Denmark Vesey’s Bible: The Thwarted Revolt That Put Slavery and Scripture on Trial by Jeremy Schipper (PDF)

Description

A timely and provocative account of the Bible’s role in one of the most consequential episodes in the history of slaveryOn July 2, 1822, Denmark Vesey, a formerly enslaved man, was hanged in Charleston, South Carolina. He was convicted of plotting what might have been the largest insurrection against slaveholders in US history. Witnesses claimed that Vesey appealed to numerous biblical texts to promote and justify the revolt. While sentencing Vesey to death, Lionel Henry Kennedy, a magistrate at the trial, accused Vesey not only of treason but also of “attempting to pervert the sacred words of God into a sanction for crimes of the blackest hue.” Denmark Vesey’s Bible tells the story of this momentous trial, examining the role of scriptural interpretation in the deadly struggle against American white supremacy and its brutal enforcement.Jeremy Schipper brings the trial and its aftermath vividly to life, drawing on court documents, personal letters, sermons, speeches, and editorials. He shows how Vesey compared people of African descent with enslaved Israelites in the Bible, while his accusers portrayed plantation owners as benevolent biblical patriarchs responsible for providing religious instruction to the enslaved. What emerges is an explosive portrait of an antebellum city in the grips of racial terror, violence, and contending visions of biblical truth.Shedding light on the uses of scripture in America’s troubled racial history, Denmark Vesey’s Bible draws vital lessons from a terrible moment in the nation’s past, enabling us to confront racism and religious discord today with renewed urgency and understanding.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐An important book for understanding the ways in which southern plantation owners used and manipulated the Bible. They applied scripture for their own purposes and attempted to keep Vesey from using it himself. The author uses numerous primary documents to reconstruct the trial and to narrate a revealing moment in American history, and in the history of slavery in general.

⭐In the book Denmark Vesey’s Bible, author and professor Jeremy Schipper writes about the largest planned revolt against slaveholders in American history. Vesey used numerous Biblical Scriptures to rally his group to not just escape slavery, but called them to overthrow all slaveholders and kill everyone – men, women and children as part of their fight for freedom.I am still trying to figure out the point of the author writing this book. I guess the main point is that anyone can use and manipulate what the Bible says for their own use. But this book falls far short of challenging our thinking today. This could have been a great book but fell well short of my recommendation.

⭐

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