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Discovering God: The Origins of the Great Religions and the Evolution of Belief

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In the last few years I have been searching books offering a general overview of the past, and I have realized that many books entitled "History of ...whatever" only provide information about the West, the rest of the world being almost ignored. Rodney Stark 's "Discovering God" is different, it is truly a global work which will join a number of important new works on religion this Fall (for instance, Charles Taylor's "A Secular Age").

Stark, a professor of Social Sciences at Baylor University, is a prolific author and renowned scholar in the field of sociology of religion. This his new book is a history of the origins of religions covering prehistoric primal beliefs, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Taoism and Confucianism, as well as the religions of Sumer, Egypt, Greece, early Rome and Mesoamerica. And, of course, Christianity and Islam.

Pursuant to him, God does exist and the evolution of religion is the story of how humans perceive God's revelations; over time, "human images of God will tend to progress from those having smaller to those having greater scope" and "humans will prefer an image of God[s] as rational and loving."

Defending that religious belief can be defended along more-or-less rational and ethical lines, and scolding monopoly religious organizations and temple religions which existed only to serve a small elite, not the common people, he argues for a free-market theory of religion (in a nutshell, religious competition increases the overall religiousness of the population) and that under unimpeded conditions, the most authentic religions will survive. Not surprisingly given his previous books, Stark concludes that Christianity offers the most "complex and nuanced" vision of God and the most "comprehensive doctrine of salvation"; judaism comes in second; and he does not consider Islam an "inspired" faith.

Stark's retelling of the origins of the world's great religions is fascinating and excellent, but most likely will become very controversial, with many of his statement certainly needing more nuancing. Maybe I am wrong, even unfair, but there is not much humility to be found in the pages of Rodney Stark's provocative new book. He seems prone to consider ludicrously biased, stupid and/or post-modernist most opinions coming from atheist or agnostic persons (and excellent scholarship that allowing him to back his ideas). He openly accepts that Muslims will condemn his judgment which "of course it is merely my judgment, upon which matters of taste and faith intrude." And in the last pages he ends up with a defence of Intelligent Design which probably does not add but detract to the strength and reliability of plenty interesting facts and theories developed in his book.

All that and much more is developed in 414 pages (plus notes and bibliography), the book being divided in the following parts and chapters: Introduction: Revelation and Cultural Evolution; 1.- Gods in Primitive Societies; 2.- Temple Religions of Ancient Civilizations; 3.- Rome: An Ancient Religious Marketplace; 4.- The "Rebirth" of Monotheism; 5.- Indian Inspiration; 6.- Chinese Gods and "Godless" Faiths; 7.- The Rise of Christianity; 8.- Islam: God and State; Conclusión: Discovering God?; Ancient Religious History Timeline; Glossary.

Other books on religion that I would recommend reading would be the following: "The Phenomenon of Religion: A Thematic Approach," by Moojan Momen and "Shamans, Sorcerers, and Saints: A Prehistory of Religion" by Brian Hayden (both of them astonishingly encyclopedic and readable); "Islam. History, present, future" by Hans Küng (the best and the brightest on Islam, a masterpiece); and (more or less related to the matter) "A Social History of Dying" and "Experiences Near Death: Beyond Medicine and Religion" by Allan Kellehear.

Additionally, as a complement to Stark's book (and hoping that will be of use for those looking for a broad framework to understand the past) I would also recommend to read the following works, whose scope is amazingly global: 1. Agrarian cultures: "Pre-industrial societies" by Patricia Crone; 2. Economy: "The world economy. A millennial perspective" (2001) plus "The world economy: Historical Statistics" (2003) by Angus Maddison (a combined edition of these two volumes is to appear on December 2007); 3. Government: "The History of Government" by S.E. Finer; 4. Ideas: "Ideas, a History from Fire to Freud", by Peter Watson; and 5. War: "War in Human Civilization" by Azar Gat.

