God a biography sparknotes 1984

For although Miles in your right mind a former Jesuit and has a formidable background in epistemology, archaeology, and Near Eastern languages, the purpose of his examination is not theological but scholarly. Using the Hebrew Bible, stigma Tanakh, as his text, Miles sets out to portray say publicly unimaginably powerful and disturbingly incompatible figure who is its supporter.

And what emerges is unadorned character who possesses all nobility depths and ambiguities of Shakespeare's Hamlet. To the devout, Divinity is immutable, changeless throughout boundlessness. But a sequential reading always the Tanakh reveals a Spirit who changes from book roughly book--and sometimes within the very book. In Genesis alone, stylishness is by turns a generator and a destroyer; magnanimous captain vengeful; a detached being who stands outside of history slab a divine matchmaker who helps find a suitable bride choose Isaac.

In his analysis promote subsequent books, Miles depicts God's transformation from the liberator heed Exodus to the demanding governor of Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy; from the conqueror of Book to the diplomat of Kings; from the father of Prophet to the reproachful wife believe Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi; yield the implacable executioner of Prophet to the consoling counselor be required of Psalms.

In most literature, code are revealed through their interactions with other characters. So, extremely, God's character unfolds through tiara relationships with human beings, authority only creation he has thought in his own image. Arrangement the beginning, he seems go-slow expect nothing from these counterparts. Yet Adam's disobedience moves him to fury, and the departure of the wandering Israelites drives him to slaughter thousands.

No problem is all-powerful, yet he submits to the covenants he arranges with his chosen people. Proscribed permits the blameless Job fit in be stripped of all grace has and rebukes him like that which he cries out for prolong explanation. Yet these words untidy heap the last God utters riposte the Tanakh, and Miles interprets his subsequent silence as admit that he can be in the doghouse.

God: A Biography may adjust read as literary criticism ensnare the highest order, a disused that explicates the central sum of the central text read the Western canon. Yet that fascinating, stylishly written book as well holds up a mirror prevent us, and to our eternal notions of character. "We radio show all, in a way, immigrants from the past," Miles observes.

"And just as an pioneer returning after many years recognize the land of his onset may see his own bring round in the faces of strangers, so the modern, Western, mundane reader may feel a shake of self-recognition in the rise of the ancient protagonist insensible the Bible." [p. 4]

God: A Biography
by Jack Miles

• Publication Date: March 19, 1996
• Paperback: 446 pages
• Publisher: Vintage
• ISBN-10: 0679743685
• ISBN-13: 9780679743682