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| A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam | 
 enlarge | Author: Karen Armstrong
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Category: Book
List Price: $15.95 (37.55 RON)
Buy New: $10.85 (25.54 RON)
You Save: $5.10 (12.01 RON) (32%)
Avg. Customer Rating:  200 reviews
Sales Rank: 4153
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 496
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.1 x 5.5 x 1.2
ISBN: 0345384563
Dewey Decimal Number: 291.211
EAN: 9780345384560
ASIN: 0345384563
Publication Date: August 9, 1994
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Also Available In:
| • | Audio CD - The History of God CD: The 4,000 Year Quest | | • | Paperback - The History of God | | • | Hardcover - A History of God | | • | Hardcover - A History Of God | | • | Hardcover - A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Armstrong, Karen) | | • | School & Library Binding - History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam | | • | Hardcover - History Of God: The 4000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam | | • | Audio Cassette - A History of God : The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam (4 Cassettes) | | • | Paperback - A HISTORY OF GOD | | • | Paperback - History of God: The 4,000-year Quest of Judaism, Christianity And Islam | | • | Unknown Binding - What do we learn from variance ratio statistics? (Working paper) | | • | Audio Cassette - A History of God : The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam (4 Cassettes) | | • | Audio CD - History of God CD SP |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com Review
Armstrong, a British journalist and former nun, guides us along one of the most elusive and fascinating quests of all time--the search for God. Like all beloved historians, Armstrong entertains us with deft storytelling, astounding research, and makes us feel a greater appreciation for the present because we better understand our past. Be warned: A History of God is not a tidy linear history. Rather, we learn that the definition of God is constantly being repeated, altered, discarded, and resurrected through the ages, responding to its followers' practical concerns rather than to mystical mandates. Armstrong also shows us how Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have overlapped and influenced one another, gently challenging the secularist history of each of these religions. --Gail Hudson
Product Description
"An admirable and impressive work of synthesis that will give insight and satisfaction to thousands of lay readers."
THE WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLD
In this stunningly intelligent book, Karen Armstrong, one of Britain's foremost commentators on religious affairs, traces the history of how men and women have perceived and experienced God, from the time of Abraham to the present. From classical philsophy and medieval mysticism to the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and the modern age of skepticism, Karen Armstrong performs the near miracle of distilling the intellectual history of monotheism into one superbly readable volume, destined to take its place as a classic.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 195 more reviews...
 unenlightened November 3, 2008
While Ms Armstrong is very well researched on Christian and Moslem beliefs and customs, her understanding of Judaism was not as strong and it was quite apparent in my read thru. Ms Armstrong presents an out dated view of Judaism with a revengeful and jealous G-d. She would be best served by visiting an Aish Hatorah web site the next time she chooses to write about this subject.
 Temple, Sepulchre, Ka'aba October 31, 2008
Writing a single book on a topic so vast and clotted with controversy, it was never going to be possible to please everyone. For some this book is too dry and scholarly, for others it isn't nearly scholarly enough. But no fulltime scholar would touch such an ambitious, border-crossing project: you'd step on too many toes and, gulp, you might be Wrong sometimes!
I think Karen Armstrong is undoubtedly wrong about some things, but I found her book excellent, even gripping. She has an unteachable gift as a populariser: to turn the millennial tangled history of Monotheism into a clear compelling narrative without oversimplifying or overloading.
How could they know, those dusty Hebrew prophets who felt the Infinite One reach out and touch them from beyond history, that their offspring would be so curious and so various: observant Jews, Catholic saints with sympathetic wounds, Byzantine Light mysticism, Whirling Dervishes, Shi'ite scholars, convoluted Kabbalistic myths, Assassins, Calvinists...
Armstrong's mind is commendably open, though it is "spirituality", the human view, that interests her. Invariably kind to Judaism, Islam and the Orthodox Church, only her own Catholic tradition ever provokes her to harshness. Scholars may find faults in each page, while fundamentalists won't want to know. For the rest of us, it would be hard to find a better overview: and library shelves are groaning with authoritative studies if you want to go into greater depth (or to correct the occasional blunder.)