_Discovering God: The Origins of the Great Religions and the Evolution of Belief_, by sociologist and religious critic Rodney Stark (who has written extensively on Christianity from a sympathetic perspective), is an account of the origins of religious belief and how such belief may be seen as progressing towards a "discovery of God". One of the advantages of this book is that unlike many of the recent books which have come out on the topic of religion, this book examines religion in a respectful and sympathetic manner. While the book surveys religion from "primitive" beliefs through the world's "great religions", it ultimately reveals the importance of religious beliefs and the manner in which such beliefs have led man to God. The book also is highly sympathetic to Christianity and its truth claims (so that some have seen it as an apologetic piece for Christianity) and although some of the author's interpretations may be suspect, I believe he makes an excellent case for the importance of religion. Further, the book covers "primitive" religions in a sympathetic manner and shows how primitive monotheism may underlie much of mankind's religious inheritance. In addition, the author argues for a free-market theory of religion, subscribing to "rational choice theory", and maintaining that under unimpeded conditions the best religions will thrive and survive. Finally, the book addresses the concept of whether God exists, finding evidence in support of the existence of God and for Intelligent Design in the universe. As such, this book offers an excellent and timely study in comparative religion and the evolution of religious belief from a sympathetic perspective that is certain to provide one with a profound understanding of the world's religious traditions.

The author begins in the Introduction to this book by examining "Revelation and Cultural Evolution". The author finds fault with much of the study of comparative religion, arguing that the field has been largely taken over by militant atheists. In particular, the author argues that revelation serves as "divine accommodation" arguing that "God's revelations are always limited to the current capacity of humans to comprehend". The author also examines evolving conceptions of God and the idea of natural selection explaining the difference between such notions as found in Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer and relating these to the development of religious belief. The author then traces the evolution of belief from "primitive" beliefs to the world's great religions, noting such problematics in understanding God as dualism and the "problem of evil". The first chapter in this book is entitled "Gods in Primitive Societies" and deals with the origin and development of "primitive" religions. The author explains primitive beliefs as found in Neolithic cultures, the rotund mother goddess figurines found throughout Europe, Homo sapiens and Neanderthals, and the fact that religion is a universal feature of human cultures. The author then turns to attempts to reconstruct primitive religions, noting the earliest instances by European explorers and Jesuit priests when faced with the primitive beliefs of the Native Americans and Aztecs. The author considers naturism (the idea that religions have their origins in the personifications of natural forces and objects and popularized by Max Muller), animism (the idea that primitive beliefs are such that literally everything is inhabited by spirit and popularized by Sir Edward Burnett Tylor), ghost theory (the idea that religious beliefs originate in dreams where "ghosts" are seen by the living and popularized by Herbert Spencer), totemism (the idea that religious beliefs originate in the attempts by a tribe to identify with an animal), Durkheim's aboriginal religion, and Freud's "incestuous approach" to religion. The author also considers the universality of religion, noting biological and cultural explanations. The author also contrasts religion to magic and considers claims for religious credibility. Perhaps most interesting are the theories of such individuals as Andrew Lang and the Jesuit priest Wilhelm Schmidt on the proliferation of "High Gods" and primitive monotheisms. The second chapter of this book is entitled "Temple Religions of Ancient Civilizations". Here, the author considers the dawn of history at Sumer and the influence of temple religions and idols. The author notes the importance of priests and rituals and sacrifices to such early temple religions. In particular, the author mentions gods from various religions including those of ancient Greece and Rome and the religions of the Aztecs. The author also mentions the importance of myths, noting the pejorative meaning that the term "myth" has come to take on. The author notes the role of myth in such stories as those concerning the Flood, the Epic of Gilgamesh, and the Birth of Huitzilopochtli. The author also notes the role of morality, the afterlife, and tombs mentioning the great building projects used to house rulers. The author notes the role of the priests and shows their relationships (often synonymous) to those of the rulers. The author also notes the attractions of polytheism and the difficulty in adhering to monotheism (maintaining that many of the primitive early monotheisms became corrupted) as well as mentioning the role of sacrifice (including human sacrifice). The third chapter of this book is entitled "Rome: An Ancient Religious Marketplace". The author notes the role of religious markets and explains the origins of religious pluralism. The author also notes how the Roman religious market developed. The author also mentions the role of competition, mentioning some of the factors that contributed to those choosing a religion, and notes some of the important Roman religions (such as Bacchanalianism, the cult of Cybele, Isis worship, Mithraism, and the arrival of Christianity). Further, the author proposes his rational choice model for religious commitment. The fourth chapter of this book is entitled "The "Rebirth" of Monotheism". The author notes the role of primitive monotheism among the followers of Aten and the pharaoh Akhenaton, the role of Zoroastrianism (and dualism as a resolution to the "problem of evil"), and finally ancient Judaism (mentioning the role of Moses and "Temple Judaism"). The fifth chapter of this book is entitled "Indian Inspirations". The author focuses on early Indian religions as well as the complications of Hinduism (mentioning the Vedas and the caste system). The author also mentions such offshoots of Hinduism as Jainism and Buddhism (noting the decline of Buddhism in India and its rise elsewhere). The sixth chapter of this book is entitled "Chinese Gods and "Godless" Faiths". The author mentions the role of such Chinese religions as those surrounding Confucius and Lao Tzu (Taoism), noting the problematic of apparent "godlessness". The author also notes the role of Chinese Buddhism as well as Chinese folk religion. The seventh chapter of this book is entitled "The Rise of Christianity". The author mentions the role of the so-called "quest for the historical Jesus", emphasizing the role of the New Testament, and the pagan surroundings of Christianity. The author explains Christianity's successes, the role of St. Paul, and the role of conversion. The author also dismisses the claims of the Gnostics and the recent revival of interest in Gnosticism. The eighth chapter of this book is entitled "Islam: God and State". The author notes the role of the prophet Muhammed and the milieu in which he arose from. The author mentions the beliefs of Muslims as well as the role of an Arab state. The author also compares Islam to the temple religions of earlier times (which may be problematic) in its support for the Islamic state. The Conclusion discusses the issue of "Discovering God?". The author examines the "axial age" (a concept first developed by German philosopher Karl Jaspers), noting the role of sin in maintaining social control. The author also examines the criteria for a divine revelation and the possibility of an inspired core to the world's great religions. Finally, the author examines the question of whether God exists, noting the relationship between religion and science, and finding evidence in favor of the existence of God.

