A review by misfittorah
A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam by Karen Armstrong

3.0

Came into it expecting a informative intellectual history of theology. Came away with the impression that it was more of a well researched editorial about the author's ideals of religion. Which is not bad, but not ideal. Also, as an Orthodox Jew, I noticed her assessments of Jewish Theology, while accurate to a point, often painted an overly simplistic picture. For example, her picture of the Rabbis of the Talmud as tolerant aesthetes ignores strands of asceticism that do exist scattered through the Talmud, as well as various condemnations of heretical beliefs. While that is to be expected in a book that does not claim to be exhaustive, I remain worried that the other belief systems I am unfamiliar with (hence my reading of the book) were portrayed in a similar, overly simplistic light. However, she does a good job at making hard concepts easily understood, and for those looking for a very surface view of the history of theology, I would recommend this as the best I've read so far.