God Against the Gods: The History of the War Between Monotheism and Polytheism (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "Something deep in human nature prompts us to imagine the existence of a power greater than ourselves, whether we call it "Yahweh" or "Christ" or..." (more)
Key Phrases: Only True God, God of Israel, Great Persecution (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The story of the suppression of polytheistic religions in the ancient world by the ever more powerful monotheistic religions is well known. Kirsch (The Harlot by the Side of the Road) offers his own version of this oft-told tale in a lively and engaging chronicle. Although many scholars point to Israel as the fount of monotheism, Kirsch shows that the earliest impulses toward monotheism can be found in Egypt with pharaoh Akhenaton's attempt to move the nation to the worship of one god. This Egyptian likely influenced Moses, according to Kirsch, and much of the history of early Israel is the history of the worship of one god emerging out of the worship of many gods. Monotheism gained momentum with the development of Christianity and was codified under Constantine. His son Julian strove to return polytheism to the scene by issuing edicts of toleration concerning polytheistic religious customs, but Julian's successor Theodosius I restored monotheism as the official practice of the Empire. Kirsch helpfully points out that the conflict between the worship of many gods and the worship of one true god never disappeared from the lives of Israelites, Jews, or Christians, in spite of many historians' claims to the contrary. In addition, Kirsch observes that monotheistic religions have too often used the worship of one god as a way to persecute those who do not share similar beliefs. While Kirsch breaks no new ground, he demonstrates clearly the ways in which this conflict gave rise to the tensions that exist even within monotheistic religions today.
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From The Washington Post

Jonathan Kirsch is a fine storyteller with a flair for rendering ancient tales relevant and appealing to modern audiences. God Against the Gods finds him in good form, retelling lively stories about the struggle of monotheists against polytheists (and vice versa) from biblical times until the fourth century A.D. when Theodosius the Great outlawed pagan worship and made the Catholic version of monotheism the Roman Empire's state religion. Admirers of the author's earlier books, including Moses: A Life, King David and The Harlot by the Side of the Road, will find much to admire here. They may also be somewhat disconcerted by the theory that these stories are intended to exemplify.

In brief, Kirsch argues that monotheism -- the belief "that only a single deity is worthy of worship for the simple reason that only a single deity exists" -- is responsible for three millennia of religious intolerance and persecution, up to and including the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Those events he terms "only the most recent example of the violence that men and women are inspired to commit against their fellow human beings by their true belief in the Only True God." By comparison with exclusivist monotheism, Kirsch thinks that tolerant polytheism gets a bad rap. "At the heart of polytheism is an open-minded and easygoing approach to religious belief and practice," he asserts, the opposite of monotheism's dangerous "tendency to regard one's own rituals and practices as the only proper way to worship the one true god."

The argument is problematic, but not entirely specious. There is a connection between the fourth-century Christian extremists who destroyed the Serapeum, the most beautiful pagan temple in Alexandria, and the 20th-century Muslim extremists who blew up irreplaceable Buddhist statues in Afghanistan. But what connects these events is a certain kind of violent rigorism, not monotheism itself. The author seems to think that one thing leads naturally to another (thus, the alleged "tendency" of monotheists to become brutally intolerant) -- but this begs a vital question. Some monotheists brand people who do not share their particular beliefs evil and seek to destroy them. Others are inspired by the idea of one God to conceive of one human family, related by ties of love and responsibility. The unasked question is this: Under what circumstances do we get one form of monotheism rather than the other? What makes Torquemada Torquemada, and Pope John XXIII John XXIII?

The question is difficult, but it requires an answer. Avoiding it makes it seem that beliefs alone cause violence, when it seems pretty clear that they do not -- that the behavior of a figure like Theodosius the Great or Osama bin Laden cannot be explained on the basis of Roman Catholicism or Islamic Wahhabism alone. One needs to account not only for religious beliefs but for their context: the multiple social, political, and psychological factors that, linked with theological doctrines, incline a person to act either like a seeker of peace or a violent avenger. Kirsch's tales -- especially the late-Roman stories of Constantine the Great and Julian, called "the Apostate" -- are well researched and well told, but one searches in vain for the contextual analysis that might explain Constantine's attempt to impose an orthodox Trinitarian doctrine on the Church or Julian's quixotic effort to revivify the fading Olympian deities.

Choosing not to focus on such questions produces another problem, as well: It weakens the historical argument in the same way that not looking at "uncomfortable" cases can weaken a legal brief. God Against the Gods offers very little information about tolerant or universalist monotheists; and when it comes to the polytheists, the author tends to explain any intolerance away. (For example: "Whether the gruesome accounts of Christian martyrdom are works of history or works of propaganda . . . is still an open question.") Kirsch is no doubt right to condemn the smear tactics that early Christian apologists used against the "pagans," which involved accusing them unjustly of engaging in ritual orgies, child sacrifice and the stupidest sort of idolatry (i.e., confusing the representation of a god with the god himself). Even so, he tends to identify polytheism with the most civilized traditions of the ancient world while focusing on monotheism at its most uncivilized.