This book offers an excellent study in comparative religion that offers a sympathetic portrayal of many of the world's religious systems. The book is especially unique for what it has to say about "primitive" beliefs as well as the role of Christianity and an inspired core of belief. Ultimately, the questions raised by this book are thought provoking and it is certain to increase one's knowledge of the world's religious systems and beliefs.

This book is entertaining, well written, and tendentious. One of those books you wish to throw at the wall as you read it. The book attempts to use a rational choice theory to explain the development of various religious doctrines and movements in history. On this account, it is informative--even if you disagree with the provocative hypothesis of Stark--and enjoyable.

However, it should be noted-- and I have not seen this pointed out yet-- that the scholarship undergirding this book is close to fraudulent. I will present one example.

On pages 40-41, Stark 'reviews' Pascal Boyer's work 'Religion Explained.' For some reason, Stark believes Boyer is hostile toward religion in the same manner that Richard Dawkins is. This is, of course, false.

Stark's quasi-precis of Boyer's view of religion reads as follows:

"Religion is thus a "parasitic" rider on valuable mental circuitry that evolved for valid reasons, but has the unfortunate "side effect" of prompting supernatural beliefs, which involve "the sleep of reason" since religion is, of course, an illusion." (Stark, pp. 40-41)

The first thing the reader should notice is Stark's use of normative phrases: "valid reasons," "unfortunate 'side effect,'" etc. Boyer uses no such language. His book is objective and scholarly. The phrases are obviously intended to turn Stark's religious readers off to Boyer. A little poisoning of the well; except Boyer's well contains no such anti-religious toxins.

Now, anybody who has read Boyer is perfectly aware that he is agnostic on whether or not God(s) exist. In fact, he does not care. His book is an attempt to explain why religious belief is so natural, not an attempt to assess its truth value. Interestingly, his friend and co-researcher in the field, Justin Barrett, is a traditional Christian.

