Some people find Karen Armstrong's expository style "dense," or "difficult," but I've read a good bit of Joseph Campbell's works, so maybe it's easier for me.

A History of God is one of the best books on the general history of the three monotheistic faiths -- Judaism, Christianity, and Islam -- that I've ever read. To me, the most interesting thing about it is how, once all 3 faiths were established, they tended to move in parallel. For instance, all three were heavily influenced by Greek philosophy in the Middle Ages, with Thomas Acquinas applying Aristotelian philosophy to Christianity, while Maimonides was doing the same to Judaism, and various Muslim thinkers were reinterpreting Islam in Aristotelian terms.

I recommend the work to anyone with a deep interest in comparative religion, but those definitely convinced their own religion is the only way will find little comfort in it.

الله والإنسان – كارن أرمسترونغ

صدر هذا الكتاب لأول مرة عام 1993 وكان بعنوان "تاريخ الله: رحلة الـ 4000 عام مع اليهودية، المسيحية، والإسلام". ولا أدري ما السبب الذي دعا المترجم لتغيير هذا العنوان المعبر تماماً عن محتوى إلى الاسم الآخر "الله والإنسان".. ولم أجد أي مبرر لذلك. وبمجرد صدور هذا الكتاب تصدر قوائم الأكثر مبيعاً، ويعدّ لحد اليوم، أحد أشهر الكتب التي تحدثت في موضوعه.

يقع هذا الكتاب في 11 فصلاً، على امتداد 417 صفحة. وأعتقد أنه يجدر بي أن أحذو حذو الكاتبة فأفسر ما يحاول هذا الكتاب قوله في بداية مراجعتي هذه قبل المضي قدماً فيها أكثر من ذلك. لقد وضحت أرمسترونغ غايتها من هذا الكتاب بوضوح منذ الصفحات الأولى؛ باعتباره رحلة خلال أربعة آلاف عام من تطور مفهوم الله لدى البشر. ولكن، لماذا أربعة آلاف عام مما قد يشكل تاريخاً للأديان التوحيدية الثلاث الكبرى فقط ؟ فنجد أرمسترونغ تجيبنا عن هذا السؤال المهم بحق؛ لأن مفهوم الإله الواحد في الشكل الذي اتخذته الأديان الثلاثة يشكل بداية تطور مفهوم ناضج للإلوهية لدى الإنسان، وهي عودة لمفهوم الألوهية الأول الذي عرفته البشرية قديماً، وقبل أن تكون هناك الأديان الوثنية، حسب نظرية شميدت في نشوء الأديان. لنتفق، بأنه لا يمكن إثبات أو نفي نظرية شميدت على أي حال. وقد يتبادر في ذهن القاريء المستجد في مثل هذه المواضيع تساؤل أو بالأحرى دهشة بأن يأتي هذا الكتاب مع مفهوم الإله وكأنه إنتاج بشري. وهنا، يجدر بي التوضيح بأن القاريء في علوم الأديان والأساطير أن يعتاد على ذلك، فلن يجد ما هو سوى ذلك هنا.. لسبب بسيط يمكن ادراكه من اسم هذا العلم، فلم يتم جمع الأديان والأساطير تحت عنوان واحد عبثاً ! إن العلم بصفته التجريبية، لا يستطيع التعامل مع ما هو موصوف بكونه ما وراء الطبيعة. ولهذا السبب، فإننا نجد تصنيفين رئيسيين في العلوم عموماً؛ العلوم الطبيعية وتحتها تندرج كل العلوم التجريبية من كيمياء، وأحياء، وفيزياء، وغيرها، والعلوم الإنسانية والتي تندرج تحتها علوم الإجتماع، والأدب، التاريخ، والإقتصاد، والسياسة والأسطورة والأديان وغيرها..

تبدأ أرمسترونع رحلتها مع فكرة الإله الواحد الأحد والإرهاصات الأولى للعودة إلى هذا المفهوم مع اليهودية، ومن ثم تبدأ بالإنتقال تدريجياً، عبر الزمن إلى المسيحية، فالإسلام، إلى إله الفلاسفة، إلى إله المتصوفين، إلى إله المصلحين، إلى عصر التنوير، فالقرن التاسع عشر، وأخيراً، إلى ما يمكن أن يتطور إليه مفهوم الله في المستقبل.

