In her 4,000-year account, A History of God, Karen Armstrong not only reveals the history but also delves into speculation on the future and death of God. Taking an objective approach despite her Catholic background, Mrs. Armstrong guides us along a thorough history of the three main God-religions undiluted by the biased teachings within their practice. Early on in the story it becomes apparent how much accurate detail is lost in temporal transition. However, despite the effect of time on the personal experience within each faith countless third-party accounts survived unpolluted. Drawing upon these, as well as, several first-person accounts Mrs. Armstrong acts as a theological watershed while communicating the profound and complicated concepts so common in theology. Such concepts approach the limits of mental grasp, yet Mrs. Armstrong simplifies the material, if that can considered possible, as best as anyone could without diluting it's essence.
tWith the political, international relevance of religion today, particularly in the Middle-East, I recommend A History of God to help fill in some of the background for what is going on right now. Nobody wants to be a fence-sitter in a dispute that could affect them unless they simply do not trust their opinion, and Karen Armstrong's account will help in developing, what I would consider, accurate knowledge on the role of religion in the world. It may even help in the development of ones own belief, as it did me.A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam

I was going to rate this higher until I read that nobody in the English language after Milton explored the spiritual world except for "marginal writers" like C.S. Lewis and George MacDonald. Calling either of those writers marginal (C.S. Lewis is a titan!) and ignoring Tolkien and Newman shows an ignorance of the last 200 years of English literature on top of the other problems I have with the book lol

The book itself, as a history of religion, is interesting and worth exploring. But the author’s language… it’s impossible to read even a page without getting a migraine from the sheer effort. I don’t know whether this was intentional or simply unconscious, but it seems like the author did everything except actually trying to help readers understand the complexities of religious history. Or perhaps it was an artistic device to illustrate just how complex this topic is. In this case, it’s undeniably genius.

While thoroughly explaining the relationship humans have historically had with the concept of God, Armstrong’s attempt has left me boggled down by details. She does a good job pointing out the similarities and differences between religions, but does so while also confusing my understanding of how those beliefs impacted the culture. I have gained some new understanding but at the cost of tireless attention to her presentation of the information.

Uitputtend overzicht van zo'n 3500 jaar monotheïsme, van zijn ontstaan t/m de moderne tijd.

Armstrong beschrijft de geschiedenis van God bijna exclusief vanuit wat filosofen en theologen erover geschreven hebben, wat het volk dacht en wat voor invloed bepaalde Godsvisies op de wereld hadden, komt veel minder aan bod. Zo blijft het een nogal celebrale opsomming van visies, van bizar tot redelijk en van logisch tot absurd.

Al snel is duidelijk dat er aan het Godsidee vele kanttekeningen kleven, en al wordt er pas vanaf de 18e eeuw echt getwijfeld, ook eerdere filosofen komen met vaak dezelfde (schijn)oplossingen voor de gevonden tegenstrijdigheden.

Armstrong houdt het interessant door ontwikkelingen parallel te volgen in de drie wereldgodsdiensten en met name over het Jodendom en de islam met voor mij nieuwe kennis te komen. Maar ook het christendom wordt uitgepluisd, van zijn onbegrijpelijke theorieën omtrent de drieëenheid, via de mystieke oplossingen van de Grieks-orthodoxe kerk tot het onstaan van de jubelkerken in de 17e eeuw.

Hierbij is Armstrong verre van onpartijdig: al snel wordt duidelijk dat ze van het westers-Christelijke Godsidee maar weinig moet hebben en haar voorkeur sterk bij een mystieke God ligt. Ook is Armstrong niet altijd even sterk in haar historie: verhalen van profeten als Jesaja en Mohammed worden letterlijk verteld, zonder enige kritische noot, alsof ze daadwerkelijk zo hebben plaatsgevonden. Daarmee stoot ze niemand voor het hoofd, maar ondergraaft ze ook haar eigen kritische houding, want die laat ze te opvallend vaak varen.

Huh, cat am mai lucrat la cartea aceasta! Am citit-o în două reprize lungi de câteva luni și mi-a mai luat alte câteva ca să-i scriu acesta recenzie.
Mi-a plăcut și are atât de multă informație încât simt ca e nevoie să mai repet și cu alte cărți fiindcă am rămas doar cu frânturi. Am apreciat stilul cat se poate de neutru al scriitoarei care, se vede bine, a muncit temeinic, dar nu poți să nu observi cat de fină este linia neutralității în acest subiect. De fapt, chiar mă îndoiesc ca există. Și nu cred ca poți citi cartea acesta decât cu detașare.
Vă încurajez s-o citiți dacă aveți curiozități legate de religie.

