God: A Biography

Rating:
Summary: A postmodern, postcritical reintegration of the story of God
Review: When I first heard about this book, I was put off by what I considered a "cutesy" title. Mentally, I catalogued the book with efforts along the lines of "Conversations with God" or even "The Celestine Prophecy," pop-theology that sought to gain a mass readership through some kind of clever gimmick.

Several weeks ago, though, I took a closer look and was intrigued by Miles' premise. He calls this book a biography because he's focusing on the "person" of God as described throughout the Hebrew scriptures, or Tanakh. Miles puts a lot of emphasis on the sequence of books found in the Tanakh as contrasted with the Old Testament. To him, the order in which scriptures are read makes a lot of difference to how the reader comes to learn about and understand God. Miles sees not just evidence of the period in which these works were composed (earlier to later) but also deliberate artfulness in their arrangement, so that we observe a gradual waning of God's direct involvement in the world. From the early accounts of God walking through the garden in the cool of the evening, we read story after story of God having intimate, personal dialogue with the great figures of Israelite history, only to see such reports diminish over the course of the centuries, until the final vision of a high, distant and receding figure called the Ancient of Days at the end of Daniel. By the time we get to the Chronicles-Nehemiah cycle, God is more an object of reference, the one being talked about, rather than a direct participant in the story. Or so goes the basic argument of Miles, anyway.

Though Miles cannot be relied upon to support any specific denominational or doctrinal claims that might come from a reading of scripture, I don't see him as having an agenda of undermining religious authority or personal beliefs. In his discussion of Job, toward the end of the book, he gives a helpful description of his own objectives in writing the book:

"The reading offered here attempts a consciously postcritical or postmodern reintegration of mythic, fictional and historical elements in the Bible so as to allow the character of God to stand forth more clearly from the work of which he is the protagonist."

I appreciate his clarity and honesty in making that statement. He recognizes that the Bible functions differently for many of its readers, across the span of religious traditions that trace their roots to these scriptures. He's not trying to supplant those readings, but is instead offering a supplemental perspective, which I believe is useful and relevant for our times.

The early books of the Bible get the most in-depth treatment, because they are the basis from which the rest of Tanakh develops. Genesis portrays God in his most basic roles: Creator, Destroyer (via the Flood,) and "Friend of the Family" (the personal god of Abraham and his biological descendents.) An interesting chapter titled "Creator/Destroyer" reflects on how those conflicting tendencies play themselves out in the story of Abraham, integrating into one personality aspects of deity that other societies ascribed to different gods (e.g. El, Yah, Rahab, Tiamat, etc.) This is an important point that Miles builds on throughout the book. Israel's commitment to monotheism, established early on in the development of its religious history, necessitated all the divine prerogatives to be ascribed to one and only one Supreme Being.

Miles goes on to explore God's role as Liberator, Lawgiver and Liege as told in the remainder of the Torah. Then it's on to the story of the conquest and settlement of Canaan, and God's personae of Conqueror, Father (to David and his line) and Arbiter, where Israel's lapse into idolatry mandates God's judgment for failing to fulfill their covenant obligations.

Then we see in Isaiah God's roles as Executioner and forgiving, restoring Holy One. From there Miles does a "surface scan" of the rest of the Bible, with the exception of Job, which he regards as the climactic book of the Tanakh. After Job, God becomes less imposing, more familiar, even to the point of seeming "absent" as we see in the sequence of Song, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes and most notoriously, Esther, where the name of God is never mentioned. By the end, we see post-exilic Israel, partially regathered in their homeland, with an inferior reconstruction of the Temple, led by those who hearken back to a more glorious past that can never be recaptured but still provides an ideal of how things ought to be. Miles portrays a people older and wiser, more than a bit worn down and disillusioned by the ordeal that they have been through.

