book
By the Hand of Mormon: The American Scripture That Launched a New World Religion
Givens, Terryl L. By the Hand of Mormon. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Why this matters here
Givens reconstructs early Latter-day Saint communities as sites of dense interpretive labor—argument, comparison, confirmation, and discipline—rather than mere credulity. When Interpretation No Longer Matters uses that history against the caricature that closed systems never thought; the question becomes when interpretive work stops being able to reopen the door.
