Oates book "The Fires of Jubilee: Nat Turner's Fierce Rebellion", religion plays a significant role in the ignition of Nat's rebellion. During this period, slaves depended on religious beliefs and these differed greatly from those of the slaveholders. Nat, as well as other slaves, had daily rituals and certain beliefs that they chose to live by. These beliefs greatly influenced the interpretation of scripture by the slaves. Several of the denominations of this period felt differently about the rights of slaves and the way they practiced their religion.
From birth, Nat was influenced by religion because his actual name was Nathaniel, meaning "gift of God" (11). His family came from a very religious background and he also learned a lot of what he knew about religion from the Turner family. The Turner's were an all white Methodist family that believed in "christianizing the slaves for a better time ahead" (10). "So their own Negroes might be saved, the Turner's held prayer services on their farm and took the blacks to Sunday chapel" which also denotes how the Turner's felt about religion" (10). Nat's family and other slaves at the household agreed that he was meant for something more and also looked at as a prophet (12). Even as a young child, Nat could read and write and was one of the only black people that could read the bible. People were infatuated with the fact that he could recite prayers and scriptures even being a young black male. .
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Nat's way of interpreting the scriptures were somewhat different from the way the rest of the world at this time did. "At night, he read his Bible zealously, searching his pages for some answer to the riddle of his enslavement"(35) and believed that "God did not intend a man of his gifts, his intelligence, his powers, to waste his years hoeing weeds and slopping hogs" (32). Many of the slaves admired the fact that Nat was so in touch with his religion and he could teach them about the faith.
