ABSTRACT
Few mainline Christian scholars, of course, would embrace the Book of Mormon as scripture or be so brazen as to accept Joseph Smith's full views on continuing revelation. For Mormons, and for Joseph, divine revelation enabled the recipient to be an arbiter of divine truths. Generally, for mainstream Christians, the authoritativeness of the Bible likewise hinges on its similar claim to be God's revealed word. Many scholars today are reexamining whether closing the Christian canon was, in fact, the proper thing to do. Fast-forward a few centuries and within the very dynamic field of canon studies Christian scholars increasingly cast a critical eye on the canon's viability. Christians of every stripe are now discussing the implications of the changing face of canon studies. What started as isolated flames flaring up sporadically throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is now a full conflagration of skepticism over the canon's viability.