Karen Armstrong is a former Catholic nun and studied at Oxford. Her book, The Spiral Staircase, is a good description of the struggles that led to her leaving the convent.

There have been several good books written on the historic Jesus Christ, but very few on the historic God. As other reviewers have noted, this is a somewhat scholarly book, which it would have to be if one wanted to thoughtfully trace back man’s evolving beliefs on God. And, yes, over a sweep of 4,000 years, evolving is clearly the correct word.

If you apply the same tools to the study of history of God that one would apply to the study of history of anything over 4,000 years, you will see it through the lens of different periods of time.

Perhaps, somewhat unfortunately for religion and for God, we are in a period marked by the predominance of rationality. Ever since Kant, philosophers have admitted the existence of a god cannot be logically supported (and of course, Kant still willingly chose to believe).

So where does Ms. Armstrong take us in world after Kant, Hume, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and the like?

She worries about the intolerance inherent in monotheism (if I believe in the one true god, your god must be wrong). She reminds us that although the Existentialists told us we are better off without god since the pat answers and the certainty that god gives stifles our wonder of the world and negates our freedom, the growing drug addiction and crime rates are not signs of a spiritually healthy society.

Apparently although Ms. Armstrong left organized religion, she never left her search for spirituality.

I found the best statement of her conclusion was actually in The Spiral Staircase: “Compassion has been advocated by all the great faiths because it has been found to be the safest and surest means of attaining enlightenment because it dethrones the ego from the center of our lives and puts others there, breaking down the carapace of selfishness that holds us back from the experience of the sacred.”

Interestingly, Huxley, who wrote the magnificent Perennial Philosophy on the similarities of mystical experiences across all religions said “It is a bit embarrassing to have been concerned with the human problem all one's life and find at the end that one has no more to offer by way of advice than 'try to be a little kinder.” '

A fascinating book that can be recommended to any thoughtful seeker about spiritual matters.

4000 años, y siguen buscando.

I was expecting that will cover the pre Judaic history or at least how it was formed in more detail, the influences, etc. Anyway. Basically the summary is that Religion is like a tree, based on Judaism as the root (or at least thats where this book start) and the body (the veins of the tree) is mainly Plato and Aristoteles. Now the leaves are various "schisms" of the original thought that keeps growing and more leaves are growing. Muslim enlightenment is such unknown story for the west and further study is required., Mysticism is not covered well, so basically is a description of the leaf but not of the essence. Is a book that gives you highlights and not a such, a theological book.

Karen Armstrong does an outstanding job of describing the rise of the world's three most important religions besides Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism. It is a daunting undertaking which she absolutely masters from end to end. I keep saying this in reviews, but with all the slander of islam in on Fox, CNN, TF1, etc and the long history on anti-Semitism particularly here in Europe, it is critical for truly understanding and interpreting our modern world to understand where The Big Three came from, how they are similar and how they are different.

I can only sum up this books as a "regurgitation of names, dates and philosophies". It bounces all over the place in no coherent order. I listened to the audiobook. Maybe the printed book has better chapter titles and maybe pictures to give better concepts.

First of all, this book's title is misleading. It is not a history of God. It is a historical retelling of many men's interpretations of the idea of the monotheistic God of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Still, "The Idea of God: A History" would not have sold as many copies.

The Bible says God created man in His own image. Karen states as fact the exact opposite: Man created God in his own image, then re-created him a lot of times in response to changing historical and cultural conditions.

Karen takes us from God's creation in the desert up to modern times. She carefully lays out the major players in God's revisions- people like St. Thomas Aquinas, Plato, al-Ghazzali, Luther, Nietzche and so on...the list is intellectually impressive and at times overwhelming.

In each case she ennumerates the person's beliefs. Instead of finding these 'brilliantly lucid, splendidly readable' as a Sunday Times reader once did, I found myself re-reading sentences repeatedly trying to get sense out of what I just read, and re-read, and re-read...

I could only take a roughly 20-page dose of this book per DAY. Granted, the book is primarily nonfiction and therefore a more difficult read.

-Except that it's not always non-fiction. Karen somtimes slipped her own opinions into her rendition of history without identifying that she was doing so. This tended to make her opinions seem objective.

I want to point out that my next statement is extremely subjective: I felt that since Karen herself has no belief in an uncreated God, she is rather like an observer who studies a dead butterfly and reports on it. She says a lot but has missed something crucial about the whole topic- and she'll never pin it to her board because her specimen isn't alive.

Ironically, she says this herself: “It is no good trying to understand religious 'information' that we have not experienced for ourselves.”

I did manage to mine some interesting quotes from the book- quotes from famous religious followers down through the ages.

Final note: I have misclassified this book as about Christianity and nonfiction because I did not want to create a new category for this single volume.