لا بد للمرء أن يعجب بطريقة تقديم الأفكار في هذا الكتاب وترتيبها بطريقة متسلسلة لم تكن لتخطر على بال القاريء قبل هذا الكتاب. ومما لا شك فيه، أنه قد أثار في داخلي العديد من الأفكار والتي ستكون حتماً جزءً ما من مقالات مستقبلية في هذا الموضوع. لماذا لا أشملها في هذه المراجعة ؟ لأن كل فكرة من هذه، هي مثيرة للإهتمام لدرجة أنها تستحق الإسهاب ولا أريد لهذه المراجعة أن تطول لهذه الدرجة.

يمكننا تقديم ملاحظة شديدة الأهمية كخلاصة لهذا الكتاب، وهي أن البشرية تطور مفهومها عن الله حسب نضوجها وبشكل ينسجم مع حاجياتها وتطورها الإجتماعي والنفسي والفكري. والتحدي الرئيسي لهذا المفهوم يتشكل في شكلين من الإلحاد؛ الأول، هو ارتداد عن الإيمان لأن الله في نظرهم؛ إما عجز عن إيقاف الشر، أو أنه لم يرغب في إيقاف الشر، وهو في كلا الحالتين لم يعد يستحق العبادة، وهذا ما نراه في تلك المحاكمة الشهيرة من اليهود لله والتي أدانوا الله فيها ولكنهم حين أعلنوا نهاية الجلسة أشاروا إلى أنه قد حان موعد الصلاة ! وهذا التناقض هو رمز للصراع الذي يعيشه الإنسان المضطهد؛ فهو قد وصل إلى قناعة أن إلهه العظيم الذي يفترض به مساعدته أمام جبروت هذا الكون، قد تخلى عنه ولم يفعل من أجله شيئاً يرفع عنه العذاب والمعاناة، ومن جهة أخرى، فإن الإنسان لم يفقد تلك الحاجة النفسية للإيمان بشيء ما.. وهذا ما يدفعهم لإقامة الصلاة في نهاية المطاف. أما الإلحاد الثاني، فهو الإلحاد المبني على فكرة أنه لم تعد هناك حاجة للإله، فالإنسان يستطيع أن يقود الكون من هذه اللحظة. ونحن نستطيع أن نرى ذلك في الإدعاءات التي تقول بموت الإله بدوافع علمية تستند إلى نظرية التطور والكون السرمدي الذي لا بداية له.. ولا نهاية ! وبغض النظر عن الإنتقادات العلمية والفكرية لهذه النظريات.. إلا أنه يتوجب التسليم بأنها تشكل تحدياً موجوداً. والآن، يجدر بي التوضيح لمَ فرّقت بين هذين الشكلين للإلحاد رغم أنهما يقودان إلى نتيجة واحدة. والجواب سهل؛ الأول، هو إلحاد عاطفي، لم يستند إلى أدلة عقلية أو علمية، إنما هي أسباب شخصية، فالملحد من هذا النوع قد تعرّض إلى صدمة عنيفة جعلته يفقد إيمانه بأن الله يحميه، أما الثاني، فهو إلحاد محض عقلي، لم يتعرض إلى صدمة عنيفة تجعله يتحول إلى النوع الأول، بل هو يرى أنه لا توجد حاجة عقلية لوجود الله لأنه وجد أسباباً أخرى لخلق الكون والحياة. ولربما نستطيع أن نلاحظ أن الإلحاد الأول لم ينتظر الإلحاد الثاني كي يوجد، هو موجود بغض النظر عن وجود الإلحاد الثاني. لقد قرر الملحد من النوع الأول أن يترك الإيمان، بغض النظر عما إذا كان محقاً بذلك أم لا. أما الثاني، فهو قد ترك الإيمان لأنه يعتقد حقاً أنه محق بذلك، أو لنقل أنه لا يرى بوجود حاجة ما للإيمان بشيء آخر عدا ذاته.

أتمنى أن يمدّ الله في عمري، كي لا يكون هذا الكتاب آخر عهد لي مع أرمسترونغ. فقد كانت تجربة قراءته، رحلة طويلة، ولكنها حتماً مستحقة.

Buku ini memang tebal, hardcover pinjaman neng Erry. Ternyata benar kata broda Graha, meski tebal (dan gada gambarnya ;)), namun tidak membosankan untuk dibaca.

Dalam buku ini, Ms. Armstrong menitik beratkan pada tiga agama samawi di dunia, dengan sedikit meyinggung Buddha, Hindu dan kepercayaan lainnya. Dengan merujuk pada para Tokoh filsafat dan religi dari masa kebudayaan Pagan hingga agama modern, Ms. Armstrong secara sabar menuntun pembaca untuk menemukan benang merah pada ketiga agama besar tersebut, yang pada akhirnya membawa kita pada keseragaman konsep pemikiran mengenai Tuhan. Salah satu yang saya tangkap adalah, meski setengah mati kita mencoba merasionalkan keberadaanNya, pada akhirnya harus mengakui bahwa Ia memang tak terjangkau akal dan dimensi ke-mahlukan kita.

