Origins and Last Farewells: Bible Wars, Textual Form, and the Making of American History

Abstract

The Puritans never published John Winthrop's “city on a hill” sermon, A Model of Christian Charity, which vanished in the seventeenth century. When it reappeared 200 years later, scholars relied on a dubious cover-note to proclaim its foundational significance. Demonstrating how the Geneva Bible gave shape to Winthrop's sermon–and how the manuscript's whims helped make sense of its meaning–this essay reveals the role of textual form in the construction of American history.

Postexceptionalist Puritanism

“…5 Scholars looked instead, for example, to the presence and influence of Native American nations in New England, demonstrating how much the meeting of these cultures shaped one another in a multitude of ways. That contact presented new forms of knowledge in medical encounters (Wisecup 2013; Silva 2011), new theological questions and challenges (Bross 2004), new forms of communication and publication (Cohen 2009), new epistemological concerns and philosophical reflections about the soul (Rivett 2011;Van Engen 2015), new figures for transatlantic dialogues, debates, and power struggles (Stevens 2004), and much more. Even when scholars focused primarily on the white English settlers of New England, a great deal of diversity continued to emerge.…”

We made history: Citizens of 35 countries overestimate their nation's role in world history.

“…He invoked John Winthrop’s “City on a Hill” speech and suggested that the United States has a unique mission of being a beacon to other nations. Since then, American political and religious leaders from a variety of backgrounds and political orientations have often equated American exceptionalism with the idea that the United States is the greatest country in the history of the world (e.g., Gingrich, 2011; for reviews and criticisms, see Gamble, 2012; Van Engen, 2013).…”