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A review by kristidurbs
A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam by Karen Armstrong
2.0
I finally read this book after having been gifted it over a decade ago.
A History of God is not "God's" history; it is a history of how different people in the Judaic, Islamic, Christian, and eventually secular "traditions" have interpreted God. The book takes you on a historical journey covering the beginnings of these three faiths, through the philosophies of mysticism, enlightenment, and modern atheism. She highlights the luminaries during different time periods that impacted the cultural perception of God in these religions. The book is somewhat scholarly, and thus not a quick read. I can't say it was riveting in the slightest. Exhausting and exacerbating is more like it.
Essentially, Armstrong seeks to show how similar patterns of thought overlap between these religions in history, how these patterns repeat in history, and how God is always anthropomorphized in our thought and beliefs. By the end, she finds that our conception of God does matter in life -- "human beings cannot endure emptiness and desolation; they will fill the vacuum by creating a new focus of meaning." Thus, ideas of God are meant to give our lives meaning, even if those ideas of God are essentially meaningless in of themselves, divorced from anything absolute or true, and *recognized as such* by those who hold those ideas! Therein I find the absurdity.
What is this book really about? God? Not a God I know.
A History of God is not "God's" history; it is a history of how different people in the Judaic, Islamic, Christian, and eventually secular "traditions" have interpreted God. The book takes you on a historical journey covering the beginnings of these three faiths, through the philosophies of mysticism, enlightenment, and modern atheism. She highlights the luminaries during different time periods that impacted the cultural perception of God in these religions. The book is somewhat scholarly, and thus not a quick read. I can't say it was riveting in the slightest. Exhausting and exacerbating is more like it.
Essentially, Armstrong seeks to show how similar patterns of thought overlap between these religions in history, how these patterns repeat in history, and how God is always anthropomorphized in our thought and beliefs. By the end, she finds that our conception of God does matter in life -- "human beings cannot endure emptiness and desolation; they will fill the vacuum by creating a new focus of meaning." Thus, ideas of God are meant to give our lives meaning, even if those ideas of God are essentially meaningless in of themselves, divorced from anything absolute or true, and *recognized as such* by those who hold those ideas! Therein I find the absurdity.
What is this book really about? God? Not a God I know.