Ο συγγραφέας προσπαθεί, βασισμένος στην π.διαθήκη,να περιγράψει το θεό καθαρά σαν λογοτεχνικό ήρωα.Μετά την ανάγνωση 500+ σελίδων δεν μπορώ να πω οτι συμπάθησα τον ήρωα αυτό.Κάνει πράγματα για τα οποία μετανοιώνει αργότερα.Μπορεί όμως ο θεός να κάνει λάθος και να μετανοιώσει;Επιβραβεύει ή και ανέχεται ανθρώπους που φέρονται εντελώς άδικα ή ανήθικα.Αρμόζει τέτοια συμπεριφορά στο θεό;Σε πολλά σημεία ο συγγραφέας καταλήγει στο συμπέρασμα οτι μάλλον η π.διαθήκη δεν περιγράφει έναν και μοναδικό θεό αλλά πολλούς διαφορετικούς.
Είτε συμφωνεί,είτε διαφωνεί κανείς με το συγγραφέα και τα συμπεράσματα του,το βιβλίο αξίζει να διαβαστεί.Πολλοί άνθρωποι λένε οτι πιστέυουν και θεωρούν κάποια βιβλία ιερά.Τα έχουν μελετήσει όμως;

Recommended to me by my brother in law, this book is a look into the whole of the Hebrew Bible through a lens that is refreshingly not Christian, nor western, as most of my background has provided me. I felt like I saw the Hebrew Bible the way that a middle eastern Jewish person might see it.

I love this book, and to be honest, this was a re-read. The author looks at the first five books of the Bible, the Tanakh to understand the progression in the understanding of "God" as a literary personality. Instead of approaching the topic from the stance of religion, it follows the character development of God from a God of action to a God of words to a God of silence. It explores the emergence of the character from a specific figure in the ancient pantheon, one that does not deny the existence of other Gods (e.g. "You shall not recognize other gods before Me") and the transition to a belief in a single deity. It follows the contradictions in Gods character, from the genocidal tyrant that nearly destroys the world to the image of a bringer of peace.

(This book is great, and BTW, if you want to brag about reading a Pulitzer Prize novel, this one won the 1996 Pulitzer for a biography.)

So, this is a long book, and deep reading.
The author proceeds through every book in the Jewish bible (the Tanach). It has a lot more books in it than the Christian Old Testament, and does not include the New Testament.

What I found fascinating is that he basically rips up "God". The author lays out arguments that God is not omnipotent, not all powerful, not all loving, and is in fact a confusing mess of different personalities. And then ends the book saying how terrific the Tanach is.

I came to a very different conclusion. From his own arguments, I see the God of those books as a completely human construction. God gradually plays less and less a role in the stories until he's not there at all. Yes, I am an atheist. I feel that much of the worlds problems come from believing in this religion or that one -- that if "God is on my side" then he's not on yours, and that makes you less than me -- less important, less valuable, less "right", and okay for me to ignore, denigrate or kill.

So, it's a fascinating book. Long, hard to get through (I had started it several years ago and failed to finish it, but I finished it this time).

I think you may get out of it what you expect to get out of it.

I realize my views may offend some. It's not my objective to offend, but to make folks think.

If I had written this book, I would've taken a different approach and made it a narrative. The author is verbose for no good reason which is off-putting. An interesting approach to God, though.

I bought this book in 1996. It sat on my shelf for 24 years. I always told myself eventually I will get around to reading it. Then came the pandemic. It was the perfect time to read it.

Miles' God examines the central character, if often absent, of the bible as a literary character. The book is not hostile to religion it simply eschews religion for character and literary analysis [though not poststructural].

An interesting, but not compelling, read.

Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars.

This book is magnificent. Jack Miles sets himself the task of examining the Tanakh (the Jewish Bible) as a work of literature, and God as the central character in it. Everything about God's relationship with human beings begins with the fact of God creating man in His -- God's -- image. Because this is how God, the literary character, first arrives on the scene, from that point on, everything God is, does, and becomes is in relation to, or in response to, what His creation does. God develops in the context of His relationship to humanity. This idea, of God working through *us* -- through people -- is immensely appealing to me. And as the author writes about that relationship, it's deeply moving as well.

God: A Biography is scholarly and erudite. Jack Miles is incredibly learned, about everything from literary tropes to ancient Near Eastern languages. And yet, somehow, his book is a page-turner -- compelling and hard to put down.