Selain memusatkan perhatian pada akar pemikiran filosofis, mistis, religius dan modern, dibahas juga fenomena lahirnya atheis-me pada abad 20 an 21 yang kemungkinan salah satu sebabnya adalah tragedi holocaust, saat manusia mulai merasa ditingalkan Tuhan (?), tentunya tanpa mengesampingkan perkembangan teknologi dan ilmu pasti yang dirasa lebih rasional daripada mengharapkan semacam "penampakan wujud Tuhan" dalam mengatasi persoalan manusia, semacam yang sering dialami para Nabi dan orang suci yang diceritakan dalam kitab suci maupun cerita-cerita leluhur kita.

Yang saya kagumi dari penulis adalah idenya mempertanyakan Tuhan dan menghubungkannya pada konsep pemahaman yang ada di dunia sejak jaman paganisme hingga saat ini, riset yang cukup mendalam mengenainya, serta usahanya untuk tetap obyektif dalam memaparkan hal yang sensitif ini.

Nah kalau sudah begini, buku ini bisa di HM-in juga ga yaaaa??? *lirik Erry*

Question: Can you distill a history of the way in which humans have understood and experienced God over the past 4,000 years into one volume? Answer: Apparently, yes. This is a fascinating look at the religious developments and traditions of Jews, Christians, and Muslims from Abraham to the modern age. Armstrong includes the philosophes and mysticism that has been present in all three monotheistic religions over the centuries and clearly places the evolution in religious thought into its historical context. Armstrong traces the development in all three religious traditions of the idea of a personal God, but cautions that the idea of a personal God leads some believers in all three faiths to condemn and judge those who do not conform to their beliefs. She sees the fundamentalism that has emerged in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as dangerous, aggressive, and as a "retreat from God". While not an easy rad, this history of the development of monotheism is worth the effort. This is definitely a "read and discuss" book.

Karen Armstrong, who teaches at the Leo Baeck College for the Study of Judaism in England, spent seven years as a Roman Catholic nun and has written a biography of Muhammad. These unique and eclectic credentials make her eminently qualified to write about how God is perceived by the three monotheistic world religions. Her encyclopedic examination shows the evolution of different ideas and practices centered around the Divine. Each generation, explains Armstrong, comes up with its own distinctive emphasis according to need, fear, vision, and emotion.

Perhaps the most intriguing chapter in the book is the one on mysticism. It seems to be the path chosen most often by those who believe that imagination is the chief religious faculty. Here God is beyond the grasp of reason or logical proof. Jewish Kabbalists seek an intuitive apprehension of God in symbols and stories. The Sufis desire union with God through altered states of consciousness. And Greek Orthodox Christians use icons as a focus for contemplation of the mysterious God.

Today's spiritual seekers look for even more perspectives on God. They are interested in ideas of God that supersede the outmoded Big Brother in the Sky, the anthropomorphic concept of God as lawgiver and ruler, and the unappealing image of God as an angry tyrant. Armstrong believes that although Judaism, Christianity, and Islam spawned these versions of God, these images have outlived their usefulness. More suitable understandings are available in the rich stew of religious traditions and in the mongrel spiritual movements afoot in our times.

This one-of-a-kind resource, a worldwide bestseller when it was first released, has been embraced by spiritual seekers and students of religion alike. For some it offers a refresher course on the evolution of ideas about God; for others, it opens fresh avenues of interest. Armstrong has demonstrated the provisional nature of our understanding of God and the relevance of values and visions long buried in dusty tomes. A History of God is a daring and pioneering work for all of the above reasons. It is also most welcome for finally giving imaginative mysticism the attention and respect it deserves.

This book tells about evolution of concept of god. Along with evolution of god, one can track psychological and political development of human society. How from few pagan gods, the Yahweh of Jews, Jesus of Christians and Allah of Muslims gradually evolved.

One good point of the book that it highlights every religion has mystic component which is almost same, however, fundamentalism suppresses that for political gain.

Author gives wrong information about Hinduism that the religion had been brought from Iran. Author must updates that recent genetical anslysis proves there were no such major genetical mixing in Indian subcontinent. The books may provides photographs to mske the reading interesting.

