The Bible: A Biography (Books That Changed the World) - Hardcover

Armstrong, Karen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0871139693 ISBN 13: 9780871139696

Publisher: Grove Press / Atlantic Monthly Press, 2007

Synopsis

As the single work at the heart of Christianity, the world's largest organized religion, the Bible is the spiritual guide for one out of every three people in the world. The Bible is also the world's most widely distributed book. Translated into over two thousand languages, it is estimated that more than six billion copies have been sold in the last two hundred years. It remains the best-selling book in the United States, year after year, with at least twenty-five million copies sold in 2005 alone. But the Bible is a complex work with a complicated and obscure history. Made up of sixty-six "books" written by various authors and divided into two testaments, its contents have changed over the centuries. The Bible has been transformed by translation and, through interpretation, has developed manifold meanings to various religions, denominations, and sects. In this seminal account, acclaimed historian Karen Armstrong discusses the conception, gestation, life, and afterlife of history's most powerful book. Armstrong analyzes the social and political situation in which oral history turned into written scripture, how this all-pervasive scripture was collected into one work, and how it became accepted as Christianity's sacred text. She explores how "as the pragmatic scientific ethos of modernity took hold, scripture was read for the information that it imparted" and how, in the nineteenth century, historical criticism of the Bible caused greater fear than Darwinism. As she writes, "'If Jonah did not spend days in a whale, ' asked a Lutheran pastor, 'did Jesus really rise from the tomb?'" Karen Armstrong's history of the Bible is a brilliant, captivating book, crucial in an age of declining faithand rising fundamentalism.

About this title

Review:

"Armstrong can simplify complex ideas, but she is never simplistic." "Armstrong at her best--translating and distilling complex history into lucid prose that will delight scholars and armchair historians alike." "Her conviction, passion, and intelligence radiate throughout the book, making us feel the urgency of the ideas it seeks to convey." "A tour de force ... She has dedicated herself to understanding the most prominent world faiths and explaining them to a secular/postsecular society."

Book Description:

The Bible is a groundbreaking explanation and interpretation of the single most influential text of all time, by the world's foremost religious historian.

'The best sort of popularizing: there is no sacrifice of integrity and no dumbing down.' Edward Norman, Literary Review

About this edition

• Publisher: Grove Press / Atlantic Monthly Press
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0871139693
• ISBN 13: 9780871139696
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 192