The Bible: The Biography (BOOKS THAT SHOOK THE WORLD)

by KarenArmstrong (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  2007

  $3.27

  The Bible is the most widely distributed book in the world. Translated into over two thousand languages, it is estimated that more than six billion copies have been sold in the last two hundred years alone. A work made up of sixty-six 'books' and divided into two Testaments, this complex and communal work has been transformed by its various translations into a single work at the heart of the world's largest and most powerful organised religions: Christianity. In this seminal account, Karen Armstrong discusses the conception, gestation, life and afterlife of this collection of 'books' to analyse how this all-pervasive scripture was collected into one work, how it became accepted as Christianity's sacred text and how it continues to exercise profound political and philosophical influence, as well as religious control, over the world around us.

• Used

  Paperback
  2008

  $3.27

  The Bible is the most widely distributed book in the world. Translated into over two thousand languages, it is estimated that more than six billion copies have been sold in the last two hundred years alone. In this seminal account, Karen Armstrong traces the gestation of the Bible to reveal a complex and contradictory document created by scores of people over hundreds of years. Karen Armstrong begins her analysis with the origins of the very earliest books of the Hebrew Bible, in which God was called both 'Yahweh' and 'Elohim'. She then traces the development of both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament to reveal the disparate influences that helped to form these sacred texts. From the Jewish practice of Midrash and the Christian cult of Jesus; to the influence of Paul's letters on the Reformation and the manipulation of Revelations by Christian fundamentalism, Armstrong explores the contexts in which these sixty-six books were understood and explains the social needs they answered. In the process she reveals an unfamiliar and paradoxical work that will permanently alter our understanding of the Bible.