Returning to Stark's summation. If you check the endnotes of Stark's book, they give page 28 as the source of these 'quotes' from Boyer. However, if you look at Boyer's book, you will notice that the terms "parasitic," and "side effect," are not to be found on page 28. More egregiously the 'quotes' that Stark pulls from Boyer to make it appear that he is hostile toward religion- i.e. "the sleep of reason," and "an illusion"- are misused. In Boyer's book the 'quotes' come from a header which reads "THE SLEEP OF REASON: RELGION AS AN ILLUSION." Since Stark is purportedly making a direct quote, it is not appropriate to change the case of the letters. Nor does standard scholarship allow Stark to split the quote apart to serve his own ends. This is fraudulent. The actual quote from the book serves as the heading of a section where Boyer responds to the common argument that religion is superstitious goo, believed only by the ignorant or gullible. On page 29, after summarizing these arguments, Boyer states EXPLICITLY, "I find all of these arguments [for religion as 'an illusion,' and 'the sleep of reason'] unsatisfactory." (Boyer, p. 29) So Stark has Boyer saying the opposite of what he actually says!! This is amazing. One begins to wonder if Stark actually bothered to read the book. One is also inclined to wonder at how many other 'mistakes' stark made against scholars he disagrees with.

I hope more people become aware of this distortion. If they do, perhaps Stark will revise this book and acknowledge his misrepresentation. He should also apologize to Boyer, as his hatchet job is something he would certainly flunk one of his students for.

I have read hundreds of books on religion, and written five myself; among the former group, this is one of the most interesting.

Rodney Stark has been one of America's leading sociologists of religion for a long time. (Cited by skeptics as well as religious believers.) His marketplace model of religions, which he has been developing for decades (it goes back at least to his Theory of Religion) is a powerful tool of understanding: it may revolutionize the way you see the world, as it did for me. In Theory of Religion, and then his series on the rise of Christianity, Stark developed and tested a series of general postulates about the social nature of religion, seldom however writing too boldly about its ontological basis.

This book pulls many of the threads of Stark's storied career together,introduces interesting new topics -- especially "temple religion," and a thoughtful take on Lang's "High Gods" -- and poses a few questions about the truth or falsehood of religion as well.

Over the past 24 years, I have researched many of the topics Stark covers in this book. What impresses me about this book is that Stark so often gets it right where the "conventional wisdom" gets it wrong. I begin with specific claims, then will comment on Stark's story of religion:

"Where religious monopolies prevail. the overall level of public religious involvement will be low."

"Why did none of these three 'major' religions, nor even all of them together, actually become the religion of most Chinese?" (As a China scholar, and author of True Son of Heaven, I see that as a great question -- though by my count, China has traditionally had some eight "major" religions.)

"This ethnic barriar to conversion probably was the sole reason that the Roman Empire did not embrace the God of Abraham."

"Intellectuals always form factions and have such fallings out."

"(Gnostic) Scriptures were properly dismissed as a last-gasp effort to incorporate Christianity within traditional polytheism." (I wrote a book on this subject last year, reaching the same rather rare conclusion.)

"The long decline of European Christianity, beginning with Constantine's establishment of it as the subsidized state church." (Stark has written brilliantly, and with great explanatory power, on this over the years.)

"The notion that sometimes a story might really be about candles or even about a hole in the clouds is disdained." (Often an iconoclast, Stark takes Freud to the woodshed here, especially his ridiculous theories of the origin of religion.)

"People will more readily join an exclusive religion to the degree that it minimizes their loss of religious capital." (An interesting take on some ideas that have been kicking around among Christians since Paul's speech on Mars Hill -- I call it "fulfillment theology," and have done quite a bit of research and writing on it, but found Stark's "market" formulation of the idea fascinating.)

But this short collection of sociological aphorisms does little to express the wealth contained in this book. What Stark attempts is nothing less than a religious story of mankind, from the Stone Age to the present. He renders Stone Age tribes more respect than static but powerful agrarian empires like Egypt and Sumer and the Aztecs. Stark describes the rise of modern, reformist religions in the Axial Age, and tries (with less than complete success, IMO -- I don't think Confucius and the Brahmans had much in common, or that one borrowed from the other) to explain this sudden outburst of religious creativity. His history of the great religions is frequently surprising, even to thosase who have heard the story many times before -- and he often adds something fundamental.