Miles also provides unexpected moments of laugh-out-loud humor. Take this passage, for instance, about the arguing, complaining relationship the Jewish people have with God:

" 'You're killing me,' Moses complains to God, 'so why haven't you killed me?' Similarly, the Israelites: 'You're killing us, so why didn't you kill us?' And God: 'Keep up this talk, and I'll kill you.' "

How can you resist a God like this, or a biography about a God like this?

Il racconto della vita del Dio della bibbia ebraica, o meglio l'analisi di Dio come personaggio.
L'autore adotta un approccio interessante e, credo, piuttosto originale. Affronta la bibbia ebraica come un'opera letteraria, e di conseguenza analizza Dio in quanto personaggio letterario.
Non si tratta, cioè, di un saggio storico o religioso o teologico (anche se ci sono accenni per ogni ambito), ma un saggio di critica letteraria, in maniera paragonabile a un saggio sulla figura di Amleto o su Ulisse.

Per fare questo, nonostante Jack Miles sia consapevole (e infatti lo ribadisce più volte) che il dio biblico è un collage di diversi dei, e che la stessa bibbia sia un insieme di fonti diverse, a volte contradditorie, affrontando Dio come protagonista di un'opera letteraria, lo considera come un unico personaggio, e il suo racconto e analisi lo tratta come un unico personaggio di un'unica opera.
E' una forzatura, ma è una forzatura che gli riesce spesso molto bene, e che rende questo libro davvero interessante e affascinante.

Infatti, il Dio che emerge da questa analisi, è un personaggio di cui vale la pena conoscere le vicende. E' potente ma imperfetto, crea l'umanità per conoscere sè stesso, ma non prevede il futuro (almeno inizialmente), fa cose di cui si pente perché non ne conosce le conseguenze, è contradditorio, ha crisi ed evolve. Un Dio ansioso e scisso come l'umanità.
Miles riesce a tenere tutto insieme, arrivando poi a una conclusione finale quasi poetica, direi.

Il fascino del libro risiede anche nella scrittura brillante del suo autore, a tratti addirittura divertente (pur non essendo un libro umoristico, ci sono alcuni passaggi che mi hanno fatto sghignazzare, specie nella prima metà). C'è da dire però che forse il libro poteva essere meno didascalico nel voler affrontare ogni libro della bibbia, e si poteva forse tagliare un po' ed essere più incisivi utilizzando una struttura diversa da quella della lettura lineare dei libri biblici.

E' stata nel complesso una bella lettura, che tra l'altro mi ha fatto venire voglia di saperne di più sulle vicende bibliche (Miles è tutt'altro che dettagliato, non è un libro adatto per chi voglia conoscere le storie della bibbia, perché ci si focalizza solo ed esclusivamente sul racconto e l'analisi del personaggio Dio).

Tuttavia, devo dire che a volta le sue forzature non sono riuscite, e sono confusionarie e davvero troppo tirate e contraddicono a volte certe sue affermazioni.
Credo che fosse inevitabile, e si tratta tutto sommato di pochi capitoli all'interno di un libro consistente e davvero piacevole.

This is a remarkable book, but very difficult to describe, let alone summarize in a few words. Miles uses the Hebrew Bible to trace the development of God as a character who evolves through his relationship with man. God is a very different "person" at the end of the Old Testament than he is when we first encounter him as the creator of man. He is "the creator who nearly destroys his chief creation; the bloodthirsty warrior and the protector of the downtrodden; the lawless law-giver; the scourge and the penitent." Finally, in the last few chapters, he seems to disappear all together. Miles has no neat conclusion for us; rather the book opens one's mind to further questions and to the acceptance that we can never really know who God is. You don't have to "believe" in God to appreciate how Miles gets us to think in new ways about why the Bible is so central to Western civilization. "The biblical narrative, whose distinctness every reader or hearer immediately and intuitively senses, works as it does because God, its all-defining protagonist, is a character without a past. A protagonist without a past yields a narrative without a memory, a narrative that is radically forward-looking and open-ended because, given its protagonist, it has no other alternative."

I totally understand how this book gets such mixed reviews — even with its Pulitzer. There are some deeply profound observations. And some beautiful writing. But there is pages upon pages of drudgery. The good bits are deeply buried.
I initially read every word...hoping it would get better. It didn’t. I eventually gave up and skimmed the rest of the book. I don’t regret it one bit.

This book attempts to take GOD and write about him as if he is a biography subject. It is a fascinating look at scripture and how it is interpreted from the perspective of god, yet written by a man. Very interesting perspectives are given.