The final section is titled "Does God Lose Interest?" In it, Miles ponders the similarities between the Tanakh and two famous tragedies, Oedipus Rex and Hamlet. He finds Tanakh to be more akin to Shakespeare than Sophocles. Whereas Oedipus was driven to his fate by inexorable, unalterable processes, Hamlet's outcome was an outgrowth of his character. Miles sees similarities in the unfolding narrative of the Tanakh. As God acts, he seems to learn new things about himself and his creation, and this new knowledge in turn alters his future actions and affects the other participants in the story. Here Miles offers something I found quite unique, a polytheistic retelling of the story of the Tanakh. It helps to clarify the distinctions between the familiar Israelite version of creation and history and how it might be otherwise told from a different religious point of view.

All in all, this book has had quite an effect in increasing my curiosity about the Bible and the history of its interpretation across the wider span of western cultures. I recommend it highly.

Rating:
Summary: A unique reading of the God of the Old Testament
Review: Miles takes the Hebrew Scriptures (The Tanakh) and uses it to look at God as a literary character, defining his personality and motivations from this point of view. The result is fascinating, and gives readers a fresh perspective on the God of the Old Testament. Here, we see a God who is ever-changing, not always quite sure of himself, reactive at times rather than proactive, and by the end of the literary narrative is silent. In some ways, God is brought down to human terms, but in other ways, God becomes more complex. He is knowable, yet unknowable, the unmysterious mystery.

It is helpful for readers to have an understanding of the Tanakh, as the order of the books are different from that of the Old Testament in the Christian Bible. It is also helpful to realize that this is a LITERARY look at the Hebrew Bible, and the stories are not necessarily told in chronological order. Ruth, for example, comes much later than the story of David. Still, I found it helpful for my faith to see God as a literary character, and I thank Miles for doing an outstanding job at providing an interesting and fresh critique.

Rating:
Summary: Who judges whom?
Review: This book should be required reading in the public schools. Jack Miles presents a god who is far from perfect and far from all knowing. For far too long man has lived under the belief that a god would someday judge him, if there was a god, it would be man who should be the judge, god could rest in the knowledge that mankind is far more merciful than himself.

Rating:
Summary: Unquestionably worth the effort
Review: Jack Miles achieved his stated intent to write a biography of the character God based on the Tanakh, a literary work. The result is a fascinating study of the evolution of the Judean notion of a monotheistic God, the linchpin for the Jewish, Christian and Muslin religions. Some reviews here either entirely shun Miles work or nit-pick at one of his arguments with certain shrillness, as if Miles had stepped on sacred toes. Unless you can accept, at least temporarily, that man created God and not the other way around, you are liable to suffer a similar upset.

Miles is a scholar. He has devoted his life to the study of religion, literature and language, and his writing is rich with insightful analogies. This is not an easy read, however. I had to look up more words while reading this work than with any other book in memory, and some required delving into the cognate, but it was unquestionably worth the effort.

Rating:
Summary: An amazing work
Review: In "God: A Biography," Jack Miles attempts to flesh out, both physically, emotionally and spiritually, the God of the Old Testament. This book is not a typical biography, in that it is not a chronological tellign of God's growth as a person and the major events in his life. Rather, the book is a series of interpretations (and perhaps assumptions) of God's actions and interactions with the Israelites and all of His followers, and as such it succeeds brilliantly. The structure of the book was vital to its success: Miles titles each chapter under a broad element or theme of God's character, and throughout the chapter goes into more minute detail about what God did that brought the author to that decision. The interpretation of God here is near absolute; Miles selects incredibly applicable sections of the Bible from which to come to his hypotheses, and through his lucid and accessible writing one is able to understand God and his metamorphosis from Creator and Friend to recluse and silent observer. This book is a thunderous addition to Christian literature and should be read by all who would like more in-depth idea of God's influence and identity.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting And Provocative But Not Compelling
Review: If you are a christian your first reaction upon looking at this book might be to shudder and shy away. Yet another attempt to deconstruct God and reinterpret Him for our day and age you might say. Yes, there is a certain amount of that, but it is important for christians to be able to engage with this kind of exegesis too. Even a very flawed interpretation can yield new insights, and Miles' work certainly provides new depth and context in many ways. He definitely brings linguistic and socio-cultural historiographic strengths to the work, and he conducts an important exercise in breaking down the different images of God as seen through the eyes of the different authors of the Hebrew Bible.