All this being said, Kirsch has written a highly readable book about a topic well worth pondering. My advice to the reader is to put his theory aside in order to concentrate on the stories themselves, which point to a richer, more complex reality. For example, Kirsch notes that by the third and fourth centuries A.D. many nominal polytheists in Rome and Greece were proclaiming their belief in a single, omnipotent Supreme Being. Constantine himself went from the worship of Sol Invictus, the Unconquered Sun, to Christian worship of the One God, which was ritually solemnized on Sun-day. Similarly, as the great historian of late antiquity Peter Brown has observed, late Roman attitudes toward sex and the family were changing in what might seem a "Christian" direction even before Christianity had become a major force for change in the Empire.

And what of the Arian/Trinitarian controversies of the same period, which involved attempts by Christian leaders to account for the multiple nature of their unitary God? Despite the differences between monotheists and polytheists, it appears that there were social forces impelling both sets of believers to move in similar directions. It is a pity that Kirsch fails to shed more light on the relationship between religious beliefs and their social context. Doing so might help us identify the forces that continue to drive some people to kill in the name of God.

Reviewed by Richard E. Rubenstein

Copyright 2004, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Viking Adult (March 8, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670032867
• ISBN-13: 978-0670032860
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #777,138 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

42 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating History, August 8, 2004

By	Kat Bakhu (Albuquerque, NM United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book was as enjoyable to read as it was eye-opening. Because of 9-11, we are well familiar with the faction in Islam that believes in killing the so-called infidels. What I did not know was how deeply entrenched in killing non-believers that the original Jews and Christians were, as well; often under the supposed encouragement and blessing of The One and Only True God.

The point of God against the Gods is not to condemn either Christianity or Judaism. Far from it. Rather, it makes the compelling point that the victory of monotheism over paganism in many respects may not have been a good thing; largely because of the tendency toward intolerance and persecution that the belief--my God is the One and Only True God--tends to breed in the minds of believers. This is a novel, provocative point to ears that have grown so used to hearing that monotheism is superior to paganism, and that paganism is nothing more than a superstitious hodgepodge whose defeat was a blessing to the world. But the author makes his point in a calm, reasoned, and balanced manner. In many respects, I found myself persauded. However, he certainly does not claim that paganism is totally innocent in world history either. It has its share of dark moments, too.

This book is written in an easy, almost conversational manner, which allows it to provide a lot of fascinating history in a very interesting manner. I thoroughly enjoyed every page. At the same time, I also acquired insights and facts about the history of the three major monotheistic religions and paganism that I was not aware of before. The chapters on the Roman Empire and its Caesars, especially Julian, were fascinating. God against the Gods is highly recommended.

52 of 58 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Legacy of Religious Tolerance, April 22, 2004