Some readers below criticize Stark for engaging in "apologetics." (Or even for his brief mention of ID.) This is specious; he only argues for Christianity as the highest understanding of God at the very end of the book, and then only modestly, and admitting others will differ. Christians are likely to find some of his ideas quite challenging. Any open-minded skeptic, who isn't allergy to contrary views, should be able to recoup the price of the book ten times before that point. And the deadliest thing Stark does to Islam is not to criticize it -- he does little of that, actually -- but to describe in detail the treacherous career of its founder.

In some ways, Stark reverts to older, 19th Century theories of religion here -- the closest parallel I can think of (very imperfect) is J. N. Farquhar. I don't agree with all of Stark's claims -- aside from sometimes unconvincing speculation about the "Axial Age," I think Stark identifies the European mission enterprise too closely with colonialism, underestimates the strength of Christianity in Europe during the age of Wesley and Wilberforce, and is wrong to identify the ancient Chinese Shang Di as "the eldest ancestor" (see the Cambridge History of China, Shang dynasty volume). But it is fascinating to watch the continuing development of Stark's thought. I learned as much from this book as from any I have read in years.

author, Jesus and the Religions of Man

I can't think of another book anything like this. It really is unique. Stark unflinchingly tackles some of the biggest questions in the world and--surprise!--doesn't come up with any of the stale old answers.

That said, I don't think Stark was well served by the cover of the book, which suggests this is just another study of comparative religions. There are thousands and thousands of those, and, by golly, most of them are dull as ditch water. And too cowardly to admit their point of view.

Whereas Stark can hardly wait to take a point of view. His perspective is firmly Judeo-Christian.

One of the first things Stark mentions is that "God's revelations are always limited to the current capacity of humans to comprehend" (p 6). It is not God who evolves throughout time, or throughout the bible; only man's capacity to understand.

Primitive man, to the extent we have records, believed in a High God. Yet, when mankind developed cities, a lush polytheism took over. Why? Stark suggests an answer in "the monumentalism so often found in despots" (p 104). In the small gods of polytheism, with all their failings, humankind was worshiping itself, just as the despots from time immemorial wanted to be seen as God-like.

Hinduism even today continues to believe in multiple gods, while many of the religions of the east had no belief in god and can just as easily be described as philosophies. Jainism, Buddhism, Taoism and even the political philosophy of Confucius, taught people resignation. Desire was bad, and a cold pessimism seemed the only solution. Even in Hinduism the goal of life was to be released from the cycle of rebirth.

Compared to them, Christianity argues in an historical Jesus, the reality of the miraculous resurrection, a final solution to the problem of evil, and life everlasting.

And these are only some of the areas Stark delves into. For anyone who is seeking answers, this is a wonderful book.

Rodney Stark has written prolifically on Christianity's rise and history. In Discovering God he provides a survey of the origins of the world's great religions and philosophies and makes some intriguing comparisons between them. Stark is most comfortable writing about Christianity, and it shows in this work: the segments dealing with Christianity are long and detailed, while those dealing with the other faiths are filled with quotations from other histories, to the point where it sometimes seems that he is merely paraphrasing. At other times Stark writes defensively, seeming to believe that all other historians and histories of religion are atheists or agnostics who seek to deceive rather than illuminate. This gets old, particularly when he feels the need to make a snide comment every now and then along the lines of "anyone but a modern religious historian would recognize that . . ."

I did enjoy the book, especially in its comparisons of the early religions and their sky gods and nature gods, but for a survey of the great religions of the present day I would want to find someone without quite so large a chip on his shoulder.

Rodney Stark's book is sure to be classic in the studies of comparative religion. A sociologist by education, Stark takes his reader from the beginnings of human worship to the beginnings of Islam. In doing so, he bucks many of the popular theories that past sociologists and anthropologists have embraced. In reassessing the evolution of theologies, Stark puts forward his theory of a market economy in the religious sphere.

The first assumption that Stark rebukes is the idea that primitive societies had no aptitude for philosophizing. I recall that a similar thesis was also put forward by G.K. Chesterton in The Everlasting Man. Stark notes that contrary to the evolutionary biologists' claim that the idea of God first came from fearing the forces of nature and gave these forces names and sacrificed to them as a means of exerting control over the unpredictable. Stark claims that this is contrary to sociological findings. Primitive tribes generally affirm a belief in an Almighty, a chief Creator god above all the other gods.

