Table of Contents

1. ''A Bible with the Back Cover Torn Off''
2. Policing the Borders, or, How Independent Ministers Rode the Canonical Range
3. Good Rulers and Better Books
4. Revelatory Factors of the Early Republic
5. Faith, Doubt and the Penning of Scripture
6. ''Arguments for the Possibility Are Good''
7. Conclusion: A Border Breached, A God Sought, A Boundary Reinforced

About the Author

David Holland graduated summa cum laude from Brigham Young University and received masters and doctoral degrees in History from Stanford University. He has held fellowships from the Mellon Foundation, the Whiting Foundation, and Yale's Center for Religion and American Life. His work has appeared in such journals as The New England Quarterly, Law and History Review, and Gender and History. As an assistant professor, he
is an award-winning teacher and director of graduate studies in the History Department at the University of Nevada Las Vegas.

Reviews

"A very provocative and erudite, not to mention ambitious, book... The author's command of primary sources, the cognate secondary literature, and the broad stream of intellectual history is impressive... This is an excellent book, one that raises all sorts of issues about authority in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century America."--BYU Studies Quarterly
"[An] erudite and intriguing study of debates about canon and continuing revelation." --Mormon Studies Review
"Holland's superb book traces from the seventeenth through the mid-nineteenth century a series of American debates over the authority of the traditional biblical canon. He argues plausibly, in lucid and fresh prose, that this debate was closer to the center of American religious thought than previous historians have recognized and that it attracted the energies both of popular religious thinkers and of the educated clergy. . . This book compels one to look at
the history of religious thought in America in fresh ways."--E. Brooks Holifield, Charles Howard Candler Professor of American Religious History, Emory University
"In this bold and elegantly crafted interpretation of early American religion, Holland shows that the real energy was in the canonical 'borderlands'--the disputed territory in which new revelations competed for acceptance. He demonstrates that the breaching or securing of canonical boundaries factored importantly, if not centrally, in the development of a variety of American religious groups."--Peter J. Thuesen, Professor of Religious Studies and Department
Chair, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis
"Is the Bible a closed book, or is God still communicating with human beings? David Holland's exploration of this question for Christians in early America illuminates a topic of crucial significance to the self-understanding of many religious believers. Holland artfully demonstrates that from the Puritans to the Transcendentalists, Christians have questioned the canon and its limits, treading across the borderlands of scriptural authority, and struggling with
the paradox of a living deity revealed in a limited sacred text."
--Laurie Maffly-Kipp, Professor and Chair, Department of Religious Studies, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
"David f. Holland ultimately reframes the American religious story itself in compelling ways, making this book far more than simple doctrinal history...a must read."--Jewel L. Spangler, University of Calgary
"...a significant contribution."--Stephen J. Stein, Emeritus, Indiana University
"The coverage is comprehensive and informative...the threads of his argument come together persuasively in the end."--Journal of Interdisciplinary History