His political history is a little weak, and I think he would agree with that statement based on his disclaimers at the front of the book. The other frustrating thing about his work is that it is incomplete -- the literary biography of God has to be coupled with the literary biography of the Jewish people -- they are an extremely important "character" in the Bible, and the character of God that Miles describes is really the character of God as seen through the eyes of the Jewish people. In other words, this really should have been more of a three part discussion -- (1) the character of God, (2) the character of the Jewish people, and (3) how their character shaped their view of God and their relationship to Him. It's not so much that the narrator or narrative is fallible, as that the story of God is incomplete and incompletely understood.

Given these constraints, Miles narrative is one of extremes. At some levels, it provides an extreme close-up view -- delving into the religious practices of the Israelites' neighbors, or discussing the multiple meanings of a given Hebrew word and its various alternatives. At other times, it provides broad brush strokes and makes gross assertions (ie God's stance towards sex) that aren't as substantiated as they could be.

These are all qualities of an interesting and provocative study -- the reader will definitely be stimulated, but also show why Miles is not compelling in the end, and oddly, at least from my perspective, a little superficial. A book like Miles' God is a challenge to christians and non-christians alike, and worth the investment of time to read it, but if you are engaging in a study of God, it would be well worth it to return to the primary source again afterwards.

Rating:
Summary: A postmodern, postcritical reintegration of the story of God
Review: When I first heard about this book, I was put off by what I considered a "cutesy" title. Mentally, I catalogued the book with efforts along the lines of "Conversations with God" or even "The Celestine Prophecy," pop-theology that sought to gain a mass readership through some kind of clever gimmick.

Several weeks ago, though, I took a closer look and was intrigued by Miles' premise. He calls this book a biography because he's focusing on the "person" of God as described throughout the Hebrew scriptures, or Tanakh. Miles puts a lot of emphasis on the sequence of books found in the Tanakh as contrasted with the Old Testament. To him, the order in which scriptures are read makes a lot of difference to how the reader comes to learn about and understand God. Miles sees not just evidence of the period in which these works were composed (earlier to later) but also deliberate artfulness in their arrangement, so that we observe a gradual waning of God's direct involvement in the world. From the early accounts of God walking through the garden in the cool of the evening, we read story after story of God having intimate, personal dialogue with the great figures of Israelite history, only to see such reports diminish over the course of the centuries, until the final vision of a high, distant and receding figure called the Ancient of Days at the end of Daniel. By the time we get to the Chronicles-Nehemiah cycle, God is more an object of reference, the one being talked about, rather than a direct participant in the story. Or so goes the basic argument of Miles, anyway.

Though Miles cannot be relied upon to support any specific denominational or doctrinal claims that might come from a reading of scripture, I don't see him as having an agenda of undermining religious authority or personal beliefs. In his discussion of Job, toward the end of the book, he gives a helpful description of his own objectives in writing the book:

"The reading offered here attempts a consciously postcritical or postmodern reintegration of mythic, fictional and historical elements in the Bible so as to allow the character of God to stand forth more clearly from the work of which he is the protagonist."

I appreciate his clarity and honesty in making that statement. He recognizes that the Bible functions differently for many of its readers, across the span of religious traditions that trace their roots to these scriptures. He's not trying to supplant those readings, but is instead offering a supplemental perspective, which I believe is useful and relevant for our times.

The early books of the Bible get the most in-depth treatment, because they are the basis from which the rest of Tanakh develops. Genesis portrays God in his most basic roles: Creator, Destroyer (via the Flood,) and "Friend of the Family" (the personal god of Abraham and his biological descendents.) An interesting chapter titled "Creator/Destroyer" reflects on how those conflicting tendencies play themselves out in the story of Abraham, integrating into one personality aspects of deity that other societies ascribed to different gods (e.g. El, Yah, Rahab, Tiamat, etc.) This is an important point that Miles builds on throughout the book. Israel's commitment to monotheism, established early on in the development of its religious history, necessitated all the divine prerogatives to be ascribed to one and only one Supreme Being.

