Set in Stone

America's Embrace of the Ten Commandments
Erscheinungsjahr 2017
ISBN: 978-0-19-025319-6
Verlag: Oxford University Press

Buch, Englisch, 232 Seiten, Format (B × H): 147 mm x 216 mm, Gewicht: 363 g

The Ten Commandments need no introduction. In fact, we probably think we know all there is to know about these divine dos and don'ts. But as this imaginative and vivid account reveals, there is a lot more to this ancient biblical code than Moses and Mount Sinai. Situating the Ten Commandments within the context of modern America, prominent historian and engaging story-teller Jenna Weissman Joselit takes the reader from Indian burial mounds in 19th-century Ohio to the
sand dunes of 1920s California and into the civic squares of the 1950s to reveal the centrality of the Ten Commandments to the nation's identity.

Rich in incident and story and inhabited by a lively cast of characters whose ranks include forgers and filmmakers, architects and archaeologists, ordinary citizens and politicians, this book compels us to take another look at the Ten Commandments and see them afresh. Through a series of deftly-rendered vignettes, this compelling account recasts the cultural impact of the Ten Commandments in American society not as a legal code or theological imperative, but as a physical, material, and visual
phenomenon. We come away with the understanding that they are not cast in stone but a fertile repository of American history.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Weissman Joselit, Jenna

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Christentum, Christliche Theologie Bibelwissenschaften Altes Testament: Exegese, Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Amerikanische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Religionswissenschaft Allgemein Religion & Kultur
• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Religionswissenschaft Allgemein Religionsgeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Christentum, Christliche Theologie Christliche Kirchen, Konfessionen, Denominationen Protestantismus, evangelische und protestantische Kirchen

Über Autor(innen)

Jenna Weissman Joselit is the Charles E. Smith Professor of Judaic Studies and Professor of History at the George Washington University. She is the author of several books on American daily life in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including The Wonders of America, winner of the National Jewish Book Award in History, and A Perfect Fit: Clothes, Character, and the Promise of America.