From this era of "High Gods", Stark shows that the religions of the Near East devolved into a politicized mass of temple religions. This of course takes the reader to Sumer, and then Stark follows the temple religions as they diffuse into Egypt, Greece, and Palestine. The temple religions are then spread throughout the Roman Empire.

With the assimilation of these religions into the Roman pantheon, Stark breaks into his theory of religious economies. The Roman Empire provided an ideal market place for ideas to compete. Stark notes the multitude of attributes of the religions that were vying for supremacy in the Empire and why this may have led to the rise of Christianity.

The book then concludes with chapters on Eastern religions and the interaction of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Zoroasterianism. He then shows how each of these evolved in the religious and philosophical markets. From this analysis Stark then attempts to show how this may lead to an ability to determine the goals of religious development and each religion's contribution toward "Discovering God."

This sociologist of religion favors "divine accommodation" as his model: "God's revelations are always limited to the current capacity of humans to comprehend"--sometimes "baby talk" is needed, as Moses found out when encountering God, or when Jesus spoke down to his disciples in parables. (6) He dismisses those (see my recent review of Robert Wright's 2009 "The Evolution of God") who endorse a reductive materialistic--cultural, biological, or psychological--explanation for religious invention and elaboration. He minimizes naturism, animism, ghost theory, and totemism proposed by early anthropologists as rationalizations. He downplays class antagonisms and replaces them with doctrinal disputes. He favors a "universal revelation" by the divine power, given from humanity's dawn.

This book differs from his colleagues' works, which tend to marshal neo-atheist and skeptical arguments against divine inspiration as a traceable presence in the history of religions. While many scholars may disagree with his dismissal of their studies, he advances just as many scholarly works in defense of his proposition. It shifts as it continues, and Stark's own "strong argument" in the philosophical sense for Christianity can be sensed; the book feels more confident and peppier when biblically oriented rather then when science and Asian religions are included. He knows his sources, but those sources might have counter-arguments galore. It's best when rational choice theory and market strategies are applied to religious choices and evolving structures. This text tends to move quickly, and while accessible for a general audience, it deserves attention for his nuances and his qualifiers.

Stark surveys the progression from Stone Age to early states in the Middle East and the Americas to Rome efficiently. He marshals evidence that rituals and sacrifices to High Gods pleased prehistoric peoples, ushering in polytheists geared for a temple-oriented, sometimes despotically commanded, polity. This imposition of belief with power diversified into a market-niche strategy geared to a very diverse Roman imperial clientele.

Godless religions, Stark cautions, don't last long outside intellectual or monastic elites. Buddhism, Taoism, and Jainism soon incorporated older folk gods and elements aimed to please lay followers unable to be comforted by abstractions. While India's definitive faiths downgraded earthly existence and worldly attachments, the ancient Chinese blended folk religion with new beliefs. These appealed to everyday people, as Stark reminds readers, and explain why religions tend to multiply gods and rituals rather than remain stark and committed to perhaps a founder's more detached vision of austerity.

In turn, sects rise when the "high tension" of a bold new faith eases, and a purer or more radical version's needed to spark renewal among the laity, and against a complacent priesthood bent on traditional orthodoxy. The "Yahweh-only" faction in Israel demonstrates the force imposed by a minority, who in exile cast off less fervent colleagues to return to their homeland intent on eliminating polytheism, paganism, and tolerance. While Stark accepts that the Exodus happened at least among a small band of Hebrews, he aligns with mainstream theologians (if not congregants in many pews) who accept how many indigenous peoples allied with the Hebrew hardcore to forge a Jewish identity connecting Yahweh to the rise of Judea and Israel, until a tribal god became a national icon, and then not an international deity but a universal Lord demanding fealty.

