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Zusammenfassung von A History of God

Name: A History of God
Rating: 4.3 (394 reviews)
Author: Karen Armstrong

Karen Armstrong

The 4000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam

4.3 (394 Bewertungen)

27 Min.

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"A History of God" by Karen Armstrong explores how humans have understood and experienced the divine throughout history. It traces the evolution of religious beliefs and practices from prehistoric times to the present day.

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Christentum Judentum Theologie Islam

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A History of God
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What’s in it for me? Discover how the concept of God has changed over the course of human history.

Whether you’re an adamant atheist or a model of devout piety, there’s no way to deny that the world’s three main monotheistic religions have shaped world history. Humans have always held onto a notion that a divine presence influences worldly affairs, but there’s something very distinctive about the history of a single God as conceived by Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

These three Abrahamic religions have shaped the modern world, but what’s fascinating is that they have each been influenced by events and philosophical movements alike. Consequently, the major tenet of each faith – that of a single God – has shifted over time. Greek philosophy, periods spent in exile and Enlightenment ideas have all affected the concepts of God in these three religions. What’s more, the notion of God continues to change to this day.

In these blinks, you’ll not only get a sense of how the concept of God has evolved, but also how humankind’s changing conceptualization of itself has been mirrored in the mutable figure of God himself.

You’ll also find out

which Muslims preserved the wisdom of Ancient Greece for Christian Europe;
how to create humans (if you’re a Babylonian god); and
who claimed that God had died.

A distinctive concept of God emerged among the Israelites in the Levant.

How do you see God? Perhaps as the creator of the world, as the Almighty or as a spiritual presence? Different conceptualizations of God have existed for millennia, and the best way to understand them is to trace them as they emerge in the related histories of the Jewish, Christian and Muslim faiths.

The journey starts 14,000 years ago in the Middle East. There, pagan tribes developed their own notions of deities.

Take Mesopotamia, in modern-day Iraq, the cradle of Western civilization. People living there saw society as a fragile thing; they worshipped gods that countered the forces of disorder and quelled chaos.

The Babylonian creation myth, Enuma Elish, tells the story of the first gods emerging from a primeval wasteland. These deities were associated with water, earth and heaven. The god Marduk then created humankind by mixing his blood with dust, which meant humans were thought of as semi-divine in nature.

But one group stood out for their ideas about the divine: the Israelites. They had settled in Canaan in the Southern Levant in around 1850 BCE and claimed descent from Abraham and his grandson Jacob, who was also known as Israel.

The Israelites initially had a similar view of divine power but started worshipping a single God, one that had developed from a version of a pagan heavenly High God or Sky God.

In the earliest books of the Bible, Genesis and Exodus, written in the eighth century BCE, God is referred to as both “Elohim” and “Yahweh.”

Elohim was the Israelite High God, while Yahweh means “the God of our fathers.”

It is thus quite possible that two separate pagan gods, each with a specific local domain, were merged.

In fact, after the Israelites’ return from their enslavement in Egypt, they swore to make Yahweh their only god. In return, it is said that Yahweh promised to protect the Israelites.

The Israelites developed a distinctive understanding of God, whose nature continued to change over time.

Yahweh had initially been conceptualized by the Israelites as their god of war. But, before long, they developed a distinct, universal vision of him. But just what was it that made Yahweh so special?

For starters, Yahweh, unlike pagan deities, tended to reveal himself through personal, concrete encounters. He didn’t have a mythology per se like other gods, which is why he had prophets like Isaiah with whom he conversed.

The messianic status of Jesus informed a new concept of God in Christianity.

The biggest revolution in the idea of a single God came with Jesus, but very little is known about his life: Mark’s Gospel, the first written account, was only produced some 40 years after Jesus’s death.

Many Jewish people in Palestine saw Jesus as the Messiah, the “anointed one,” the descendant of King David. Jesus had proclaimed in the towns and villages of Galilee that the Kingdom of God was coming.

The philosophical underpinnings of Christianity made for a very distinctive God.

