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

Karen Armstrong (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 10, 2007 | Series: Books That Changed the World

As the work at the heart of Christianity, the Bible is the spiritual guide for one out of every three people in the world. It is also the world’s most widely distributed book, translated into over two thousand languages, and the world’s best selling book, year after year. 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, and life 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 scripture came to be read for information, and how, in the nineteenth century, historical criticism of the Bible caused greater fear than Darwinism. This is a brilliant, captivating book, crucial in an age of declining faith and rising fundamentalism.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Of all the Books That Changed the World-the recently launched series to which this book belongs-surely the Bible is among the most important. And of all contemporary popularizers of religious history, surely Armstrong is among the bestselling. Who better, then, to recount the history of the Bible in eight short chapters than this former nun and literature professor who relishes huge topics (The History of God) and panoramic descriptions (The Great Transformation)? Armstrong not only describes how, when and by whom the Bible was written, she also examines some 2,000 years of biblical interpretation by bishops and rabbis, scholars and mystics, pietists and critics, thus opening up a myriad of exegetical approaches and dispelling any fundamentalist notion that only one view can be correct. Readers unfamiliar with ecclesiastical history may feel overwhelmed by dense chapters that read more like annotated lists than narrative-a hazard of trying to cover so much in so little space. (A glossary helps to anchor the bewildered.) At her best when she pauses long enough to expand on a topic, Armstrong offers intriguing insights on, for example, the allegorical method developed by Origen in the third century and the mystical midrash of the Kabbalists in medieval Spain and Provence. (Nov.)
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From Booklist

For the Books That Changed the World series of brief "biographies" of momentous books, Armstrong accepted the arguably most daunting assignment. What other book has as long a history of influence as the Bible, or has affected more people and societies? The author of the sweeping histories of religion The Great Transformation (2006) and A History of God (1993) is, of course, up to the task and provides an excellent précis of the writing and compiling of the Bible and the ensuing centuries of biblical interpretation. Armstrong traces the Bible's transformation from a miscellany of texts into scripture, to which the Jesus movement added the Gospel and the other New Testament texts pretty much in tandem with the development of midrash and the Talmud by non-Christian Jews after the 70 CE destruction of the third temple in Jerusalem. She shows both Christian and rabbinic traditions of interpretation subsequently converging upon charity or love as the essence of God. The subjects of the last three chapters—the medieval monastic practice of reading the Bible called lectio divina, Martin Luther's doctrine of sola scriptura, and intellectual modernity—are each considered for the ways they gave rise to interpretive movements that affected Christianity directly and spurred reactions in Judaism. This is one terrific little book. Olson, Ray

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press (November 10, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0871139693
• ISBN-13: 978-0871139696
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (55 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #149,779 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Karen Armstrong is the author of numerous other books on religious affairs-including A History of God, The Battle for God, Holy War, Islam, Buddha, and The Great Transformation-and two memoirs, Through the Narrow Gate and The Spiral Staircase. Her work has been translated into forty-five languages. She has addressed members of the U.S. Congress on three occasions; lectured to policy makers at the U.S. State Department; participated in the World Economic Forum in New York, Jordan, and Davos; addressed the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington and New York; is increasingly invited to speak in Muslim countries; and is now an ambassador for the UN Alliance of Civilizations. In February 2008 she was awarded the TED Prize and is currently working with TED on a major international project to launch and propagate a Charter for Compassion, created online by the general public and crafted by leading thinkers in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism, to be signed in the fall of 2009 by a thousand religious and secular leaders. She lives in London.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

192 of 201 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great overview, October 14, 2007

By 

Otagosh (Tuakau, New Zealand) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Bible: A Biography (Books That Changed the World) (Hardcover)

Karen Armstrong's book is (despite a poorly selected cover on the American edition) the most straight-forward, lucid explanation of how the Bible originated that I've seen. In only 230 pages the reader is taken on a tour of the current scholarly consensus about what we now know about the Bible's beginnings and development, not what the Sunday morning popularizers would like us to think. This book is written for non-specialists (something the previous reviewer doesn't seem to appreciate), which means you get a general account without footnotes, and that makes it highly readable. If you recoil from the literalism of the proof-texting preachers, here is a measure of both liberation and exhilaration. Even the short introduction is a tour de force of common sense all by itself. Brilliant!

