other Mormon books and my non-Mormon listmania.
Echoes and Evidences of the Book of Mormon
Your comments--positive or negative--are appreciated. Thanks.
Gold Plates, Ancient Glyphs, Authority , Translation , Sacred Scripture , 100 million distributed , Prophecy , Moral&Doc impact
1. Description of the Gold plates: "The volume was something near six inches in thickness, a part of which was sealed.The characters on the unsealed part were small, and beautifully engraved.The whole body exhibited many marks of antiquity in its construction and much skill in the art of engraving."Givens says, "The passage reads rather like a catalogue description penned by a connoisseur of fine books."
2. Words are empty, experience gives meaning.Miram Levering defines three categories of scripture: 1. those that have supernatural origin 2. those that are used to define our relationship to the sacred 3. or those that are treated as sacred.Levering admits that the categories do not give justice to the many ways the scriptures can be experienced by the community:people respond of the scriptures, they read them and understand that can have in their religious projects.Shlomo Biderman agrees, "to understand scripture is to understand the conditions under which a group of text has gained authority over the lives of people and has been incorporated into human activities of various important kinds."
3. The Book of Mormon is the second most widely distributed book in the world after the Bible: distribution of 15,000 a day and over 100 million total distribution.The Book of Mormon has been printed in 94 languages.The keystone of the LDS faith. The Book of Mormon contains the words of Isaiah.Vast numbers of religious academic mind have studied the Book of Mormon, evaluating it literary style, the stories of human drama and tragedy, historicity of three ancient American cultures and their rise and fall (Nephites, Mulekites, and Jaredites), unique revealed doctrine, and the moral battle between good and evil.Harold Bloom extends the analysis and calls the LDS religion the America religion.One researcher said, "of becoming the first major faith to appear on earth since the Prophet Mohammed rode out of the desert."
4. Theologians and religious scholars of the first rank, from Jacob Neusner to James Charlesworth to Harold Bloom have been suggesting it is time to take the writings of Joseph Smith more seriously. Wilhelm Benz and Finn Heikki Raisanen have argued that Joseph Smith needs to be taken more seriously as a theologian.Jan Shipps says, "the Book of Mormon occupies a position of major importance in both the religious and intellectual history of the United States."
5. 1820, Joseph Smith received the first vision; in1832, Joseph Smith recorded the first vision; and in 1842, the first vision was published.
6. Moroni conveyed message was something of complexity and variability: 1. the Gold plates were deposited in the earth, a physical, tangible medium.2. the angel characterized the book as an account of the ancient inhabitants of the continent and he was one of those inhabitants, chronicler of their history, and keeper of the sacred plates.The Book of Mormon would be subjected to the exacting glaze of scholarly verification to satisfy expectations of confirmatory evidence. 3. the angel indicated that the fullness of the gospel was contained in the plates, "as delivered by the Savior to the ancient inhabitants."The angel's description foreshadows the paradoxical charges to come.The plates were in a hillside, nearby, and had been there for 1,400 years.
7. Joseph Smith, a new Mose: a. Malachi - "messanger, who shall prepare the way before me: after which the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come." B. Isaiah - "an ensign to the nations", "second gathering of Israel".C. Joel - the Lord pouring out his spirit upon all flesh in a new Pentecostal era, "your young men shall see visions". C. Daniel - "stone cut out of the mountain without hands."
8. "Moroni had made clear that an era of history-changing turmoil was now dawning, that the end time was near, and that spiritual forces were being unleashed while the wicked would soon burn as stubble."
9. "I had been tempted of the adversary and sought the plates to obtain riches...Therefore, I was chastened" - the temptation of wealth and easy life. "On attempting to take possession of the record a shock was produced upon his system, by an invisible power which deprived him, in a measure, of his natural strength."Lucy Mack, Joseph Smith's mother said he was "hurled to the ground with great violence" as was Uzzah for steadying the ark.The implicated value of the Gold plates is construed as sacred by divine.
10. Joseph Smith confirmed through the Urim and Thummin that David Whitmer, Oliver Cowdery, and Martin Harris could see for them the mysterious and holy relics (sword of Labon and Liahona), and view the Gold plates.The three witnesses were commanded to bear testimony to the world of what they had seen."These plates have been revealed by the power of God, and they have been translated by the power of God."
11. "The centeredness on Christ, the Messiah, in a document purporting to have been written by New World Israelites over a period from the six centuries before Christ to 421 AD is certainly one of the more remarkable-and daring-features of the Book of Mormon, theologically." The Book of Mormon is a history of pre-Christian Christians, who talk, rejoice, and prophesy of Christ.
12. Joseph Smith maintained that Adam was taught faith in Christ, baptized, and received the cleansing fire of the Holy Ghost.The career same pattern emerges: Solomon and the molten sea=font resting on the back of 12 oxen, Elijah prophesy of turning the hearts of the children=eternal families and genealogy work, Jonah and the bell of the whale=premortal life.
13. "Joseph Smith is no Luther, pouring over the scriptures to provide revisionist interpretations of Christian doctrine, or a King Josiah, rediscovering neglected scrolls of scripture.He is Moses, bringing down utterly new tablets from the mount, to a people still possessed of shadowy recollections of a former, fuller knowledge of Jehovah."
14. "Joseph predicted to Wentworth, `no unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing, persecutions may rage, mobs may combine, armies may assemble, calumny may defame, but the truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent till it has penetrated every continent, visited every clime, swept every country, and sounded in every ear, till the purposes of God shall be accomplished and the great Jehovah shall say they work is done."
15. "The Book of Mormon is preeminently a concrete manifestation of sacred utterance, and thus an evidence of divine presence, before it is a repository of theological claims."
16. Mikhail Bakhtin says authoritative discourse demands that we acknowledge it, that we make it our own; it binds us, quite independent of any power it might have to persuade us internally; we encounter it with its authority already fused to it."Joseph Smith's words, by the spirit of revelation he embodies, are validated by the authority to which they are fused-not by linguistic analysis, scholarly opinion, rhetorical charm, or anything else and the words stand or fall with the authority.
17. "The particular models of seership that Smith exemplified and the authoritative nature of the text he produced were powerfully shaped by the nature of the translation process itself.In translating the Gold plates, Joseph Smith more close match the prophetic role modeled by Moses than Paul.Where the tablets of God were written by the finger of God, the epistles of Paul captured all the frailties of one who spoke as a man."
18. The Urim and Thummim, played the following roles:1. The sacred instruments established the Book of Mormon's claim to a scriptural status not just equivalent to the Bible, but reminiscent of the sacred tablets them-selves. 2. The prophetic authority connected Joseph Smith to Moses and Aaron, as prophet and priest. 3.The Urim and Thummim is connected to the priestly office when people came to seek divine consultation.4.The Urim and Thummim by its palpability, divine provenance, and miraculous powers polarize the Book of Mormon around the issue of authenticity rather than theological merit. 5. The oracular function of revealing God's will anciently is unimpeachable.As signs of priestly authority, the interpreters make Joseph a holy medium rather than human sour of the record. 6.The Urim and Thummim, in other words produced a translation precisely in accord with the original plates - no approximation or near-hits.
19. Joseph Smith was fascinated by the historical dimension to the ancient records and his mother states, "In the course of our evening conversations, Joseph gave us some of the most amusing recitals which could be imagined.He would describe the ancient inhabitants of this continent, their dress, their manner of dwelling, the animals which they rode, the cities that they built, and the structure of their buildings with every particular, their mode of warfare, and their religious worship as specifically as though he had spent his life with them."
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Havent read yet - sorry - my fault
Interesting but incomplete...