NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The bestselling author of Zealot and host of Believer explores humanity’s quest to make sense of the divine in this concise and fascinating history of our understanding of God. In Zealot, Reza Aslan replaced the staid, well-worn portrayal of Jesus of Nazareth with a startling new image of the man in all his contradictions. In his new book, Aslan takes on a subject … contradictions. In his new book, Aslan takes on a subject even more immense: God, writ large.
In layered prose and with thoughtful, accessible scholarship, Aslan narrates the history of religion as a remarkably cohesive attempt to understand the divine by giving it human traits and emotions. According to Aslan, this innate desire to humanize God is hardwired in our brains, making it a central feature of nearly every religious tradition. As Aslan writes, “Whether we are aware of it or not, and regardless of whether we’re believers or not, what the vast majority of us think about when we think about God is a divine version of ourselves.”
But this projection is not without consequences. We bestow upon God not just all that is good in human nature—our compassion, our thirst for justice—but all that is bad in it: our greed, our bigotry, our penchant for violence. All these qualities inform our religions, cultures, and governments.
More than just a history of our understanding of God, this book is an attempt to get to the root of this humanizing impulse in order to develop a more universal spirituality. Whether you believe in one God, many gods, or no god at all, God: A Human History will challenge the way you think about the divine and its role in our everyday lives.
Praise for God
“Timely, riveting, enlightening and necessary.”—HuffPost
“Tantalizing . . . Driven by [Reza] Aslan’s grace and curiosity, God . . . helps us pan out from our troubled times, while asking us to consider a more expansive view of the divine in contemporary life.”—The Seattle Times
“A fascinating exploration of the interaction of our humanity and God.”—Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
“[Aslan’s] slim, yet ambitious book [is] the story of how humans have created God with a capital G, and it’s thoroughly mind-blowing.”—Los Angeles Review of Books
“Aslan is a born storyteller, and there is much to enjoy in this intelligent survey.”—San Francisco Chronicle
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Breathtaking in its scope and controversial in its claims, God: A Human History shows how humans from time immemorial have made God in their own image, and argues that they should now stop. Writing with all the verve and brilliance we have come to expect from his pen, Reza Aslan has once more produced a book that will prompt reflection and shatter assumptions.
This is an excellent book for the reader searching for and approaching material about the social and anthropological aspects of God (or gods) and the history of human relationships with their gods for the first time, and it is an excellent refresher for readers (like me) who have read extensively about these subjects. Not much new is to be found here if you have read Miles, Armstrong, Eliade, Bloom, Ehrman, and others of that ilk, but a lot of information, some fairly new, is put together in a very concise and readable manner–kind of like an extended encyclopedia entry but entertaining. Aslan never seems to dumb his subject down, nor does he take an air of superiority in his knowledge. His personal comments on the subject are appropriate, and his information, as seen in the extensive notes, is relevant. I must say, however, that, if a reader wants to find support for the Sunday-school version of God that she or he was taught in a scholarly work, this is not that book. The Bible’s Yahweh, El, or Elohim, and the Koran’s Allah are central to this book, but this is a book of sociology, anthropology, and history. It is not a book of worship or a book that necessarily agrees with or supports conventional traditional Jewish, Christian, or Muslim worship. Readers of these religious sects who do not want their beliefs challenged should not pick up this book.
Aslan is a very entertaining writer. his research is very extensive and his information excellent. This is a wonderful history of our perceptions of gods/god, and the development of worship. Certainly thought provoking while being very even handed in his observations. This is something we all need to read.
This book is overshadowed by his work with “Zealot” but it is still of interest and erudition.
Reza spells out a compelling case for an inclusive role for religion that works for all cultures.
Very insightful about the whole historical survey of the development of religions, but it was weak on the importance of mysticism
Started out great with broad perspective. Toward the end it was more the author’s personal journey, which he admits. Well worth the read if you are interested in religion.
Who knew?
Feed your curiosity, this book will activate both the left and right side of your brain.
This book was incredibly informative and well written.
Reza Aslan offers so much to relish in his excellent ‘human history’ of God. In tracing the commonalities that unite religions, Aslan makes truly challenging arguments that believers in many traditions will want to mull over, and to explore further. This rewarding book is very ambitious in its scope, and it is thoroughly grounded in an impressive body of reading and research.
The author presents the results from his pursuit of spiritual growth and understanding and years of in-depth research in a way that is easy to grasp. The history of humanity’s relationship with God is clearly laid out in a way that helps the reader understand how humanity has come to the state of spiritual affairs that we currently find ourselves. I came away from this book with a much more in-depth understanding of why I was introduced to God in the way that I was as a child and why I have continued to seek God as an adult.
This is a thought-provoking discussion of the image of God that mankind has developed over the ages, busting many god-myths — or at least inviting sincere and in-depth examination of those myths — through scholarly writing without polemic or strident voice. Excellent description of how ‘religion’ is defined, and concise summary of the relationship among world religions.
With 100 pages of references and 170 plus pages of informative text this book is a valuable research tool for anyone interested in the beginnings and shaping of religions. Should be read by anyone interested in this topic.