By	Elle Ackers "Dulce_Quod_Utile" (Somewhere in time) - See all my reviews

I read GOD AGAINST THE GODS for two reasons. First, I saw a lecture by Mr. Kirsch some years ago and I enjoyed his rather different but erudite perspective. But most of all, I love reading and learning about when cultures, societies, religions, and ideas meet. How they mix, how they borrow from each other, and how they come into conflict. The Greco-Roman period is one of my favorite periods. Both the empires of Alexander the Great and the Romans, because of conquest and expansion, contained diverse people as well as an incredible variety of religions. This book covers the idea of religious tolerance as largely practiced by the Pagans of the ancient world; the one trip into monotheism by an Egyptian Pharaoh, Akhenaton, and his worship of the sun disc, The Aton; the Jewish religion and how it changed over a vast period of time; and the beginning of the Christian religion until the death of the Emperor Julian in 363 C.E. He navigates the waters of history, to contrast the legacy of religious tolerance of the polytheistic world with the exclusion and intolerance that often comes with the practice of monotheism.
This book contains a prologue entitled The Everlasting Fire (The Dark Side of Monotheism, the Bright Side of Polytheism). It is then divided up into two books. Book One is called The God That Failed and contains four chapters. These chapters are: Chapter 1: Against All the Gods of Egypt (A Young Pharaoh's Experiment in Monotheism and Why it Failed); Chapter 2: What Did Pagans Do? (The Case Against Classical Paganism - And Why It Was Wrong); Chapter 3: Terror and True Belief (The Jewish King Who Reinvented the Faith of Ancient Israel); Chapter 4: Confessors and Traitors (Pagans and Christians Go to War in Ancient Rome). Book Two contains six chapters and an epilogue. The chapters are: Chapter 5: "In This Sign, Conquer" (The Curious Encounter of Christ and Constantine in the Struggle for the Roman Crown); Chapter 6: The Harlot in the Bishop's Bed (The War Within the Christian Church over the Divinity of Christ); Chapter 7: The Ruler of the Whole World (The Invention of the Totalitarian State by the First Christian Emperor of Rome); Chapter 8: The Orphans of Macellum (The Christian Prince Who Survived A Blood Purge and Struggled for the Restoration of Paganism); Chapter 9: The Secret Pagan (Gods, Empresses, and Julian's Unlikely Rise to the Imperial Throne); Chapter 10: "Behold, the Rivers Are Running Backwards" (The Pagan Counterrevolution of the Emperor Julian) and Epilogue: The Handless Scribe (The Price of Victory of the One True God). The book also contains a map of the empire of Constantine and Julian, a chronology, a list of major historical figures, notes, bibliography and an index.
Often what we get out of a book is what we bring to a book. This book is written in an easy, breezy style with provocative titles that are meant to shake readers out of their complacency. But the author did his research and cites such authors as Robin Lane Fox and Jacob Burckhardt, which ironically one reviewer refers others to read instead of this author. A couple of the previous reviewers of this book either did not read the whole book or decided before hand what it was about and that it was bad. And of course, one reviewer sees this book as part of some vast secular conspiracy. Considering the subject matter of this book, the irony of their opinions can only make me grin. "Religion has treated knowledge sometimes as an enemy, sometimes as a hostage; often as a captive and more often as a child; but knowledge has become of age, and religion must either renounce her acquaintance, or introduce her as a companion and respect her as a friend." - Charles Caleb Colton (Lacon, 1825 C.E.).
Nothing is black and white, and Kirsch does give examples of Pagan intolerance -- the very famous example of the Maccabees and the persecution of the Jews by Antiochus Titus. He goes into the Jewish wars with the Romans. He also talks about the persecution of the early Christians by some of the Roman emperors. What is interesting to me is how one reviewer missed chapter six that talks about how Christians persecuted each other in the early years of the religion's foundation! This sad tendency has continued over the centuries to our present day.
As for Mr. Kirsch's hypothesis in regards to the Pagan legacy of tolerance, here are two quotes.
"What is god and what is not god, what is between man and god, who shall say?" -- Euripides (Helen, 412 B.C.E).
"What church I go to on Sunday, what dogma of the Catholic Church I believe in is my business, and whatever faith any other American has is his business." - John F. Kennedy (address, Washington D.C., 1960 C.E.).
This book will appeal to those who are interested in the history of religion and the possible legacy of religious tolerance and to those interested in the meeting of the Pagan world with the Jewish and Christian ones in ancient times.

33 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Book with an Agenda -- Name One that Doesn't Have One, March 24, 2004

By	Christopher A. Kubasik (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I had to write after reading the negative reviews below. It always amazes me how people can claim to have read a book, and then describe something that bears only a passing resemblence to the actual text.

Seth, for example, contends GAtG only covers the period of Constantnie to Julian. Since Constantine doesn't show up until page 119, I'm assuming he skipped ahead to the parts he wanted to complain about.

The book actually begins in ancient Egypt, when a Pharoh tried to remove the polythestic gods of his culture and set up the first monotheistic religion. It then moves on to Moses and the other Jewish prophets and their attempts to keep the sometimes straying Jews (golden calf, anyone), in line with the monothestic faith they wanted all their tribe to follow. It then discusses the waxing and waning fortunes of the Jewish faithful (and not so faithful) as their interactions with Romans (and polytheism), shift and move back and forth between rigorist monotheism and comprimise with the pagan, polythesitic culture of the classical age.

While all this is happening, Christianity is introduced, and we get the first case of a monotheistic faith battling a monotheistic faith -- Jews following Jesus against Jews who don't.

And so on, as Christianity spreds into Rome, but refuses to obey the laws of respecting ALL Gods -- which was considered a civic obligation of the Roman citizen. Constanine shows up after all this is clearly laid out.

Seth claim that this is a book "against" Christianity reflect his bias -- Kirsch clearly has it in for Monotheism in general, and that includes Judaism, and Islam. He admits up front that if there's going to be religion, he admires the accepting polytheism of classical Roma and Greece. Monotheistic faiths, he contends, don't just say someone who dosn't worship the right god is wrong, but that he must be "corrected" into believing the right way to believe, because all other beliefs are wrong. If that means torture or death on the path to redemption, so be it.

(By the way, Kirsch points out the ways the polytheists persecuted Christians and Jews. He suggests, though, that the persecutions weren't as horrific as Christian and Jewish historians wrote, and cites other historians as agreeing with him.)

Meawhile, Eric suggests that "secularist liberals will see it as a confirmation that religion is inherently evil and stultifying; the religious conservatives will see it as a distorted attack on the remaining source of morality in the modern world."

Um, no. I'm a liberal Catholic, and I found the book fascinating. I'm particularly fascinated by the way I can see a parallel between religion in the United States and the polytheism of classical Rome and Greece. These days, people in this country move between denominations, switch faiths as their desires and needs dictate, or add Yoga, crystals and horoscopoe readings even as they go to Church, Temple or a Mosque every week. I'd offer that this flexibility (as opposed to living under Islamic hardliners), is a blessing, and something I hadn't considered as an echo of ancient practices (a new polytheism), until I read this book.

It gave me a new way of looking at the world around me. Could I give it less than 4 stars? Nope.