Miles goes on to explore God's role as Liberator, Lawgiver and Liege as told in the remainder of the Torah. Then it's on to the story of the conquest and settlement of Canaan, and God's personae of Conqueror, Father (to David and his line) and Arbiter, where Israel's lapse into idolatry mandates God's judgment for failing to fulfill their covenant obligations.

Then we see in Isaiah God's roles as Executioner and forgiving, restoring Holy One. From there Miles does a "surface scan" of the rest of the Bible, with the exception of Job, which he regards as the climactic book of the Tanakh. After Job, God becomes less imposing, more familiar, even to the point of seeming "absent" as we see in the sequence of Song, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes and most notoriously, Esther, where the name of God is never mentioned. By the end, we see post-exilic Israel, partially regathered in their homeland, with an inferior reconstruction of the Temple, led by those who hearken back to a more glorious past that can never be recaptured but still provides an ideal of how things ought to be. Miles portrays a people older and wiser, more than a bit worn down and disillusioned by the ordeal that they have been through.

The final section is titled "Does God Lose Interest?" In it, Miles ponders the similarities between the Tanakh and two famous tragedies, Oedipus Rex and Hamlet. He finds Tanakh to be more akin to Shakespeare than Sophocles. Whereas Oedipus was driven to his fate by inexorable, unalterable processes, Hamlet's outcome was an outgrowth of his character. Miles sees similarities in the unfolding narrative of the Tanakh. As God acts, he seems to learn new things about himself and his creation, and this new knowledge in turn alters his future actions and affects the other participants in the story. Here Miles offers something I found quite unique, a polytheistic retelling of the story of the Tanakh. It helps to clarify the distinctions between the familiar Israelite version of creation and history and how it might be otherwise told from a different religious point of view.

All in all, this book has had quite an effect in increasing my curiosity about the Bible and the history of its interpretation across the wider span of western cultures. I recommend it highly.

Rating:
Summary: An interesting idea, poorly executed.
Review: The author's stated purpose with this book is to write a literary biography of the character 'God' in the Jewish Tanakh (Christian Old Testament). As I said, an interesting idea. It removes the strain of belief or acceptance from a study of the character of God. Rather than getting hung up on issues like, "I can't believe a God would !", Jack Miles proposes that we look at how this piece of literature presents its main character, God.

Unfortunately, the author hangs his interpretation of the character, God, on a some very weak assumptions. For instance, because we are not told of God's story prior to his creation of the heavens and the earth in Genesis, Mr. Miles assumes that God has no history. In his mind, God begins as this powerful creative sentient force with no real knowledge of itself. The story of the Tanakh is read as God forging a series of relationships with people (as individuals and in groups), the failure of which seem to reveal to God some aspect of himself that he had not known before. However, the author seems to entirely miss the possibility that what we see is not God's discovery of himself through his relationships with men, but rather a mosaic (no pun intended) picture of God presented through the perspectives and experiences of a variety of authors.

Honestly, the gross assumptions which constitute the spine of this book have really undermined my respect for the Pulitzer Prize. If I had handed something like this in in school, it would have been given a 'C' at best and there would have been numberous comments of "show support for this statement" and "show evidence for this explaination of motive".

Rating:
Summary: Scholarly with room for belief
Review: This was probably the most helpful book I've read on the Old Testament. I mean "helpful" because Miles has used comparative religion in this explication of the Old Testament and its main "character" God. While revealing how the character God has evolved over the millenia, Miles really shows how we as people have evolved and how our understanding of God has changed along with our spiritual and religious growth. I did not consider myself religiously naive, but I was surprised at some of what I encountered. I recommend this book to anyone interested in the history of the Jewish-Christian-Muslim God's origins--especially those whose faith relies on literalism. This book will give you a great deal of information without stripping you of the foundations of your faith. That's a fine line that Jack Miles has observed very effectively.

Rating:
Summary: Who is God?
Review: Scholarly written from an unique perspective yet not convincing. Heavy sledding with little satisfaction.