In the Beginning Was the Word: The Bible in American Public Life, 1492-1783

by Mark A. Noll

Overview

In the beginning of American history, the Word was in Spanish, Latin, and native languages like Nahuatal. But while Spanish and Catholic Christianity reached the New World in 1492, it was only with settlements in the seventeenth century that English-language Bibles and Protestant Christendom arrived. The Puritans brought with them intense devotion to Scripture, as well as their ideal of Christendom — a civilization characterized by a thorough intermingling of the Bible with everything else. That ideal began this country's journey from the Puritan's City on a Hill to the Bible-quoting country the U.S. is today. In the Beginning Was the Word shows how important the Bible remained, even as that Puritan ideal changed considerably through the early stages of American history.

Author Mark Noll shows how seventeenth-century Americans received conflicting models of scriptural authority from Europe: the Bible under Christendom (high Anglicanism), the Bible over Christendom (moderate Puritanism), and the Bible against Christendom (Anabaptists, enthusiasts, Quakers). In the eighteenth century, the colonists turned increasingly to the Bible against Christendom, a stance that fueled the Revolution against Anglican Britain and prepared the way for a new country founded on the separation of church and state.

One of the foremost scholars of American Christianity, Mark Noll brings a wealth of research and wisdom to In the Beginning Was the Word, providing a sweeping, engaging, and insightful survey of the relationship between the Bible and public issues from the beginning of European settlement. A seminal new work from a world-class scholar, this book offers a fresh account of the contested, sometimes ambiguous, but definite biblical roots of American history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780190263980
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	11/06/2015
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	448
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

Mark A. Noll is the Francis A. McAnaney Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame and author of numerous books, including America's God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln (OUP 2002) and Protestantism: A Very Short Introduction (OUP 2011).

Table of Contents

Introduction

Prelude: Catholic Bibles in the New World

1) Protestant Beginnings
2) From William Tyndale to King James
3) England in the Era of Colonization
4) Colonial Christendom
5) Beyond Christendom
6) Empire
7) Revival
8) Deepened
9) Thinned, Absorbed
10) Revolution

Conclusion/Afterword

Notes
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

"This is a superb book. In his lucid prose, Noll clarifies a complex topic and weaves an astounding number of sources into an engaging narrative. The result is an authoritative history of the Bible in early America that refocuses our view of the nation and its most influential book."—James P. Byrd, Journal of Church and State

"This work will likely be read by anyone interested in the widely read Bible, Protestant history in America, and early American history."—The Journal of American Studies

"In the Beginning Was the Word offers genuinely fresh insights into the roots of American ideology."—Times Literary Supplement

"Monumental . . . The story told by Noll brims with ironies and complexities. The first installment of a projected two-volume history of the Bible in American public life, In the Beginning Was the Word is the fruit of Noll's many years of deep reflection combined with his proven talent for synthesis." —Peter Thuesen, Books & Culture, selected as a Favorite Book of 2015

"[A] rich and deep examination of the place of the bible, both as an object and a source of ideas, in the public life of early America . . . Noll has demonstrated that it is virtually impossible to understand the colonial society without understanding the place, significance, and prominence of scripture in private and public life." —New Books in History

"[A] thoughtful book."—William and Mary Quarterly

"Noll shows how 17th-century Americans received conflicting models of scriptural authority from Europe: the Bible under Christendom (high Anglicanism), the Bible over Christendom (moderate Puritanism), and the Bible against Christendom (Anabaptists, enthusiasts, Quakers). In the 18th century, the colonists turned increasingly to the Bible against Christendom, fueling the Revolution against Britain and preparing the way for a new country founded on the separation of church and state." —Wichita Eagle, New & Notable

"A superb study of Early America's most widely read book by one of the nation's leading historians of religion. No one has ever before described and analyzed the role of the Bible in colonial America as thoroughly as Mark Noll has in this important book. In the Beginning Was the Word is a landmark work of history." — Gordon S. Wood, Professor of History Emeritus, Brown University

"In the Beginning Was the Word documents the Bible's ubiquity in the nation's formative years. With massive research and lapidary prose, Noll shows how Scripture provided solace for individuals, authority for Protestants, and warrants for Christendom. Lest there be any doubt, the volume secures the author's rank as the dean of active American religious historians." — Grant Wacker, Gilbert T. Rowe Professor of Christian History, Duke Divinity School

"Mark Noll has written a learned and wise treatment of the power of the Bible in early American history, sensitive to the ways Scripture was invoked on different sides of many disputes. Noll appropriately roots his account in the Old World background and restores the importance of Puritanism to the course of American History." — Daniel Walker Howe, Pulitzer-Prize-winning author of What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848

"This book is a must-read for all pastors and students of scripture." -Ministry

"Noll's work is a significant contribution to literature on colonial American intellectual history in demonstrating how the Bible was often both shaping and being shaped by intellectual currents." —Religious Studies Review

"During the last 50 years, Noll has been one of the principal leaders, along with other evangelical Protestant scholars, who have continued the tradition of superb, critical analysis of the history of Christianity that was begun by the 'church historians' of an earlier generation (Martin Marty, Syndney Ahlstrom and others). This book stands as a monument to his scholarly career, in which he has drawn on the insights of American 'historians of American religion' and many other disciplines, but still adhering to his commitment to write history for the edification of the church. May his work continue, and may his tribe increase."—The Presbyterian Outlook

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