Review of Elizabeth Fenton and Jared Hickman, Americanist Approaches to The Book of Mormon (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019). 456 pages. $99 (hardback), $35 (paperback).

Abstract: Americanist Approaches to The Book of Mormon is an ambitious collection of essays published by Oxford University Press. By “Americanist” the editors refer to their preferred mode of contextualization: to situate the Book of Mormon as a response to various currents of nineteenth- century American thought. The “table rules” in this case determine who gets invited to the table and what topics can be discussed, using what types of evidence. The approach is legitimate, and the contributors offer a range of interesting perspectives and observations. Several essays base their arguments on the notion that the Book of Mormon adapts itself to a series of racist tropes common in the nineteenth century. In 2015, Ethan Sproat wrote an important essay that undercuts the arguments of those authors, but none of them address his case or evidence. This raises the issue of the existence of other tables operating under different assumptions, confronting the same text, and reaching very different conclusions. How are we to judge which table’s rules produce the best readings?

Americanist Approaches to The Book of Mormon is an ambitious collection of essays published in 2019 by Oxford University Press.1 By “Americanist,” the editors refer to their preferred mode [Page 68]of contextualization: to situate the Book of Mormon as a response to various currents of nineteenth-century American thought.

The authors of this collection’s essays approach The Book of Mormon from a variety of methodological and theological perspectives, but all share a commitment to taking seriously the book’s relationship to and impact on the culture into which it emerged. (10)

The editors provide an introduction and then seventeen essays grouped as “Plates and Print,” “Scripture and Secularity,” “Indigeneity and Imperialism,” and “Genre and Generation.” Each essay takes a serious academic tone (for the most part2), and the attitudes vary from respect rooted in deep devotion and broad knowledge (Terryl Givens, Grant Hardy, and Amy Easton-Flake) to friendly (Paul Gutjahr and Elizabeth Fenton) to deeply skeptical (Peter Coviello, Eran Shalev, and R. John Williams). For instance, Flake’s essay “‘Arise From the Dust, My Sons, and Be Men’” explores the Book of Mormon’s view of masculinity in light of nineteenth-century concepts of male and female roles, and concludes that “we find a new vision of ideal Christian manhood that challenges the idea that American religion was feminized in the nineteenth century” (370). Grant Hardy writes about “The Book of Mormon and the Bible,