Martijn van Beveren
24th August 2008, 05:58 PM (17:58)
The 4,000Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam
This book was published in 1993, so it's a while ago, but I can imagine that it might have stirred up quite some emotions. Karen Armstrong is not a christian writer and I don't really know where to put her. This book writes about the History of God, which is quite a big item to chew on. But she manages to explain in the line of history how we came to have the view of God as of today. Be aware that she gives her oppinion in this book which sometimes seem to be carried away in frustration of Christianity which, when you read this book, is not so strange, this slight bitter emotion.
A warning to all traditional people, this can be a horrible book for some of you, it can shake the grounds, which may result in book burning in the garden...:eek:
If you do not like to be disturbed in your view of faith it would be best not to read this book or any I wrote down here.
I'll try to keep it brief, but it's a 400+ pages of it so, we'll see how it goes.. (Don't read my summary if you still want to read it and make up your own mind)
The book starts with the first chapter an introduction...
Karen begins by explainging how she wanted to write this story and how she was formed by her catholic heritage. She became a nun of a sister order to gain a better spiritual life. Though in her prayers she could find no answer in her own longing for a connection with God. She began to dig into old writers, mistyscy and philosophers. Also reading alot of history revealed many different facts than she was thaught and to believe. She also discovered that her experience in the order was keeping busy with a lot of other lesser things than essentials. It was also the experience that nothing resonated from outside of her, no real inner notion of a God, nor a real one on one relation with Jesus, instead just the notion of the historical figure. After leaving the order her faith withdrew and she only experience relief.
She sees all(or most) things as a part of her own human perception. But makes a brief statement that we are not alone "homo sapiens" but also "homo religious". In other words, we seem to need a spiritual/religious path next to our daily life.
In the beginning...
This part lets us in about the early forming of religions in the world and how they would evolve into the old testament monotheistic view of God. She will talk about the forming of Thora and how God(Jahweh/Eelohim) came to be the God of Israel. It is clear to me that Armstrong will avoid any divine influence that made this the story what it is today. She places human emotions and actions in the place where God speaks and God acts. How God chooses his people and guides them through difficlut times. Even so she has great admiration for the prophets who spoke in God's name to proclaim a more mercyful way of living.
Folowing the line of history Israel evolves and prosperity leads to decay in religiousity of the people. God makes them go into exile, where they mingle with the culture and religion of the babylonian.
After this the bible makes a shift in telling events. First God was activly involved into the real world, at least that's how man saw the world around him, thunder clouds, vulcanos, earthquackes were mostly seen as divine actions or presence. The shift from this view to the point were God seems less presented with massive divine interventions is in the new testament one item to be noted. She sees Jesus not as a God, but just as a man who had definitly some good words to say. Armstrong also acknowledges that most personal evil which is found in the NT is substracted from the babylonian influence and thereby a product of humanity.
That product is integrated with Judaism, early Christianity and though that was still very unorganised and mingled. Questions about God and Christ made the early beliefs unlclear and there were many different approaches to how to be a church or be a follower of Christ(luckily Paul had something to say about that but not everyone had acces to that information). Further on in history we see the church being organised, the Bible being assembled and the first definition of what Christian faith beholds.
So next comes philosophy, greek, early middle ages(Augustine,Dante, kierkengard and many others), till the beginning for the reformation, but also Islamic philosophy is being foretold. That's one of the interseting parts of the book because I knew little about Islamic history and philosophy. Even though the culture and language are strange to me, I understand this religion much better. In some way Karen seems to be very supportive to bring this Islamic thinking into positive perspective. Something she also could have done with Christian culure and religion. Though this is probably some personal issue for her in which the church will draw the shortest straw.
The reformation is one of the following chapters where Luther and Calvijn come into the picture. Still I missed the part that talked about the Synod of Dordrecht and how that effected state and religion. She also makes notion of John Wesley for reclaiming faith of the heart and finding the light within and to be also mercyful (one of the positive notes).
