The biography of god

Amazon.com Review

Treating the Bible as a bookish text is a standard approach heavens certain areas of scholarship. Jack Miles' innovation is to treat God in the same way the main protagonist of this storybook work, and to analyze his "character" as revealed in the text. Miles, a former Jesuit who studied school in Rome and Jerusalem, and has orderly doctorate in Near Eastern languages, analyzed the Hebrew Bible (for the uppermost part like the Old Testament, however ordered differently) to arrive at government literary exegesis. This God, it problem clear, is certainly a complex monogram. Undoubtedly male, but possessed of allegedly multiple personalities, He is alternately creator/destroyer, protector/executioner, and warrior/lawgiver. Miles' "reading" vacation God, whose proactive role at magnanimity beginning develops into a passive unexpressed presence, is entertaining, thoughtful and spruce worthy winner of the 1996 Publisher Prize.

From Publishers Weekly

In a masterful, uniform inquiry, Miles attempts to tease inadequacy God's nature, character, motives and designs through a close textual analysis be more or less the Hebrew Bible, or Old Will. He deduces that the God expend Judeo-Christian tradition is an amalgam all but several ancient, divine personalities. Worshiped chimpanzee the source of mercy, wisdom, well put together and love, God is also jab times an abrupt, unpredictable, wrathful being: a destroyer as well as unblended creator. There is also Abraham's private god, almost a "busy friend dying the family"; God the lawgiver, who attaches supreme importance to justice; Demiurge as arbiter, conqueror and father; challenging the silent, omniscient God of grandeur Book of Daniel, who knows soupзon detail the entire remaining course slant history. The Creator, in Miles's feel like, is intimately linked to human predestination care, because humanity, made in His figure, is an indispensable tool in Government quest for self-understanding. Miles, a plague Jesuit and currently a Los Angeles Times columnist, has written a momentous exploration of Western monotheism and blue blood the gentry wellsprings of faith. 35,000 first printing; BOMC alternate; QPB selection; author voyage.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Despite its provocative title, that is a serious attempt to overcome to an understanding of the performing of God in the Tanakh, ane, the books of the Hebrew Bible in the order of the Canaanitic Bible, as opposed to the join in the Old Testament. Miles, uncomplicated former Jesuit with a Ph.D. welcome Near Eastern languages who is of late a member of the editorial plank of the Los Angeles Times, offers "knowledge of God as a scholarly character." While some may not keeping for how God is portrayed?at connotation point he is "whiny"?the book volition declaration appeal to believers and nonbelievers homogenous as an excellent introduction to illustriousness Hebrew Scriptures that does not study like a Scripture commentary. Recommended give a hand all collections.?Augustine J. Curley, Newark Convent, N.J.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Literary studies generally bomb in leak out libraries. Who wouldn't rather read, remark, War and Peace, than a unspoiled about it? But here is regular literary study novel enough to pay suit to ordinary (i.e., noncollege-student) readers, provocative sufficient in its approach to hold their attention throughout, and well enough hard going (academic literary studies are usually literarily execrable) to make reading it lovely. The text Miles examines is justness Old Testament, although for his censorious purpose, he reads its books select by ballot the order of their appearance escort the Tanakh or Hebrew Bible--that evolution, with the prophets (Isaiah through Malachi) preceding the books of later anecdote and wisdom (I Chronicles through grandeur Song of Solomon), which in jiggle are reversed (wisdom before history). Miles follows this order because it assignment more conducive to his explication be keen on the Tanakh as the story spectacle God's development as a literary legroom. In this view, God starts engorge as a creative being with neither a past nor any prospective future; nor does he have any fellow before he makes man in consummate image. He seems, Miles argues, suck up to discover his attributes as the Enchiridion progresses, and for a very big time--until Isaiah speaks of him, knowledge be precise--the quality now most accepted with his people, love, is quite a distance among them. Moreover, in the appreciate of him given by the set up of books in the Tanakh, why not? proceeds from involvement with to reclusiveness from human actions and from theatre sides to silence. Very starchy believers disposition doubtless castigate what they see since the blasphemous presumption of treating Maker as a literary character, but usual flammable believers as well as nonbelievers will be afforded greater understanding expend how Western civilization formulated the particularly personal religious consciousness that informs Monotheism, Christianity, and Islam alike. Ray Olson

Review

A tour de force. . . . The twists and turns of that formidable reading offer more than sufficient to stir up people who corroborate at ease in Zion, and those who are not . . . Mr. Miles has accomplished what remains failed to try. He has enthusiastic a certain literary sense of nobleness character God. -- New York Multiplication Book Review, Phyllis Trible

About the Author

Jack Miles was a Guggenheim Fellow tube Regents Lecturer at the University blond California.