A different approach is taken here by a former Roman Catholic nun named Karen Armstrong. Confounded with the question of God. Naturally we assume Armstrong approaches this topic by utilizing a Catholic lens to color her bias and concept of God. Yet in this, we are wrong. Novel is key here. She courts the idea of God as if she were a scholar/journalist. Therefore, the book surveys the startling and sometimes contradictory forms and symbols God occupies in the mind. How does one discern God? Shall we review what his signature is “dat deus incrementum?”

“A History of God” is like a safe “Pandora’s Box” depicting how humans worship and put faith in a higher source. Karen is the guide. She gently shows us how to delineate the actions of God as he is breaking bread with Prophet Abraham and “how the word became flesh and made his dwelling among us (John 1:14).” Most substantively Karen Armstrong illuminates---with a natural light---Gods’ evolution for the last 5,000 years/how we bring the divine closer.

“Thus it was said that the gods had shown men how to build their cities and temples, which were mere copies of their own homes in the divine realm.”
---Karen Armstrong

Consideration is noted that male clerics undergo some transfixing criticism and specifically mentions how they expropriated rituals attributed to wholeness and harmony and such were removed to the disgrace of women. Thus propelling women down to a lower step and marginalizing the love, divinity and healing coming from interactions with divinely inspired goddesses making it a "opus vitae" to assist humans in articulating their sense of weighty (yet unseen) forces surrounding them.

Mentions of intolerance that is focused on a particular religion and she regards Islam most sympathetically. In her scholarly approach she questions, how will the idea of God survive in the years to come? She looks to what survives or remains. Though she is a Catholic Nun, she did not regard her experience of God as being unique and conclusively found that religion is more than fear or the propagation of such. This is definitely a book for religious scholars and is not a casual read. Auspicious is an understatement. A History of God delivers (not lightly) the idea of God comparatively in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Absorb this one slowly.

يقدم هذا الكتاب شرحا متسلسلا لنشأة الأديان السماوية الثلاثة اليهودية، المسيحية، والإسلام. ويوضح ظهور الفرق والمذاهب المختلفة لكل من هذه الأديان بتسلسل موضوعي ومنظم.

Armstrong has a dizzying intellect and draws from a mind-boggling body of texts and volumes to summarize this complicated--and convoluted--concept. This took me a few months to finish. I have an article linked below, which expounds more upon Armstrong's defense of a particular form of Mystical Agnosticism. Her argument contrasts with the warring between theists and atheists over a literal and historical God. These debates should mostly be left behind, for they prove detrimental, or distract us from experiencing the unknowable and transcendent Other.

I'm moving her up in my reading list, having bought 2 more of her books, including her short volume on the history of Myth.

You can read my in-depth review "As Believers and Atheists, We Need Deeper Reverence for Mystery"t at Erraticus.

As a non-believer I found religious thinking (or feeling, for that matter) to be utterly fascinating. After all, it was the human condition for millennia, whereas atheism is the new thing which has only been around a hundred years or so. So, I know a thing or two on the subject. Considering this, I was positively impressed by how many things I didn't know and found out by reading "A History of God".

In brief, the material is vast. Karen Armstrong does a decent job digesting all this material. Alas, it's limited to monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. But once again, the terrain is huge. She excels when information is scarce (e.g., early forms of worship of Yahweh) but gets lost in the details when information is plenty. Almost as if she tags every tree but forgets to describe the forest.

Pity that. What to do with God in the next millennium is a good question. Will atheism stick around forever? Will we invent new religions? It's likely since it was always part of human existence. So, what's lacking in the book is a human, down-to-earth perspective. If the need to hang our hopes for the best is undiminished, what's to be the hanger then?

This is at once a very simple and a very complex book. Simple in its argument, complex in the array of detail marshalled to tell Armstrong's story.

Her view, it seemed to me, was firstly that monotheism was wide spread - well beyond the limits of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, but that there was always a tension between two basic ideas within that belief across all these religions. On the one hand a faith in an objective reality of something like an old man with a beard out there somewhere who was generally keen on smiting people, on the other hand a subjective individual striving within oneself that can lead to a sense of the numinous (
"The mystical experience of God has certain characteristics that are common to all faiths" (p259) ). She approves of the latter, while disliking the former whose finest or worst examples depending on your point of view she finds in the Western European Catholic and Protestant traditions which finally, in her opinion, hoisted themselves on their petards by embracing a literal faith in the Bible shortly before the age of Lyle and Darwin and Mendel.

Armstrong's history of God then is the history of styles and manners of belief in God. The problem with the way she does it is that she unleashes, not hell, but such a mass of prophets, mystics, and philosophers upon the reader that we can move across the thought and ideas of three or four people in a single page - almost all of whom are men, Julian of Norwich, Bridget of Sweden, and Theresa of Avila just manage to squeeze in. I did wonder how representative and reasonable some of the judgements were at times - but then this is always the case in dense surveys like this.

