Rating: 
Summary: The Postmodern Vision at its Finest
Review: This book is a must-read for anyone who has any curiosity whatsoever about the concept of God and how this concept has played out among all the [very different] people of history and present. Finding a more lucid, insightful, and all-around scholarly work would be difficult to do today.I do have one problem, however. I am an avid reader of Friedrich Nietzsche, as I try to keep at least one book of his or about him in any reading cycle I carry. Armstrong discusses Nietzsche in her chapter entitled "Death of God," wherein she accurately chronicles much general information about the philosopher. Nevertheless, on p. 358 she makes the assertion that Nietzsche "did not abandon God joyously, as the exstacy of his prose might lead us to imagine. In a poem delivered 'after much trembling, quivering, and self-contortion,' he makes Zarathustra plead with God to return ..." She then goes on to cite a passage from "Thus Spake Zarathustra," Fourth Part, "The Magician," section 1, where she mistakenly has Zarathustra contort and speak the words begging God to return. It is actually someone whom Nietzsche, as Zarathustra, mistakes for a "higher man," only to begin to beat him after this long poem of hopelessness before an absent God. Nietzsche possessed a "joyous and trusting fatalism, in the faith that only the particular is loathsome, and that everything is affirmed and redeemed in the whole." He rejoiced in the abandonment of God, believing that only honest atheism returns man to innocence. "God, as Paul created him, is the negation of God." This mistake causes me to doubt the accuracy of any other thing she has written. Remember, don't believe it just because it is in a book (or in a review). Challenge everything. Find yourselves.
Rating: 
Summary: A bit dense and rather biased
Review: This book seems to basically accomplish what it sets out to, but not without some yawns and doubts in the author's objectivety from the reader. The book is filled with detail and information, but the reader is left to figure out the distinction between the major characters and facts and the more minor.
Perhaps a bigger concern is that the author seems very biased at certain points. She is rather negative towards Christianity (at least the later versions) and oddly positive towards Islam. But, if the reader can filter out all the opinion, and get through the dense areas, there is a lot to be learned here.
Rating: 
Summary: dreary
Review: this is a droning book which takes a fascinating subject and turns it into an endless hum.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Introduction to the Human Concept of God
Review: 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".
Rating:
Summary: accurate or pathological? you be the judge . . .
Review: Don't read this book unless you are well read in the sources Armstrong talks about, so you can see her errors. She has no idea what she's talking about, or she is misrepresenting-or maybe both. Examples: Armstrong on Bonaventure (p. 207): In Boneventure's view, "The Christian must first descend into the depths of his own self . . . and find a vision of God that transcended our limited human notions." What Bonaventure actually says: [from the first paragraph of The Mind's Road to God, A's cited source] "Since . . . the highest good is above us, none can be made blessed unless he ascend above himself. . . .That we may arrive at an understanding of the First Principle, which is . . . eternal and above us, we ought to proceed through the traces which are corporeal and temporal and outside us." Does it sound like Bonaventure thought God was to be found in the depths of the self? A. on Augustine (121): Augustine's "God was not an objective reality but a spiritual presence in the complex depths of the self." Augustine: "[God] is the first and supreme existence, who is altogether unchangeable, and who could say in the fullest sense of the words, 'I AM THAT I AM,' . . . all other things that exist, both owe their existence entirely to Him, and are good only so far as He has given it to them to be so." (On Christian Doctrine, para. 35.) Do you read that to mean that Augustine places God in his "self," or, conversely, does he place his self in God? Is his God "not an objective reality"--or the very opposite, the source of all reality? A. on Plato's theory of Forms or Ideas (p.36): "Plato's divine Forms were not realities 'out there' but could be discovered within the self." Huntington Cairns, noted Plato scholar, from Intro to Collected Dialogues of Plato (p. xviii): Plato's Forms or Ideas are "the ordering principle of which the world is constituted, the order in nature that all investigation seeks... The main point of Plato's argument is that the realm of Ideas is the reality of the objects which are ordered." Not realities? Discovered in the self? See the pathology? A's modern obsession with the "self" causes her to mischaracterize every figure and doctrine she touches. Wish I had more space for other glaring examples. Just as telling are her omissions. In 400 pages, no discussion of "grace," a key to the Christian conception of God, with important analogues in other religious doctrines. Why? Grace is by definition not sourced in A's "deepest self." (Also, Taoism gets no discussion at all-maybe A didn't see The Tao when rummaging around in her deepest self.)
