A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam

This book was easy to find online: good choice of copies with condition described, reasonable price, prompt delivery, 100 % all round. Thanks from Virginia Hobart

Excellent

I couldn't read much of it, to be honest, as I began disagreeing with the author very close to the beginning. She seems to hold the belief that atheism is a form of religion like the theistic ones, and I - having been a conservative Christian turned atheist, can't help but feel this is extremely wrong.I tried skimming through the book, but the information is presented in a story-like way, so much so that I find myself distrusting the content even further. I expected it to be a collection of chronologically presented facts with collected explanation from different historians/psychiatrists/etc, but instead it's the author telling a very long story in a fairy-tale-sounding manner.I expected to learn a lot, but I guess it won't be from here. In any way, I think I'll be giving this book away to a charity shop at some point.

This book has cleared up much of my confusion about religion and the seeming irrelevance and impotence of it that I felt. It hasn’t made me more or less religious but has helped me understand the complexities of humanity. A great read.

I sometimes wonder if the stage of our life when we first encounter a book affects our relationship to that book. I mean that had I encountered this book when I was much younger, I would not have been receptive to her arguments nor would I have been able to appreciate the depth of her scholarship. Make no mistake, this is a scholarly book that I enjoyed thoroughly. The title of this book is somewhat misleading: it is not a history of God, per se, but it is an erudite discussion of Woman and Man's relationship with God over the last 4000 years. Since I have been pursuing a similar quest over the last seven decades, Ms. Armstrong's magnificent manuscript has answered many of my questions and feelings about religion. It has enlightened me and cleared my head somewhat. It is not an easy book but will be worth the time and effort. Kudos to Ms. Armstrong.

El libro se adentra no sólo en los eventos históricos que rodean el desarrollo de las 3 religiones monoteístas, también profundiza en la filosofía que precede y enmarca a estas religiones en diferentes periodos de la historia.

Informative

Of all the books about religion that I've read--and I've read a good many over many years--this is the best and most concise recounting of the beginnings and development of the three monotheistic faiths. The precis of the book's central theme is very clearly and more than adequately expressed in the Amazon description of the book.Religious historian Karen Armstrong's discussion and in-depth study of the invention of "God" is thorough and deep: her remarks and history are supported by many, many, many primary sources. She makes no judgment on the believability of any tenet; her focus here is how people's need for explanations of the unexplainable produced a supreme being, and how those beliefs change over time to accommodate changing politics, economic conditions, and emerging knowledge.The one finding that stood out for me was the incontrovertible fact that each set of beliefs was ALWAYS preceded by the acknowledgment that "God" was unknowable and unfathomable, and THEN followed by the assertion that the set of beliefs had found THE one and only way to know "God." And each such unshakeable rightness/correctness led to a backlash of another set of beliefs, whose authors declared that THIS set alone would lead to knowing all about the unknowable "God."Be forewarned: this book is not going to help you find answers and reassurances that any one faith is the one and only road to knowing "God." But, if you persevere, this book gives a very clear, precise history of how men created "God"--and are still doing so today.