67 of 74 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Got (and kept) my attention., November 17, 2007

By 

W. Tuohy (Bay Area, California) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Bible: A Biography (Books That Changed the World) (Hardcover)

Since leaving compulsory Sunday school (50 years ago), I have coexisted with religions: they go their way(s), I go on my different path. This is not to say that I don't read the occasional book on religion (in society, not for scripture or sacred literature). Until now, however, I had not been able to finish any book on what the Bible is, where it came from, etc.

Re Karen Armstrong's book: A positive reviewer (on Amazon) calls this a "straight-forward, lucid explanation of how the Bible originated." A cricic says, "Everything comes across as an established fact rather than as a theory or reconstuction."

I agree with both points. The book is highly readable for the non-specialist, and not offensive to someone who refuses to wade through intensive academic studies or through propaganda from one religion or another. Of the critic I ask: can it be anything other than simplified? I am unwilling to immerse myself in arguments about evidence, theory, etc. - leave that for the divinity schools and their ilk.

In sum, the fact that Karen Armstrong does not definitively answer the fundamental questions is not relevant to my appreciation of the material.

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Resurrection of the Good Book, December 17, 2008

By 

Daniel Murphy "Dan Murphy" (Redmond, OR USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Bible: A Biography (Books That Changed the World) (Hardcover)

I'd rename this book "Karen Armstrong Calls a Code on The Bible", as in calling a code in the hospital when someone has had a cardiac and/or respiratory arrest. By the end of Armstrong's book, the cardiac monitor hooked to the Christian Bible has a strong and steady beat.

I once took the time to read the Bible from cover to cover. Weary of being battered by Campus Crusaders (an oddly apt name), I went to the source (in English, I don't read Greek or Hebrew), and read every word, including the begats, including the many, many proscriptions for capital punishment, including the incredibly bloody and genocidal behavior of those who were supposed to be God's Chosen People, including funky dietary directions. My conclusion was that taking the Bible as the literal word of God can only be done by descending to a level of intellectual and emotional dishonesty that I could not personally access. If the Bible WAS the literal Logos (word of God), then, to paraphrase Ricky Ricardo talking to Lucy: God, you have some serious 'splainin' to do.

What then to do with this amazing collection of texts that has been somewhat haphazardly and arbitrarily lumped together and called The Bible? Answer: read Armstrong's remarkable, pithy, eye and mind opening book. The rich tradition of the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Islam, Christianity) springs into a Joseph's Multi-Colored Coat dazzler: Violence, religious ecstasy, profound desire for knowledge of God, sex, political manipulation, ego, faith, hope, love, and raw lust for power swirl through this kaleidoscopic, richly layered, many textured book called The Bible.

By tracing the Abrahamic roots of biblical religions, tracking the gradual coalescence of religious writings that would eventually become the Bible, and giving a thorough AND thrilling history of the way Western faithful have reacted to Sacred Scripture, Armstrong made me, and might make you, want to again pick up a book that seems more often used for hitting people over their theological or political heads than inspiring compassion and cohesion. Armstrong's closing comments strongly belie the negative reviewer comments about her "attacking the Bible". Armstrong does nothing of the sort. She breathes life and hope into a book that has more often been used, of late, as a theological/political, anti-scientific football than a source of spiritual enrichment and growth. Read with a spirit of inquiry, Armstrong's The Bible, A Biography, is a resurrection, a healthy dose of CPR, for a Good Book that is dusty, unoriginal, dated, and often brutal when taken literally (except for the sexy parts, of which there are more than a few). Armstrong's book can't make The Bible into Chicken Soup for the Atheist, but it does make The Bible rich and enticing, even to those who are more concerned about freedom FROM religion than freedom OF Religion. Doubt me? Give it a whirl, we'll chat afterwards.