God : A Biography

Rating:
Summary: Makes religion personal again.
Review: The brillance of this work lays in its incredible ability to bring the ancient and uncontemplatable Hebrew God to a level that makes Him both personal and understandable. As a faithful Catholic I found many of the presented ideas both challenging and perplexing, but have ultimately derived a deeper understanding of the faith of the ancient Jews and that of my own religion from the beautiful ideas captured in these pages. This book allows the faithful, or the unfaithful who are simply looking to learn more about the Hebrew God, to develop a new and possibly more thorough understanding of who God is and what His relationship with us means. Another treat is that the human characters of the Old Testement jump off the page and gain an identity that I did not feel simply from reading the Old Testement. Whether this work was guided by the Almighty or not will never be known, but I have no doubt that Miles has had a thorough and beautiful vision.

Rating:
Summary: One of The Most Interesting Books I Have Ever Read
Review: There's nothing quite as good as reading a work by an author who really breaks new ground. Not only does Miles explore an often ignored angle of Bible literature, but he does it extremely well. The amount of research that went into this fine work is evident on every page, and just by reading a few pages you feel like your whole brains is working overtime to take in all the new information. This is one of the best non-fiction books I have ever read, with an extremely gifted author taking on the most fascinating book and character in human history. This book definitely deserved the Pulitzer Prize, and should be read by anyone, especially those interested in religion.

I thought the most effective way that Miles explained his technique was by using the example of Hamlet. There has always been a controversy among scholars of Shakespeare concerning interpretation of his characters, such as Hamlet. Should we be allowed to right a pseudo biography of Hamlet, even if he is a fictional character? Or, should we ignore our interpretations of his words and actions and concentrate totally on what is written on the page. Just as it has triumphed for the scholars of the bard, the idea of strict adherence to the words of the Bible have left little room for people that want to use a little imagination. The title of this book might strike many as strange, but, I think we know more about God than we know about people like Alexander the Great, and there are a million biographies written on him. So, Miles decided to create a life for God, so to speak, using the stories of the Old Testament. What follows is the most fascinating literary critique and examination I have ever read.

Most people today picture God as the great bearded one in the sky, with absolute power to fulfill his whims in any way. The Sistine Chapel representation is pretty much the embodiment of this modern outlook, of a far away figure creating life with the wave of his finger. As we quickly learn in the pages of this book, that simplistic look at the Creator is far from complete. Amazingly enough, as Miles shows time and time again, God is much more like us then we realize. He gets lonely, gets angry, feels remorse and love. He deals with humans, sometimes feels responsibility and loyalty to them, even when they spurn him. After all, as the Bible says, we are in his image. This book is just bursting with amazing and intriguing interpretations of age-old stories. I was just shaking my head when I read Miles alternate look at the story of Abraham. I never realized that when Abraham was praising his God for fertility purposes, he could have easily been sarcastic! This might seem to be a slight overreaction, but to think the cherished figure of Abraham could have almost mocked God is very surprising to me. This kind of new revelation comes fast and furious in this unparalleled work of Biblical interpretation. In this book, God becomes one of the most complex psychological creatures ever written, before such a thing was in vogue. No longer is he some distant invisible force, God seems to be a totally believable almost human being, a creature of his monotheist designation who is struggling with his role in the world.

Of course, every interpretation has its detractors, especially in the world of Biblical studies, where every opinion forwarded is quickly followed by dissents. No where in this book does Miles doubt God's existence or try to prove it. In my eyes, the goal of this book is simple. By using the stories of the Bible, Miles paints his picture of a God who goes through many different moods and phases. Take it for what it is. I am very impressed with this book, I think that anyone who really wants to read an interesting story and learn about the most influential literary work in the Western World should grab this book.

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Summary: Discussion and Debate
Review: This book has engendered tremendous controversy. Is the author the devil incarnate? Or has he simply touched upon a nerve that has made us uncomfortable? To consider God as an entity, one which needs us more than we need it, is an intriguing concept. To join our book discussion group for a hearty debate email [e-mail] or visit my website at http://www.spelvin.com

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.

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Summary: Fascinating approach to the reading of the "Old Testament"
Review: This book should be the last in the O.T. and called "Revelations"! God emerges from the reading as (at least) two separate beings - as if in preparation for the New Testament. I must read it again, there was so much detail that I missed by concentrating on the narrative thread. It was hard work reading it but rewarding and informative.

Rating:
Summary: excellent...worthy of the Pulitzer Prize
Review: This book will have you believing that the G-d of the Hebrew Bible is exactly what and who he says he is (or was). What he is becoming is another question....Perhaps the Hebrew Bible is the autobiography of G-d, after all. At least, in the sense that no autobiography is completely accurate. (My apologies to fundamentalists.

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Summary: Wrong Again!
Review: This book, written by someone who is definitely not a fundamentalist, appears at first to be written by a super-fundamentalist. The book portrays God as being exactly as the words in the Old Testament describe Him. Almost no one alive today would seriously follow such a being as described. The blatant contraditions in attitude, judgment, concern, etc. would repel people today. Miles tries hard to salvage this being by picturing Him as growing (evolving?)into something more friendly as time advances. This growing being we then can warm up to. The usual defense of the Biblical description of God puts the growing (evolving)on the insights of the human authors of the various books rather than the object of their descriptions. This defense tends to take the sting out of the unflattering descriptions of God, such as the BAN etc. Perhaps Miles wants to force rabid fundamentalists into a corner by outlining lethal objections to their concept of the Biblical God.... Perhaps Miles just wanted to write an interesting book from a literary perspective, without making any personal judgments about God.... Perhaps he just wanted to prod people like me (a religion teacher)to reexamine my basics again.... At the very least, Miles, who definitely has the right credentials, has written a book that will generate much theological discussion (and prayer).