Common people need assurances brought by easily placated temple deities, whom families can supplicate and feel blessed by. The ancient city-states and emerging nations knew this, while congregations, in Stark's revisionist view, often threatened a nervous Roman power. Before Christians emerged, followers of Isis, Bacchus, and the Jews already in Rome found themselves persecuted and executed by Romans, who suspected upstart religious groups which signaled subversion. Intensity in belief generates "fear and retaliation from less demanding religious organizations and from governments that favor them." (155)

Stark's best points remind us how families comprise the initial circle of those who trust the new founder of a religion, whether based on revelation or inspiration. It expands by tested social bonds, and then market niches which over time not only retain early adopters but attract converts. "Religious capital" invested by a believer may weaken over time, and a new version of the faith may win him or her to convert, but usually this is more likely when "cultural continuity" smooths the transition between, say, Judaism and Christianity, at least long enough to establish it widely so Gentiles can then join as it expands its franchise.

Similarly, pagans warmed better to a variety of the Good News emphasizing classical concepts or symbols. However, Stark argues that from the start, an historically plausible Jesus was "explicitly acknowledged as divine." He rejects any notions of a New Testament not grounded in reality traceable to eyewitnesses, and he denies any gradual shift from Jewish preacher followed by messianic Jews to Pauline redeemer of Gentiles.

This appeal, all the same, built on Jewish diasporic networks, which already had weaker allegiances to orthodox practices, while incorporating not sudden or mass conversions but social alliances which brought in committed members gradually, thus ensuring a devoted band of Christians. This weakened as soon as it became the state religion, and Stark argues how the seeds of the demise of European Christianity were planted as far back as the later Roman empire, when hereditary benefices encouraged family control. This fits into his model of how state religions stagnate, when cults become organizations. He contrasts this with recent growth of Christianity when state sponsorship's lacking; he wonders if a Muslim Europe and a Christian China might be the case a century from now, as fervent believers spread their faiths apart from state control or historical tradition in these lands. (335)

Islam's rise for Stark comes not from any material longing but a spiritual wish to transform trade networks into religious ones paralleling political paths to power. Muhammad emerges as a prophet ready to take advantage of this regional orientation, as a founder of the Arab State. Stark revises the ameliorative or apologetic versions of the Prophet's life, and includes his episodes of caravan robbing, score-settling by murder, and the massacre of the Jews who resisted his control of Medina. As often in history, religious zeal matters less than fear of non-conformity by religious enforcers, as determined as are tyrants and god-kings.

Unifying Arabia, Islam was able to command wider territory with small but disciplined armies. Conversions ("market penetration" to 50%) took two to three centuries, as they did across the Roman Empire for Christians. Neither faith was particularly tolerant once it gained control. Sects proliferated once more, too. As for Islam's demands, so for Allah: submission is required. He's less approachable than the Jewish or Christian God--incomprehensible and inaccessible.

Stark concludes that the Axial Age introduced the concept of ethical behavior rewarding one in the afterlife, or next life, as salvation for those freed from sin. Sin provides an effective social control, cheaper than policing! As statelets and empires emerged from clans and cities, people began to adapt a (Stark thinks diffusion is possible but he barely mentions why and how) notion that they were always if invisibly watched, and their secret as well as visible actions would be judged.

Stark reasons a discovery of God through consistent and gradually more sophisticated revelations at this formative period. He posits an "inspired core" from High Gods (regressing to polytheism) to the ancient Hebrews and Christians-- if God exists. In his too-compressed closing paragraphs, he accepts the Christian search for an intelligent designer (based on Alfred North Whitehead's surprising thesis) as the logical force that impelled theologians and scientists to progress towards a discovery of God.

Whatever else can be said, it is invigorating to read a book where one can tell that the author researched ad nauseam, worried over and through the ideas and problems, and put hours upon hours of brain equity into the subject, its controversies, and its syntheses.
This is laborious but worthwhile reading. Can you tell that the author speaks from a defense of Christianity? Yes. Does he give short shrift to elucidating other religions' beliefs, comparisons, and histories? No.
The book is worth buying if only for the substantial and interesting discussions and comparisons of Roman, Greek, Egyptian, Sumerian, and Mayan religions.
Cited sources are good. Nothing is more frustrating (see, e.g., HISTORY OF IDEAS) to read a statement you disagree with, and find that the author didn't bother to cite any support for the proposition.

