By the Hand of Mormon: the American Scripture that Launched a New World Religion.(Book Review) (book review)

First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life, April, 2003

By TERRYL L. GIVENS. Oxford University Press. 320 pp. $30.

A carefully documented and sympathetic account of the origins, teachings, and current interpretations of the Book of Mormon. The author engages most of the conventional criticisms by non-Mormon scholars in a manner that is probably as persuasive as is possible, given that the criticisms are so many and so substantive. While Mormonism is inextricably entangled with the Christian tradition, the author recognizes that, as the subtitle indicates, it is a new religion.