“The Several Lives of the Book of Mormon”
Terryl Givens, University of Richmond Department of English
The Boston University Department of Religion Annual Lecture.
The 19th century saw repeated calls for an authentic American Bible. When the century was over, the Book of Mormon had emerged as the foremost claimant for the title. This lecture will review that book’s history and composition, then move on to explore how the book’s reception, more than its literary form, constituted its scriptural status. Borrowing from Saussure, Bakhtin, and reception theory, this examination of the Book of Mormon at the same time reveals how the modern history of this “golden bible” radically expands any notion of scripture emerging out of our experience of the Jewish or Christian Bible.