Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
William L. Davis
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Oral Performance ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Nineteenth Century America ◽  
Book Of Mormon ◽  
Western Esotericism ◽  
Oral Composition

The introduction situates Joseph Smith's oral composition of the Book of Mormon within the religious and rhetorical culture of early nineteenth-century America. In an extended oral performance, Smith gazed into a seer stone and dictated the Book of Mormon to his scribes. The study focuses on orality, oral performance, and the oral composition techniques that Smith used to dictate the work. The introduction also includes a brief summary of the Book of Mormon narratives, along with a discussion on the academic framework for understanding seer stones in the context of Western esotericism and folk magic.

The Problem of Christian Unity in Early Nineteenth-Century America

1963 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lefferts A. Loetscher
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
American Revolution ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Nineteenth Century America ◽  
Social Challenge ◽  
Atlantic Community ◽  
Christian Unity ◽  
Aggressive Attack

American Protestants in the early nineteenth century faced intellectual and social challenge which made conspicuous the weakness of their own divided condition. The American Revolution—which was part of a larger upheaval in the Atlantic Community—had spread Enlightenment ideas, with their aggressive attack on orthodoxy. Quite typical was the lament of a convention of Massachusetts Congregational ministers in 1799 over “the present decay of Christian morals and piety, and the awful prevalence of speculative and practical infidelity.” Well before the middle eighteen-thirties the tide of deism had ebbed, but some, like the editors of the new Christian Review, were still building sea walls against it.

The Cultural Framing of Addiction

Janus Head ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 221-234
Author(s):  
Robin Room ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Culturally Specific ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Good Person ◽  
Nineteenth Century America

The concept of addiction is historically and culturally specific, becoming a common way of understanding experience first in early nineteenth-century America, This paper considers the relation to the concept of elements in current professional definitions of addiction (as dependence). Addiction concepts have become a commonplace in storytelling, offering a secular equivalent for possession as an explanation of how a good person can behave badly, and as an inner demon over which a hero can triumph.

Epilogue

2020 ◽  
pp. 193-196
Author(s):  
William L. Davis
Keyword(s):  
Alternative View ◽  
Oral Performance ◽  
Future Studies ◽  
Joseph Smith ◽  
Book Of Mormon ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Oral Composition

The epilogue concludes the study with a brief review of the role of oral composition and oral performance in the creation of the Book of Mormon, along with providing suggestions for future studies. The chapter challenges hagiographic tropes that portray Joseph Smith as an uneducated, illiterate farm boy, offering instead an alternative view of an ambitious young man seeking to improve his humble status and to fulfil his belief that he was destined to become a prophet of God. The epilogue ends with a review of Smith's legacy and how the Book of Mormon remains the foundational text of his movement.

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