Set in Stone

America's Embrace of the Ten Commandments

Jenna Weissman Joselit

A prominent historian and engaging story-teller takes the reader from Indian burial mounds in nineteenth-century Ohio to the sand dunes of 1920s California and into the civic squares of the 1950s to reveal the centrality of the Ten Commandments to American identity
Shows that the Ten Commandments became the public face of the American Jewish community, internally through stained glass and externally through the deployment of large scale sculptural Decalogues, shedding light on American Jewry's bid for acceptance in the United States
Places in context the contemporary debate surrounding the public display of the Ten Commandments

Set in Stone

America's Embrace of the Ten Commandments

Jenna Weissman Joselit

Description

When Cecil B. DeMille's epic, The Ten Commandments, came out in 1956, lines of people crowded into theaters across America to admire the movie's spectacular special effects. Thanks to DeMille, the commandments now had fans as well as adherents. But the country's fascination with the Ten Commandments goes well beyond the colossal scenes of this Hollywood classic.

In this vividly rendered narrative, Jenna Weissman Joselit situates the Ten Commandments within the fabric of American history. Her subjects range from the 1860 tale of the amateur who claimed to have discovered ancient holy stones inside a burial mound in Ohio to the San Francisco congregation of Sherith Israel, which commissioned a luminous piece of stained glass depicting Moses in Yosemite for its sanctuary; from the Kansas politician Charles Walter, who in the late nineteenth century proposed codifying each commandment into state law, to the radio commentator Laura Schlessinger, who popularized the Ten Commandments as a psychotherapeutic tool in the 1990s.

At once text and object, celestial and earthbound, Judaic and Christian, the Ten Commandments were not just a theological imperative in the New World; they also provoked heated discussions around key issues such as national identity, inclusion, and pluralism. In a country as diverse and heterogeneous as the United States, the Ten Commandments offered common ground and held out the promise of order and stability, becoming the lodestar of American identity. While archaeologists, theologians, and devotees across the world still wonder what became of the tablets that Moses received on Mount Sinai, Weissman Joselit offers a surprising answer: they landed in the United States.

Set in Stone

America's Embrace of the Ten Commandments

Jenna Weissman Joselit

Set in Stone

America's Embrace of the Ten Commandments

Jenna Weissman Joselit

Author Information

Jenna Weissman Joselit is the Charles E. Smith Professor of Judaic Studies and Professor of History at George Washington University. She is the author of several books on American daily life in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including The Wonders of America,winner of the National Jewish Book Award in History, A Perfect Fit: Clothes, Character, and the Promise of America, and A Parade of Faiths: Immigration and American Religion.

Set in Stone

America's Embrace of the Ten Commandments

Jenna Weissman Joselit

Reviews and Awards

"Joselit's style and prose are accessible and engaging, especially for popular audiences and undergraduate classrooms ... [this book is] notable for bridging the wide gap between academic and general audiences, and it is exemplary in its attempt to tell a series of "tautly told tales" in which physical manifestations of the Ten Commandments provoked immense discussion and controversy." -- Katherine Rosenblatt, American Jewish Archives Journal

"Joselit's expertise in history, Jewish studies, and material culture shines in this accessible text, which will be a valuable resource for students of religious studies, American studies, and history Highly recommended."--E.S. Clark, CHOICE

"Joselit writes in a refreshingly casual and breezy style [T]he book is what it promises: a fun and thoughtful exploration of one of the most important and enduring religious symbols in the United States."--Matthew Avery Sutton, Journal of the American Academy of Religion

"Set in Stone is an important contribution to the continuing elaboration and complication of the postwar period s Tri-Faith American narrative. It raises and answers critical questions about American civil religion and national identity. The author effectively interprets the American landscape as a religious one and explains the historical contingency of the Ten Commandments. Academic and popular audiences would benefit from close readings of Weissman Joselit s imaginative and deeply engaging book."--Reading Religion

"Set in Stone is a fascinating tour of forgotten moments in American religious history. Through lively writing and illuminating research, Jenna Weissman Joselit has unearthed the astonishing story of the many times Americans have rediscovered the Ten Commandments and made them their own. With fights over public monuments to these biblical rules still making news, it's never been more important to understand where the nation's volatile religious symbols came from, and what's at stake in our disagreements over where they belong."--Peter Manseau, Curator of Religion, National Museum of American History

"The Ten Commandments have been deeply chiseled into the American religious imagination. With vibrant prose and wry observation, Jenna Weissman Joselit explores the nation's long-running captivation with the Decalogue-in everything from archaeological relics to Hollywood spectacles to municipal monuments to self-help regimens to synagogue renderings. Set in Stone is a materially rich history of a canonical cultural preoccupation."--Leigh Eric Schmidt, Edward C. Mallinckrodt Distinguished University Professor in the Humanities, Washington University in St. Louis

"The Ten Commandments-do you know them? Are you sure? Many Americans have been finding them, recasting them, and enshrining them in amazing and dubious ways for over 200 years. With a scholarly dispatch heightened by dry wit, Jenna Weissman Joselit's Set in Stone explores America's long-standing Ten Commandment obsession, from 1860 archaeological 'discoveries' (dubious) to Cecil B. DeMille's two blockbuster Ten Commandment movies (dubious and wildly successful)-an incisive, insightful, and wonderfully informative book about America's surprising passion for ancient religious texts." Jon Butler, author of New World Faiths: Religion in Colonial America

"[This] well-researched book explores America's desire to make the commandments part of its fabric... Weissman Joselit includes a wide range of fascinating information."--Publishers Weekly

"[In Set in Stone,] Joselit has unearthed themes in the collective psyche, showing them to be more ubiquitous than one might have thought."--Library Journal

"A brilliant reading of a durable icon, the Ten Commandments, in word and substance. There are many a surprising twist and turn in this imaginatively researched study of a ubiquitous object of material religion, whether in synagogues and churches, comic books and movies, at the Passover table, or in courts of law. The writing sparkles with wit and insight, a delight to read. Set in Stone is simply exemplary in every regard."--Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, author of Destination Culture: Tourism, Museums, and Heritage

"In this beautifully researched book, historian Jenna Weissman Joselit celebrates the presence and significance of the Ten Commandments in the American experience. She offers a fascinating tour of the delightful variety of ways in which that ancient code is woven into the ordinary fabric of American life - and how its meaning has informed the deepest expressions of the American creed. Surely a 'Thou Shalt Read.'"--Charles Krauthammer

"Set in Stone is a fascinating tour of forgotten moments in American religious history. Through lively writing and illuminating research, Jenna Weissman Joselit has unearthed the astonishing story of the many times Americans have rediscovered the Ten Commandments and made them their own. With fights over public monuments to these biblical rules still making news, it's never been more important to understand where the nation's volatile religious symbols came from, and what's at stake in our disagreements over where they belong."--Peter Manseau, Curator of Religion, National Museum of American History

"Joselit's expertise in history, Jewish studies, and material culture shines in this accessible text... Highly recommended."--CHOICE Reviews

"[Set in Stone] convincingly portrays the motivations behind the Americanization of the Decalogue. Whether through films, legislation, or the yearning to find the ancient tablets on American soil, our country has been obsessed with making the Ten Commandments our own."--Christian Century

Set in Stone

America's Embrace of the Ten Commandments

Jenna Weissman Joselit

From Our Blog

A decalogue of moments in America's history with the Ten Commandments

Although we are told that Moses received the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai, their presence has always been particularly strong in America. Regardless of who invokes them and for what purpose, the Ten Commandments have proved to be incredibly versatile and enduring in our cultural idiom.

Posted on May 17, 2017

Read the blog post