Christianity started out as a small cult in the Roman Empire, but it spread rapidly and steadily. By the fourth century, thanks to the conversion of Emperor Constantine, Christianity had effectively become the state religion.

But despite this, Christianity remained a puzzling faith.

The prophet Muhammad brought the monotheistic Islamic faith to the Arab world.

While we know little about Jesus’s life, the same can’t be said of the Prophet Muhammad, the founder of the Islamic faith.

Muhammad ibn Abdullah was born around 570 in the bustling Arab city of Mecca, in modern-day Saudi Arabia. He was part of the Quraysh tribe and, as such, worked as a merchant in the city. At the time, Arabs worshipped pagan deities, including their High God Allah.

Muslims introduced Greek logic to Muslim, Jewish and Christian theologies.

The Arab world expanded through a series of conquests across the Middle East, Africa and southern Europe, but the Koran was not forgotten. The ninth century, in particular, saw a blossoming of culture and education, and a new Islamic movement of intellectuals heralded a new scientific era. These men dedicated their lives to Falsafah – “philosophy” – and were consequently known as the Faylasufs.

The Faylasufs identified Allah with the Greek philosophers’ conception of God. What’s more, they also recognized rationalism as the highest form of religion. As such, just as Aristotle had done, they tried to prove – by means of logical deduction – the existence of God.

Judaism, Christianity and Islam all developed mystical traditions.

From their very inception, the three monotheistic religions thought of God in very personal terms. The Jewish and Christian God creates, destroys, loves, judges and punishes. In other words, he has attributes common to all humans. Equally, Allah sees, hears and judges.

However, though a personal God might be relatable, he can be dangerous too.

The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were a time of reformation and change for the monotheistic religions.

There’s little doubt that all three monotheistic religions saw massive upheavals in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

The Jewish community in Spain, whose existence had been safeguarded by the Muslim states there, suddenly found themselves under attack from crusading Christians in the fifteenth century.

The Enlightenment resulted in the reemergence of the impersonal God of earlier philosophers.

The end of the sixteenth century ushered in a new scientific and technological age. Its impact on conceptions of God was colossal, to say the least.

Now, people no longer feared change – they embraced it. What’s more, a new belief in development and a new narrative of progress were set firmly in place. New technologies had arrived, productivity increased and people felt more in charge of their own affairs. Capitalism too was seen as a new liberating force cut from the same cloth.

The nineteenth century saw the death of God.

You might think that atheism means a rejection of God outright – but that’s not strictly true. Atheism actually involves repudiating the current conception of God. Historically, that has meant people abandoning conceptions of the divine if they see them as having no relevance. As a result, atheism was already a phenomenon with a long pedigree by the time it really took off in the nineteenth century.

In the Christian West, for instance, the traditional figure of God now seemed a poor fit for the modern world.

Today, we are in search of a God able to guide us through the challenges of the present.

Whichever way you look at it, the history of God has been long and eclectic – and is still being written today.

One thing is certain though – times are changing, and old conceptions of God no longer fit the times. This begs the question: beyond the present moment, how will God survive?

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Worum geht es in A History of God?

A History of God (1993) traces the related histories of the Jewish, Christian and Muslim concepts of God. From the jealous God of the ancient Israelites to the revelations of Allah, and from the life of Jesus through to theological doctrinal discussions and God’s status in the modern world, these blinks tell the story of how conceptualizations of God in these three related religions have developed and changed over time.

Bestes Zitat aus A History of God

All religions change and develop. If they do not, they will become obsolete.

—Karen Armstrong

Wer A History of God lesen sollte

Jewish people, Christians, Muslims and all people of faith
Historians and philosophers
Atheists interested in the role of God in monotheistic religions

Über den Autor

Karen Armstrong is a commentator and writer whose interests encompass all aspects of religion. She spent seven years as a nun in the Roman Catholic faith, obtained a B. Litt. at Oxford University and also taught literature at the University of London. She regularly writes reviews and articles for journals and newspapers. Her other books include The Battle for God, Islam: A Short History and Buddha.

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