Rating:
Summary: A thought-provoking biography
Review: This is a daring, ambitious, complex, thought-provoking book. My reaction is mixed. On the positive side, I admire the author's largely successful attempt to look at the character of "God" from a fresh perspective, that of a complex character as revealed only in the pages of the Bible, rather than the God of an often uncritical religious dogma. On the negative side, Miles:
* Makes a lot of assumptions and conclusions that do not seem warranted. For example, in Chapter 2, "Generation," Miles says about God's command "Let there be light" that "One does not speak commandingly to oneself. It is rather as if a carpenter reaching for a hammer were to speak the word 'hammer' aloud." What is the author's point? If a witch or wizard speaks a spell or incantation to summon magical or natural forces, the spell caster speaks not to herself but rather to the source of the forces being summoned. I was especially uneasy with Miles' assumptions about details of God's existence that are based not only on what is explicitly stated in the Bible, but also on what is left unsaid. In the life of any significant literary character, can we automatically assume that anything about the character that is not explicitly stated does not exist? For me, the answer is "No." As I continued through the book, I found myself repeatedly in disagreement with the validity of the assumptions upon which many of the author's conclusions were based.
* Is often needlessly verbose.
* Writes in a stilted style that I often found irritating. I particularly did not enjoy his often pedantic tone, his seemingly gratuitous use of needlessly esoteric verbiage, and his use of the "royal 'we.'" The frequent use of "we" would not have bothered me so much if I had felt that it implied a sort of partnership between author and reader, but too often that seemed not to be the case.
My recommendation: If you are open-minded and are interested in theology, religious history, and literary analysis, then read this book and arrive at your own conclusions.

This review is based on the paperback version of the book.

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Summary: God: The things people have said about Me
Review: This is a very interesting book. Although Jack Miles states that one need not be either a believer in the Judeo-Christian concept of God or an unbeliever to appreciate the book, still this reviewer thinks that only those committed to this tradition will bother to read it.

The author takes the unusual approach of treating the main character in the Jewish Bible (Christian Old Testament) "God" as a literary character and then explores how this character changed substantially during the thousand year history that is recorded in the Bible.

The reader should be forewarned that if you are a real believer, then you will find yourself shouting on nearly every page, "That is not God". If you are not clear that this "God" is being treated only from a literary point of view, you will not comprehend the main thrust.

Judaism and Christianity are both "historical" religions. This means, among other things, that the validity of its central teachings depends upon the real occurrence of some historical events, unlike a religion such as Buddhism where the validity depends upon logic and personal experience alone. Yet none of the incidents and ideas expressed in the Bible were written by people who treated events the way a modern historian would treat them. The philosophical and theological sophistication of the various Biblical writers (and their numerous editors) vary tremendously. The concept of God that Moses probably had would differ significantly from that of a modern day Jew or Christian. The working assumption of a modern believer would be that his/her concept of God is accurate, and consequently someone else's concept would be inaccurate insofar as they differ. So the major question at stake for a modern believer would be "Is my concept of God a genuine organic development from that of the Biblical writers (so that our concepts, though different, represent the same God), or does my concept make any less accurate concept as found in the Bible guilty of error/heresy?"

If the reader's answer encompasses organic development, then it should be smooth sailing; if not, then batten down the hatches! The book also strongly hints that the current monotheistic concept of God contains so many different aspects that our current intelligence cannot fit these into a neat rational synthesis. Should this really be a surprise that the Transcendent Creator of the universe, including our limited finite intellects, must remain somewhat mysterious to us?

The book is an eye-opener for anyone who thinks the Bible has been transmitted to us in a manner equivalent to a classical theology textbook. If "God" had chosen to compose the Bible as a textbook, then it would have been much more "accurate", yet probably much more boring and lifeless. This reviewer thinks "God" knew the better way to do it. Remember, this book is not the Bible itself, not the Word of God, but it is a worthwhile literary commentary.

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Summary: Fascinating look at God as a character in a book.
Review: This volume looks at the Hebrew Bible as a book with God as its protagonist and comments on character development as the story unfolds. It is not a book for the light-hearted, either religious or academic. It is a difficult volume that requires a certain level of sophistication in literay review and Judeo Christian history. It also requires endurance. The author chose to examine the storyline of the Hebrew Bible in which the order of the books is laid out differently from Bibles containing both the Old and the New Testaments. Although rich in insight, perspective and novelty, this Pultizer Prize winning work has a tremendous flaw. The author, in his discussion of the book of Job and Gods and Jobs experience with one another, fails to cite Carl Jung as a commentator while obviously being aware of Jung and ultimately reaching Jungs conclusion. How Jungs perspective cannot be mentioned in this volume is both academically and historically disingenuous. Also, the aut! hor chooses to end his biography of God with the end of the Hebrew Bible, as though God, the character, had no further development. I recommend this book because of wealth of information included, but I strongly recommend that it be read in conjunction with Carl Jung¹s Answer to Job (1952) - and for the really studious, along with Edward Edingers Transformation of the God Image ‹ An Elucidation of Jung¹s Answer to Job.