Review of A History of God

I finally read Karen Armstrong’s 1993 best seller A History of God: The 4000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The book traces how humans have perceived and understood God from the time prior to the rise of the monotheistic religions in the Middle East to the rise of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Armstrong, one of the top religious scholars in the world, shows how the Jews changed from pagan idol worship in Babylon to monotheism and then she shows how Christianity and Islam was built on this foundation. She then shows how the perception of God changed depending upon the historical period such as the Medieval Mystics, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and the modern, scientific age. She finds no objective view of God by humans. In particular, I personally found the discussion of the development of the Trinity most fascinating. The book is very readable but it is a challenging and complex subject. I note that this is written from a secular and scholarly point of view, not from the viewpoint of a believer.