Compared to some shoddy illiterate anti-God rants published lately, this book is a beacon of light, telling one credible version of the real story: saintliness and cruelty; mystical vision and sordid corruption; profound philosophy and fabrications; destinies and whole civilisations created by eloquent words, and wars fought over misinterpretations; bewilderment, baffled hopes, charisma, rivalry, self-sacrifice, love, hatred, beauty.
This story is still beneath our feet at every step we take.
Excellent Introduction to the Human Concept of God October 19, 2008
As a religious Christian, I wish to thank Karen Armstrong for this wonderful book that taught me about the depth and richness of my religion and its history, as well as of other religions that believe in God. This is not an easy book, of course, but then who ever said that theology is easy? Flipping through the first few pages I was at first appalled at what seemed like blasphemy: "people invented a god"? As I progressed in the reading, however, I understood a lot more about what the author means. While we do know stories about God from the collections in the Bible and other Holy texts, those stories are revealed and we therefore cannot collect more by our own scholarly means.
This is therefore not a history OF God itself, since the God Christians, Jews, and Muslims believe in is beyond time, beyond history. "History" itself is a human concept, and therefore the only history we humans can write about is HUMAN history. What Armstrong has delivered to us here is a very thorough and dispassionate history of the human CONCEPT of God. Viewed in that light, the book is actually a very reasonable introduction to the three Western religions. The ideas in the book furthermore are no different from the material taught in theology seminaries - it's just that we lay people are not taught or conditioned to think critically about these issues, and so we tend to hold our prior understanding as dogma, rather continuing on the quest for a true meaning of religion.
The book thoroughly describes the evolution of the concept of God, and how every generation of humanity brought a refinement to the idea. Thus we see how early Judaism divorced itself from the multiplicity of pagan gods while retaining some of the pagan legends; how the Judaic God later evolved to that of the Pharisees and Rabbi Hillel, then the Cabbalists, then the reformers; how Christianity at the same time evolved in a path separate from Judaism; and later fragmented into many branches. One even learns about the relationship between Hinduism and Buddhism to the Judeo-Christian traditions. This evolution is traced all the way to the present day, where the concept of God has been transformed but nevertheless remains.
In parallel, Armstrong also explores Islam with its various branches: Sunni, Shi'a, Sufi, Ismaili, Alawite, Druze, etc. Since most people in the West are unfamiliar with Islam, Armstrong devotes somewhat more pages to it. This has led many critics to unfairly criticize her as being biased towards Islam. I however found her description and analysis of Islam to be as unbiased an accurate as the rest of the book, and quite as informative.
You may be surprised, but after reading this book in full, my Christian faith has not been shaken a bit. Rather, based on the solid understanding I had gained, my faith only grew deeper and deeper. The book furthermore has pointed out to me many interesting references and ideas to explore about my religion and others discussed. I became particularly intrigued in mysticism and how close the mystic branches of all three religions are to each other. The index reads like an encyclopedia of everything you might want to know about religion. This is of course a major strength of the book. It is so comprehensive that the reader comes out with a very deep understanding of the subject matter. I myself read it slowly and took notes along the way, but found this exercise extremely rewarding.
All in all, this is an excellent and highly recommended addition to your library. It is a book you'll want to keep and consult over and over. I suggest you also get "Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths" by the same author for an excellent and informative history of the city that has the added advantage of being somewhat easier to read than "A History of God".
A true work of scholarship October 12, 2008
This scholarly book traces the cultural and philosophical evolution of the human conception of God surrounding the 3 major monotheistic faiths. Armstrong explains the common lineage, the similarities and the variance of the conceptual understandings of God that shape people's lives...for better or for worse. This book is best understood if you have a little bit of background in religious and world history and it does require concentration. I particularly enjoyed this audio version because I could listen to certain chapters a second time. However, the audio book is abridged. This book encourages people to understand that no single person, group, or religious tradition has a monopoly of truth. It also calls people to learn about history to avoid the tragic consequences of claiming human agendas as the will of God.
If you want to learn about man's journey to discover GOD. June 26, 2008
You can learn a lot about man's search for GOD from the beginning. 14,000 years ago.
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