Then enlightment follows where science and church are still battling over who is talking the truth and who is right and who is wrong. Science starts to win bases on solid measurements. And Christianity made it's move to see the Bible as litteral book of God and thereby flawless which include litteral interpretation of genesis as well. This war has been going on, but if we look at Judaism or Islam these two religions don't have problem with science at all. They knew already that a lot of mystery was foretold in the Bible and that that was part of the culture in that period. In other words how do you make something spritual unexplainable, explainable...
Eventually with the faith being more a burden than salvation, a lot of people become frustrated with God(since that's the story they've been told) and seek for freedom, atheism enters the scene. Eventually this will spread over Europe, and soon Christian religion sees itself backed up against the wall and reacts in defensive fingerpointing responces. Also the Jews see no real answer in God after centuries of persecution and personal pain. Finally after the 2nd World War Israel gets it's own state which will mean a new chapter in the middle east history and a certain regaining of the faith of the Jews.
And so we come with lightspeed to the death of God... At least that's how the chaptertitle begins.
At first Karen describes a sense of freedom and loss at the same time, because believing in just a random side of natural elements doesn't give one real comfort (she talks about a gap in her soul). And so many people still clinged to a higher being, though not something that the church described within it's boundaries, more like "somethingism". Atheism nowadays is something different, this is believing in no God at all and no interest in it. which brings her to the conclusion that even though we are religious beings, we don't know who we might expect after death, but knowing God with the fundamental religions of today is impossible. We need to find new ways of rediscovering God. Also she would like to put up warning signs that withholds us from making the same mistakes made in history.
conclusion:
This was a really interesting read. Even though Karen is very sceptical of Christianity, she knows very much, if you see all the footnotes/reffences she has taken up in her book you might be impressed. I never read them all and most of them I didn't even know. You can also find a syllabus and recommendations(categorised on subject of matter) which you can look up. She has a good grasp of what has been going on for +4000yrs of history, though I don't think I agree with all her statements or her viewpoint. Even so, this book gave me some stuff to ponder on, shake my ground a little, but I know it helped me further on my path.
I'd suggest for the better informed openminded Christian a must read!
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0345384563
This book was published in 1993, so it's a while ago, but I can imagine that it might have stirred up quite some emotions. Karen Armstrong is not a christian writer and I don't really know where to put her. This book writes about the History of God, which is quite a big item to chew on. But she manages to explain in the line of history how we came to have the view of God as of today. Be aware that she gives her oppinion in this book which sometimes seem to be carried away in frustration of Christianity which, when you read this book, is not so strange, this slight bitter emotion.
A warning to all traditional people, this can be a horrible book for some of you, it can shake the grounds, which may result in book burning in the garden...:eek:
If you do not like to be disturbed in your view of faith it would be best not to read this book or any I wrote down here.
I'll try to keep it brief, but it's a 400+ pages of it so, we'll see how it goes.. (Don't read my summary if you still want to read it and make up your own mind)
The book starts with the first chapter an introduction...
Karen begins by explainging how she wanted to write this story and how she was formed by her catholic heritage. She became a nun of a sister order to gain a better spiritual life. Though in her prayers she could find no answer in her own longing for a connection with God. She began to dig into old writers, mistyscy and philosophers. Also reading alot of history revealed many different facts than she was thaught and to believe. She also discovered that her experience in the order was keeping busy with a lot of other lesser things than essentials. It was also the experience that nothing resonated from outside of her, no real inner notion of a God, nor a real one on one relation with Jesus, instead just the notion of the historical figure. After leaving the order her faith withdrew and she only experience relief.
She sees all(or most) things as a part of her own human perception. But makes a brief statement that we are not alone "homo sapiens" but also "homo religious". In other words, we seem to need a spiritual/religious path next to our daily life.
In the beginning...
This part lets us in about the early forming of religions in the world and how they would evolve into the old testament monotheistic view of God. She will talk about the forming of Thora and how God(Jahweh/Eelohim) came to be the God of Israel. It is clear to me that Armstrong will avoid any divine influence that made this the story what it is today. She places human emotions and actions in the place where God speaks and God acts. How God chooses his people and guides them through difficlut times. Even so she has great admiration for the prophets who spoke in God's name to proclaim a more mercyful way of living.
