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

by Mark A. Noll
Oxford Univ. Oct. 2015. 448p. photos. notes. bibliog. index. ISBN 9780190263980. $29.95. REL
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Noll (history, Notre Dame Univ., Turning Points; The Rise of Evangelicalism; America's God) is one of the foremost scholars on religious belief and practice in the United States—as well as a trenchant critic of contemporary Evangelicalism. This volume is a more focused successor to Noll's general histories of faith within the United States; he looks specifically at the role and use of the Bible over the course of America's early years as the country transitioned from a strict devotion to the Word to increasingly disparate views among Anabaptists, Quakers, and others. If anything, Noll does not make quite enough of the ironies implicit in the primacy of the Word for early settlers and the creation of a nation based on a document.
VERDICT An intelligent yet somewhat dry study from the expert hand of Noll; excellent for academic libraries and study groups.
Reviewed by Graham Christian, formerly with Andover-Harvard Theological Lib., Cambridge, MA , Sep 11, 2015
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