The Great Awakenning: George Whitefield

 

  The Great Awakening during the Enlightenment period occurred in the early 1700s. This was when the people began to differentiate from the views of the church. In England and America the people began questioning the church and its role. Many broke away from the churches and formed new ones because of this. Others began preaching what they believed and one man specifically became highly demanded for his incredible preaching skills. George Whitefield became an important figure that helped expand the Great Awakening. He gave his first sermon in his hometown and in 1737 he traveled to Georgia to help an Orphan House. A year later he went back to England and in 1739 he traveled back to America. His fame became evident when he went to Philadelphia to preach and thousands of people rushed to hear his sermons. At the young age of 25 he was known as “the boy preacher.” His sermons became so popular that his audience would reach 20,000 to 30,000 people. Benjamin Franklin also noticed what an impressive preacher Whitefield was when he wrote in his journal that everywhere he went Psalms were sung. Franklin wrote “it seemed as if all the world were growing religious” (Cauchi) in his journal. When Whitefield first arrived in America he saw some potential in expanding the religious environment, but it still lacked the knowledge of Christ. He went on to open people’s minds with his revivals. This movement eventually gained enough support to have a school open up in support of the revivals in 1741. This school became known as Princeton. It was opposed at first by the faculty at Harvard and Yale, but with all the backing that the revivalisms received they could not prevent from Princeton to be established. George Whitefield had impacted an immense amount of people’s lives and had converted many more.

 

Works Cited

Cauchi, Tony . "The First Great Awakening in America - George Whitefield." Revival Library.            Electronic Copyright, n.d. Web. 27 Nov 2012.

"Some Figures of the Great Awakening." Great Awakening: Analysis and Information on the First Great Awakening. In Association with Amazon. Web. 27 Nov 2012.

-Ana Juan

Jefferson's Bible

The American Enlightenment saw a movement away from the traditional religious views of the past and towards a more reasonable and logical view of the world. One of the best examples of this idea comes from one of America’s Founding Fathers, Thomas Jefferson. Late in Jefferson’s life, he began to create his own version of the Bible which he titled “The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth” (Posten). He was attempting to create a more coherent story that allowed the four Gospels to flow together. However, Jefferson decided to leave out all mention of Jesus’ miracles and anything that suggested the supernatural. Jefferson was trying to portray “Jesus as a teacher, but having nothing to do with the divine or as a prophet with a  link to the divine” (Posten).

Jefferson’s Bible exemplifies the main idea of the Enlightenment. Being a Deist, Jefferson believed in a deity that created the world then left it to its own devices. He only saw Jesus as a man that could not perform miracles. Taking a scientific approach, Jefferson could not understand the miracles described in the Bible with logic and reason, so he felt he had to disregard them.

Jefferson’s Bible was kept secret and passed to his relatives for nearly one hundred years before finally being discovered by a librarian at the Smithsonian (Discovery). The Bible was then published a few years later and made available to the public. The original copy is kept at the Smithsonian but has recently been on display at the National Museum of American History. The Smithsonian has customarily given a copy of Jefferson’s Bible to new members of Congress.

Works Cited

"How Did the "Jefferson Bible" Get Published? - Curiosity." Curiosity. DiscoveryChannel, n.d. Web. 26 Nov. 2012. <http://curiosity.discovery.com/question/how jefferson-bible-get-published>.

Posten, Bruce. "The Story behind Thomas Jefferson's Refashioned Bible." Reading Eagle RSS. Reading Eagle Press, 2 July 2011. Web. 26 Nov. 2012. <http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=317728>.

- Koty Morgan

John & Abigail Adams

On October 25, 1764, Abigail Smith and John Adams were married. The two remained the closest of friends until Abigail's death more than fifty years later. While Abigail had no formal education, John went to Harvard and graduated in 1755. 

Abigail's lack of a formal education did not hold her back, however. She grew up in her grandmother's home, where she had informal instruction. She was not a great speller, but given her intelligence, easy access to her father's library, and ability to pick up on conversations, she was easy to mistake as educated.

 In 1774, John Adams was elected as a Massachusetts delegate to the First Congress of Colonies, which later became known as the First Continental Congress. Over the course of their relationship and marriage, over one thousand letters were exchanged between the couple. More than three hundred of them written from the time that Adams left Massachusetts in 1774, until he returned in 1783. They saved the letters, which were later published by their grandson and provided a record of a long and happy marriage. A few of the letters are available in our textbook, beginning on page 626. 

Here is a link to a video: John Adams: A Life in Letters. The video goes more into detail of the letters written by Adams. 

Adams, John, and Abigail Adams. "John and Abigail Adams." The Norton Anthology of American Literature. By Nina Baym and Robert S. Levine. 8th ed. Vol. A. New York: W. W. Norton &, 2012. 625-39. Print.

-Jessica Mize