Folowing the line of history Israel evolves and prosperity leads to decay in religiousity of the people. God makes them go into exile, where they mingle with the culture and religion of the babylonian.
After this the bible makes a shift in telling events. First God was activly involved into the real world, at least that's how man saw the world around him, thunder clouds, vulcanos, earthquackes were mostly seen as divine actions or presence. The shift from this view to the point were God seems less presented with massive divine interventions is in the new testament one item to be noted. She sees Jesus not as a God, but just as a man who had definitly some good words to say. Armstrong also acknowledges that most personal evil which is found in the NT is substracted from the babylonian influence and thereby a product of humanity.
That product is integrated with Judaism, early Christianity and though that was still very unorganised and mingled. Questions about God and Christ made the early beliefs unlclear and there were many different approaches to how to be a church or be a follower of Christ(luckily Paul had something to say about that but not everyone had acces to that information). Further on in history we see the church being organised, the Bible being assembled and the first definition of what Christian faith beholds.
So next comes philosophy, greek, early middle ages(Augustine,Dante, kierkengard and many others), till the beginning for the reformation, but also Islamic philosophy is being foretold. That's one of the interseting parts of the book because I knew little about Islamic history and philosophy. Even though the culture and language are strange to me, I understand this religion much better. In some way Karen seems to be very supportive to bring this Islamic thinking into positive perspective. Something she also could have done with Christian culure and religion. Though this is probably some personal issue for her in which the church will draw the shortest straw.
The reformation is one of the following chapters where Luther and Calvijn come into the picture. Still I missed the part that talked about the Synod of Dordrecht and how that effected state and religion. She also makes notion of John Wesley for reclaiming faith of the heart and finding the light within and to be also mercyful (one of the positive notes).
Then enlightment follows where science and church are still battling over who is talking the truth and who is right and who is wrong. Science starts to win bases on solid measurements. And Christianity made it's move to see the Bible as litteral book of God and thereby flawless which include litteral interpretation of genesis as well. This war has been going on, but if we look at Judaism or Islam these two religions don't have problem with science at all. They knew already that a lot of mystery was foretold in the Bible and that that was part of the culture in that period. In other words how do you make something spritual unexplainable, explainable...
Eventually with the faith being more a burden than salvation, a lot of people become frustrated with God(since that's the story they've been told) and seek for freedom, atheism enters the scene. Eventually this will spread over Europe, and soon Christian religion sees itself backed up against the wall and reacts in defensive fingerpointing responces. Also the Jews see no real answer in God after centuries of persecution and personal pain. Finally after the 2nd World War Israel gets it's own state which will mean a new chapter in the middle east history and a certain regaining of the faith of the Jews.
And so we come with lightspeed to the death of God... At least that's how the chaptertitle begins.
At first Karen describes a sense of freedom and loss at the same time, because believing in just a random side of natural elements doesn't give one real comfort (she talks about a gap in her soul). And so many people still clinged to a higher being, though not something that the church described within it's boundaries, more like "somethingism". Atheism nowadays is something different, this is believing in no God at all and no interest in it. which brings her to the conclusion that even though we are religious beings, we don't know who we might expect after death, but knowing God with the fundamental religions of today is impossible. We need to find new ways of rediscovering God. Also she would like to put up warning signs that withholds us from making the same mistakes made in history.
conclusion:
This was a really interesting read. Even though Karen is very sceptical of Christianity, she knows very much, if you see all the footnotes/reffences she has taken up in her book you might be impressed. I never read them all and most of them I didn't even know. You can also find a syllabus and recommendations(categorised on subject of matter) which you can look up. She has a good grasp of what has been going on for +4000yrs of history, though I don't think I agree with all her statements or her viewpoint. Even so, this book gave me some stuff to ponder on, shake my ground a little, but I know it helped me further on my path.
I'd suggest for the better informed openminded Christian a must read!
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0345384563