A distorts wildly to support her silly modernist thesis. On Paul: Paul "created the religion that we now know as Christianity." (p86) 2 sentences later: "Paul did not believe that [Jesus] had been God incarnate." (See the colossal contradiction? No cites offered to support.) The contrary view held by literally billions of people for 1900 years, that Paul's Christology is consistent with Trinitarian doctrine (which is indeed based in part on Paul's writings), is supported by an abundance of Paul's statements. Only room for one: Jesus is "The Eternal Son of God," and "in him were created all things in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible . . . ; all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together." Col. I, 16-17. Gee whiz--sure sounds a bit God-like to me. One could go on for several pages here with additional quotations from Paul directly contradictory to A's ridiculous assertion. Whether A believes Paul is irrelevant-it's inexcusable to assert without support that Paul does not believe what he says. A's many distorted parallels are laughable. E.g., Buddhist bodhisattvas-i.e., any person who aspires to enlightenment for themselves and others--are just like the figure of Christ, who was venerated just like a Buddhist might venerate a bodhisattva. (85-86). Hmm. Bodhisattvas claim enlightenment, Jesus claimed to be the Messiah to whom was given "all power on heaven and earth." Bodhisattvas are revered by their followers, Jesus was crucified and abandoned. Some parallel. Again, it matters what what A believes, but the inaccuracies are stupendous. A also makes the nonsensical assertion that Jesus made no claims to be superior in any way to his apostles, that he taught them that they could achieve equal power and status with him. (pp. 82-83) Now, ponder this. Abundant evidence--including letters from the apostles, the historicity of which is not challenged by A--indicates that the apostles who knew Jesus thought he made Messianic claims to a special divine status. A claims that Jesus said no such thing, and that the apostles were mistaken. She actually claims to possess a more reliable understanding of what Jesus taught the apostles than the apostles had! I am not exaggerating here. Her "thinking" is that bizarre. Wish I had more space to expose other abundant absurdities. At the last 3 pages, she calls the experience of faith an "imaginative effort"; we are to be about "creating a new focus of meaning." [What?] A's central thesis throughout is that God is our creation, not our discovery. We create God, not vice versa. She sees religion as the new-age obsession with the inward, not the upward, the filling of the self, not the emptying of the self. Fine by me, but don't dare pretend that this egocentric self-absorption is shared by the likes of Plato and Augustine. The spiritual giants A consistently misrepresents knew better. Do yourself a favor and actually read some Plato, Augustine, Chuang Tzu, Bonaventure, The Buddha, Aquinas, or the Dali Lama; leave Armstrong and her deepest self to her own spiritual pathologies.
Rating:
Summary: every page filled with info!
Review: As she is in person, eloquent and full of deep insights in the study of religion, Armstrong's writing is easy to read and every sentence is packed with information.
For any beginner in the study of religion, I highly recommend this book as well as other books she has written.
I do, however, urge the reader to be cautious when reading Armstrong. As with any writer, there is an underlying message that wants to be communicated. Armstrong's seems to be that emanating from an outsider stance toward religion; her writing is a subtle reflection of this.
Excellent book!
Rating: 
Summary: not very good...
Review: A reader from New England
ur right on
I was looking forward to this book.
What a waste!
Rating:
Summary: PC and deprecating
Review: A conscientious survey obviously based on committed and extensive study, but marred throughout by the author's predilection for the politically correct and the related deprecation of her own culture and society, and by an apparent absence of direct personal experience in her chosen subject.
Rating:
Summary: Thorough, but biased
Review: This book really captured my attention at first. The first chapter is very informative. Unfortunately, it goes downhill from there. The author presents the facts, but she can't leave her opinion out of them. It's quite obvious that she is resentful of the religious life she abandoned. While there is no doubt that religion has its dark side, this book is not supposed to be an expose. As a history of the idea of God, it's at its finest when it sticks to the well-researched facts. When the author gets didactic and starts to editorialize, it just gets annoying.
Rating:
Summary: Every Author's Dilemma.
Review: Every Author must choose her audience. Some write for "HER" audience (Sometimes called "preaching to the choir"). Some write for the curious. To write for the curious, one should write at the introductory level; eschewing jargon for clarity. If one picks up this book only to find out "what all the noise is about", this is the wrong book. Just reading the Introduction had me in the dictionary and encyclopedia.
If you can read this book without recourse to reference texts, you don't need to read it. Same stuff, different day
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