The American Bible-Whose America Is This?

How Our Words Unite, Divide, and Define a Nation

Stephen Prothero

• Publisher: HarperOne
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780062123459
• eBook ISBN: 9780062123428
• Topic: Politik & Internationale Beziehungen
• Subtopic: Geschichtstheorie & -kritik

NOTES

Introduction

1. Abraham Lincoln, “Gettysburg Address,” http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/gettyb.asp.

2. Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man (1791–92), chap. 4, www.constitution.org/tp/rightsman2.htm. See, however, John Jay, “Federalist No. 2,” www.constitution.org/fed/federa02.htm: “Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people—a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs, and who, by their joint counsels, arms, and efforts, fighting side by side throughout a long and bloody war, have nobly established general liberty and independence.”

3. Gordon Wood, The Idea of America: Reflections on the Birth of the United States (New York: Penguin, 2011), p. 322.

4. Noah Webster Jr., An American Selection of Lessons in Reading and Speaking (Hartford, CT: Hudson & Goodwin, 1789), p. 2.

5. “Thomas Jefferson: A Film by Ken Burns,” interview transcripts, Gore Vidal, www.pbs.org/jefferson/archives/interviews/Vidal.htm.

6. George Chambers, quoted in Proceedings and Debates of the Convention of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to Propose Amendments to the Constitution (Harrisburg, PA: Packer, Barrett, and Parke, 1838), 4.483.

7. Merrill D. Peterson, The Jefferson Image in the American Mind (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1960), p. 9.

8. Garry Wills, Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), p. 172.

9. Quoted in Linda Holmes, “Why Read Moby-Dick?’: A Passionate Defense of the ‘American Bible,’ ” www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2011/10/18/141429619/why-read-moby-dick-a-passionate-defense-of-the-american-bible.

10. John Updike, “A Sage for All Seasons,” Guardian, June 25, 2004, www.guardian.co.uk/books/2004/jun/26/classics.

11. Jeffrey M. Jones, “Democratic Party ID Drops in 2010, Tying 22-Year Low,” January 5, 2011, www.gallup.com/poll/145463/democratic-party-drops-2010-tying-year-low.aspx.

12. “Congress: Republicans,” www.pollingreport.com/cong_rep.htm; “Congress: Democrats,” www.pollingreport.com/cong_dem.htm.

13. Jeff Zeleny and Megan Thee-Brenan, “New Poll Finds a Deep Distrust of Government,” New York Times, October 25, 2011, p. 1.

14. “Video and Transcript of Jon Stewart’s Closing Speech at Rally to Restore Sanity,” www.examiner.com/political-buzz-in-national/video-and-transcript-of-jon-stewart-s-closing-speech-at-rally-to-restore-sanity.

15. Henry Commager, “Restoring Liberalism’s Good Name,” Boston Globe, December 13, 1979, p. 21. Commager is borrowing from an Abraham Lincoln story about two men fighting their way into each other’s coats—a story Lincoln applied to the Federalists and the Jeffersonians (Lincoln to H. L. Pierce and others, April 6, 1859, in Andrew A. Lipscomb and Albert E. Bergh, eds., The Writings of Thomas Jefferson [Washington, DC: Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1903], 1:xvi).

16. See Stuart Butler and Edmund Haislmaier, A National Health System for America (Washington, DC: Heritage Foundation, 1989), p. 1.

17. Abraham Lincoln, “First Inaugural Address,” March 4, 1861, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/lincoln1.asp.

18. Horace M. Kallen, “Democracy Versus the Melting-Pot: A Study of American Nationality,” Nation, February 25, 1915, www.expo98.msu.edu/people/Kallen.htm.

The Exodus Story

1. Bruce Feiler, America’s Prophet: Moses and the American Story (New York: William Morrow, 2009), p. 4.

2. Sarah H. Bradford, Harriet Tubman: The Moses of Her People (New York: Lockwood, 1886); Martin Luther King Jr., “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,” Memphis, Tennessee, April 3, 1968, www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkivebeentothemountaintop.htm.

3. Abraham Lincoln, “Address to the Senate of New Jersey,” Trenton, New Jersey, February 21, 1861, reprinted in John G. Nicolay and John Hay, eds., Abraham Lincoln: Complete Works (New York: Century, 1894), 1:688.

4. Martin Luther King Jr., Nobel Prize acceptance speech, December 11, 1964, www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1964/king-lecture.html.

5. Albert J. Raboteau, “American Salvation: The Place of Christianity in Public Life,” Boston Review, April/May 2005, http://bostonreview.net/BR30.2/raboteau.php.

6. Nehemiah 9:7–25, KJV.

John Winthrop, “A Model of Christian Charity” (1630)

1. Perry Miller, Errand into the Wilderness (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1956).

2. For an excellent discussion of the sermon, including its composition and delivery, see Francis J. Bremer, John Winthrop: America’s Forgotten Founding Father (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2003), pp. 174–84.

3. Quoted in Eve LaPlante, American Jezebel: The Uncommon Life of Anne Hutchinson, the Woman Who Defied the Puritans (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 2004), p. 130.

4. Peter J. Gomes, “Best Sermon: A Pilgrim’s Progress,” New York Times, April 18, 1999, p. 101, http://theater.nytimes.com/library/magazine/millennium/m1/gomes.html; Andrew Delbanco, The Puritan Ordeal (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1989), p. 72.

5. Thomas Jefferson, “First Inaugural Address,” March 4, 1801, www.princeton.edu/~tjpapers/inaugural/infinal.html; Abraham Lincoln, “First Inaugural Address,” March 4, 1861, www.vlib.us/amdocs/texts/19linc1.htm.

6. Edmund S. Morgan, “John Winthrop’s ‘Model of Christian Charity’ in a Wider Context,” Huntington Library Quarterly 50.2 (Spring 1987): 145–46.

7. Peter J. Gomes, The Good Book: Reading the Bible with Mind and Heart (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 2002), pp. 62–63.

8. Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789–1815 (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2009).

9. John Winthrop, “A Model of Christian Charity” (1630), http://religiousfreedom.lib.virginia.edu/sacred/charity.html.

Thomas Paine, Common Sense (1776)

1. Benjamin Franklin to Richard Bache, September 30, 1774, in Jared Sparks, ed., The Works of Benjamin Franklin (Boston: Hilliard, Gray, 1839), 8:137.

2. Scott Liell, 46 Pages: Thomas Paine, Common Sense, and the Turning Point to American Independence (Philadelphia: Running Press, 2003), p. 51.

3. John Adams, Autobiography, in Charles Francis Adams, ed., The Works of John Adams (Boston: Little and Brown, 18...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Publisher's Note
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction
• Genesis
• Law
• Chronicles
• Psalms
• Proverbs
• Prophets
• Lamentations
• Gospels
• Acts
• Epistles
• Epilogue
• Index
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Notes
• Credits
• Books by Stephen Prothero
• Copyright
• About the Publishers
• Footnotes