What I hope to accomplish in a few pages here is relatively simple. My aim is simply to make transparent the stakes of, the argument for, and the motivations behind the best-known claim that Terryl L. Givens makes in his breathtakingly brilliant 2002 book By the Hand of Mormon. I have reference here to the following lines, often quoted:
Looking at the Book of Mormon in terms of its early uses and reception, it becomes clear that this American scripture has exerted influence within the church and reaction outside the church not primarily by virtue of its substance, but rather by virtue of its manner of appearing, not on the merits of what it says, but what it enacts. Put slightly differently, the history of the Book of Mormon's place in Mormonism and American religion generally has always been more connected to its status as signifier than...
