Table of Contents

Introduction

Part One: Overview
1. "The Bible in American Life Today" by Philip Goff, Arthur Farnsley, and Peter Thuesen

Part Two: Past
2. "America's First Bible: Native Uses, Abuses, and Re-uses of the Indian Bible of 1663" by Linford D. Fisher
3. "The Debate over Prophetic Evidence for the Authority of the Bible in Cotton Mather's Biblia Americana" by Jan Stievermann
4. "Navigating the Loss of Interpretive Innocence: Reading the 'Enlightenment' Bible in Early Modern America" by Robert E. Brown
5. "Reading the Bible in a Romantic Era" by Beth Schweiger
6. "The Origins of Whiteness and the Black (Biblical) Imagination: The Bible in the 'Slave Narrative' Tradition" by Emerson B. Powery
7. "Biblical Women in the Woman's Exponent: The Bible in Nineteenth-Century Mormonism" by Amy Easton-Flake
8. "Scriptualizing Religion and Ethnicity: The Circle Seven Koran" by Sylvester Johnson
9. "Reading the Bible in War and Crisis to Know the Future" by Matthew Avery Sutton
10. "Reference Bibles and Interpretive Authority" by B.M. Pietsch
11. "The Soul's Train: The Bible and Southern Folk and Popular Music" by Paul Harvey
12. "Where Two or Three are Gathered: The Adult Bible Class Movement and the Social Life of Scripture" by Christopher D. Cantwell
13. "The Word is True: King James Onlyism and the Quest for Certainty in American Evangelical Life" by Jason A. Hentschel
14. "Selling Trust: The Living Bible and the Business of Biblicism" by Daniel Vaca
15. "The Bible and the Legacy of First Wave Feminism" by Claudia Setzer
16. "Let Us Be Attentive: The Orthodox Study Bible, Converts, and the Debate on Orthodox Lay Uses of Scripture" by Garrett Spivey

Part Three: Present
17. "The Continuing Distinctive Role of the Bible in American Lives: A Comparative Analysis" by Corwin Smidt
18. "Emerging Trends in American Children's Bibles, 1990-2015" by Russell W. Dalton
19. "The Curious Case of the Christian Bible and the U.S. Constitution: Challenges for Educators Teaching the Bible in a Multi-Religious Context" by John F. Kutsko
20. "Transforming Practice: American Bible Reading in Digital Culture" by John B. Weaver
21. "Readers and their E-Bibles: The Shape and Authority of the Hypertext Canon" by Bryan Bibb
22. "How American Women and Men Read the Bible" by Amanda Friesen
23. "Feels Right Exegesis: Qualitative Research on How Millennials Read the Bible" by J. Derrick Lemons
24. "Crowning the King: The Use of Production and Reception Studies to Determine the Most Popular English-Language Bible Translation in Contemporary America" by Paul Gutjahr
25. "Literalism as Creativity: Intertextuality in Making a Biblical Theme Park" by James S. Bielo
26. "The Bible in the Evangelical Imagination" by Daniel Silliman
27. "Feeling the Word: Sensing Scripture at Salvation Mountain" by Sara M. Patterson

Part Four: Retrospective
28. "The Bible: Then and Now" by Mark Noll

About the Author

Philip Goff is the Director of the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture and Chancellor's Professor of Religious Studies, American Studies, and History at IUPUI. Since 2000, he has been co-editor of Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation. His current research is focused on the history of religious radio in the United States.

Arthur E. Farnsley II is director of the Indiana University Center for Civic Literacy and Associate Director of the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture at IUPUI. His books have been about the politics of the Southern Baptist Convention, the role of congregations in faith-based welfare reform, and the ways religious culture shapes and is shaped by urban growth and development. His popular writing has appeared in Christianity Today, Christian
Century, and in newspapers across the country, as well as in his most recent book, Flea Market Jesus.

Peter J. Thuesen is Professor of Religious Studies at IUPUI and Co-Editor of Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation. His publications include Predestination: The American Career of a Contentious Doctrine (OUP) and In Discordance with the Scriptures: American Protestant Battles over Translating the Bible (OUP).

Reviews

"The breadth of the essays on offer in this volume is truly impressive... This book, or selected essays in it, could be put to excellent use in a variety of college courses, whether introductory or higher level, as well as being of use to anyone who wants to learn and think deeply about the historic and ongoing presence and influence of the Bible in daily American life." --Kipp Gilmore-Clough, Religion
"Goff, Farnsley, and Thuesen have prepared a feast full of fat insights and sweet research. The questions they raise will enable pastors and professors to better prepare sermons and classes with an eye toward ecumenical dialogue."--Christian Century
"[T]his text adds to the growing library of scholarship that seeks to understand how we, as Americans, arrived at our public discourses regarding the bible and Christianity in general, and perhaps, to remind us all that the Bible has been and remains more than a political tool."--Reading Religion
"This collection of essays offers a cornucopia of new data, old data cast in fresh light, clear writing, deep research, and arresting insights about the unparalleled role of the Bible in American culture. The editors' introductory summary of recent quantitative studies of the Bible's presence in contemporary daily life, and Mark Noll's rumination on the meaning of the Bible for understanding the nation's history, form impressive bookends for two-dozen
ground-breaking chapters, crafted by experts in American religion. Collections come and go, but this one will stand the test of time."--Grant Wacker, Gilbert T. Rowe Professor Emeritus of Christian History,
Duke Divinity School