I just finished reading the book and came away feeling cheated. The promise of the book was to explore whether man is inventing God or discovering God, or, as it asks on the jacket, "Did God create us, or did we create God?" I made the mistake of starting at the beginning and reading all the way through until the end. What I should have done is start with the last chapter titled "Discovering God"; I would have saved myself a lot of time. Only there does Stark finally get around to delivering on his promise to answer the question, but even there he fails to do so. Instead, once you boil it all down, he basically says that the answer simply depends on whether or not God exists - if He does, then we are discovering God, and if He doesn't then we are inventing God. Really, that's about it.

Of course, although he tries hard to sound objective and academic, and tries not to reveal his personal religious beliefs, it becomes evident in the final chapter that Stark is a Christian (can one even hold the position of co-director of the Institute for Studies of Religion at Baylor without being a Christian?), and so he finishes the book with why God does indeed exist, and hence why the history of religion is the history of "discovering" God. Unfortunately, here he completely switches topics from his area of expertise, religion and theology, and bases his argument for the existence of God on the fact that, quoting Einstein, contrary to what we might expect, the world is completely accessible to inquiry by science. Amazingly, he also uses the scientific discovery of the Big Bang as proof that the universe had a beginning after all (as opposed to an eternal universe with no beginning or end which, according to his endnotes, was the theme of Carl Sagan's Cosmos). He also bases his belief that God exists on the idea that Intelligent Design must be correct, again switching gears completely.

His argument goes like this: We are not inventing God, because if we were it would mean that the revelations of the prophets were just voices in their heads, and therefore God does not really exist. But since God does exist, we must be discovering that God. And how does he know God exists? Well ... because he believes God exists, based on the facts that 1) the universe had a beginning (and therefore must have been created by a Creator) and 2) the universe is knowable through empirical inquiry, contrary to what it would have been had there been no God. That's about it.

Now you can see why I felt cheated. I bought the book on the basis of its title (good titles really do sell books, as I'm sure Stark is aware), and took the time to read it cover to cover, always expecting that the central question would be answered in an intelligent way that I could understand. But it never was. As interesting and edifying as was the short course in the history of religion and his theory of the religious economy, that is not what I was set up to expect; I was expecting him to answer the question posed at the outset. As I said, the last chapter was the only part of the book that even pretended to address the question, and really it was quite pathetic (if Stark knew anything about Carl Sagan he would know that Sagan believed in the Big Bang, and if he knew anything about Einstein he would know that he was an atheist who believed that all ideas are just conceptions in the mind).

Although the question "Did God create us, or did we create God?" is arguably tautological, I think there are meaningful arguments that could have been offered in support for the idea that we are not inventing God (and Stark came very close to using them, but he did not). Namely, what if we generalized the question to read "do we invent or do we discover any kind of knowledge?" To ask this would of course change the subject from religion to epistemology, not Stark's area of expertise, but let's see where this could lead. If we could cobble together a plausible argument that there is any kind of knowledge that is clearly being "discovered" by mankind, then we could argue, by analogy, that God is similarly being discovered.

Take mathematics for example; have we invented the body of knowledge we call mathematics, or has it been out there all the time just waiting for us to discover it? I know what you will say ... from an epistemological point of view the question doesn't make sense ... but to me it is much more intuitive (and less highly charged) than the question about God. We can ask the same question about the laws of physics and probably many other things as well. To me, it makes sense that some things are discoveries as opposed to inventions (although the techniques of mathematics and physics are clearly inventions). The facts of mathematics and physics seem like they have been there all along (did gravity exist before our minds were here to observe it? Of course). So ... by analogy, albeit assuming that God exists, God has been out there all along, and as we evolve our consciousness we slowly discover Him.

I am not proposing this as a good argument for the idea that we are actually discovering God, as one could easily counter that philosophical or religious knowledge is fundamentally different than mathematical or physical knowledge. But wouldn't this line of reasoning be more interesting and powerful than what Stark gave us? Apparently the purpose of Stark's book was to showcase his extensive knowledge about religions and sneakily, in the end, to reinforce a Christian's reader's belief system, and to show non-Christians the error of their ways. It was definitely NOT an honestly attempt to answer the question on the book jacket. I'm going to be much more careful in the future.