What is particular, and maybe refreshing for some readers, is that Armstrong doesn't much like her own native Western European tradition of Christianity. Every other approach to faith comes across as simply better. Sufis, Buddhists, and Hassidic Jews among others leap out of the pages as less anxious, more compassionate, kinder, and generally less inclined to self abuse. This may or may not be fair, but in the context of a post colonial world is certainly interesting, although I suppose not original. If belief in a single God is widespread, so is faith that the grass is always greener in the next field. Still her passion and commitment towards certain kinds of manifestation of faith is clear as evidenced by phrases like "religions such as Buddhism, which have the advantage of being uncontaminated by an inadequate theism" (p251), one can't claim that she hides her point of view.

The sense of her struggle with her own religious background is palpable, but also the relief and comfort that she has found through learning about the three major monotheisms. The ideal reader for this book might well be someone who for all their Jewish, Christian, or Muslim faith feels estranged or simply somewhat distanced from the particular Synagogue, Church, or Mosque they are familiar with. This is a book that can provide that reader with a broader perspective.

She compares trends in Hinduism and Buddhism to the big three monotheisms, this is something she could have made more of. The way that Buddhist Nirvana is described seems to her to be analogous to the experience of God as experience by mystics from the monotheistic religions for instance. Her survey is a wealth of detail, often curious. I particularly liked her account of the disappointment of the pagan philosopher Plotinus that he didn't get to visit India to study with its sages, he had thought of joining the Roman army as a means of getting there. Somehow turning up in armour, sword in hand, doesn't strike me as the best way to introduce yourself and your philosophical longings to the wise people of a different land. Maybe a similar thought occurred to Plotinus. Another point that caught my attention was the question of if the God of Abraham and the God of Moses were one and the same, equally she didn't soft pedal the polytheistic sides of Hebrew practice prior to the Babylonian captivity.

Something that Armstrong I felt did well was the sense of how ideas from one tradition oozed over to others. The influence of the pagan philosophers on Christianity is, I imagine, fairly well known, but she points out as well the interrelationships of developments in Judaism and Islam, and Islam also had a strong engagement with Aristotle in particular. She even makes Origen's self-castration, as inspired by the Gospels, sound like a reasonable action for a good half a page  which is quite an achievement.

On the downside the mass of characters can be overwhelming, and you are probably best off approaching a book like this with a reasonable background knowledge to start with. If you don't know your Avicenna from your Aquinas this book may well be a struggle.

Karen Amstrong tóm tắt đủ sơ lược lẫn cụ thể về hành trình hình thành nên thứ gọi là “Thượng Đế” trong ba tôn giáo độc thần lớn nhất hành tinh: Do Thái giáo, Ki-tô giáo và Hồi giáo. Quyển sách sẽ khái quát lịch sử từ việc hình thành nên Do Thái giáo và kinh Torah - chính là nền tảng chủ đạo của hai tôn giáo xuất hiện về sau, cho tới những khác biệt và xung đột giữa tư tưởng của cả ba tôn giáo có chung một xuất phát điểm. Thượng Đế của cả người Do Thái, người theo đạo Thiên Chúa lẫn Hồi giáo đều đã trải qua rất nhiều dấu mốc lịch sử, và rồi được tất cả các lĩnh vực mang ra để tranh cãi và mổ xẻ. Trong thời điểm hiện tại, Thượng Đế có thể được xem như đã “chết”, những gì còn lại của Ngài dường như chỉ còn là một điểm tựa ảo ảnh để trấn an tinh thần. Nhưng thực chất, Thượng Đế là gì? Sự tồn tại của Ngài có mục đích gì? Hoặc Ngài có thực sự tồn tại hay không khi khái niệm “tồn tại” cũng là một khái niệm bất khả thụ? Mỗi một người đọc có lẽ sẽ rút ra được câu trả lời cho những câu hỏi trên thông qua cuốn sách này.
Bởi vì có xuất thân là một con chiên Ki-tô, tác giả đã có nhiều phân tích chi tiết hơn về tôn giáo này so với hai tôn giáo còn lại. Ngoài ra, cuốn sách được chuyển ngữ với nhiều thuật ngữ lộn xộn, không nhất quán, đôi chỗ còn sai ngắt câu, sai dấu và chính tả (lỗi tủn mủn có thể bỏ qua). Một cuốn sách thật sự rất dài với quá nhiều thông tin, ơn giời, đọc hết trong gần 2 tháng!