God: An Anatomy (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780525520450)

An astonishing and revelatory history that re-presents God as he was originally envisioned by ancient worshippers--with a distinctly male body, and with superhuman powers, earthly passions, and a penchant for the fantastic and monstrous.

"[A] rollicking journey through every aspect of Yahweh's body, from top to bottom (yes, that too) and from inside out ... Ms. Stavrakopoulou has almost too much fun."--The Economist

The scholarship of theology and religion teaches us that the God of the Bible was without a body, only revealing himself in the Old Testament in words mysteriously uttered through his prophets, and in the New Testament in the body of Christ. The portrayal of God as corporeal and masculine is seen as merely metaphorical, figurative, or poetic. But, in this revelatory study, Francesca Stavrakopoulou presents a vividly corporeal image of God: a human-shaped deity who walks and talks and weeps and laughs, who eats, sleeps, feels, and breathes, and who is undeniably male.

Here is a portrait--arrived at through the author's close examination of and research into the Bible--of a god in ancient myths and rituals who was a product of a particular society, at a particular time, made in the image of the people who lived then, shaped by their own circumstances and experience of the world. From head to toe--and every part of the body in between--this is a god of stunning surprise and complexity, one we have never encountered before.

Author: Francesca Stavrakopoulou
ISBN-10: 0525520457
ISBN-13: 9780525520450
Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group
Language: English
Published: 01/25/2022
Pages: 608
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 2.13lbs
Size: 9.62h x 6.74w x 1.50d

Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 11/01/2021
Publishers Weekly 11/29/2021
Library Journal 01/01/2022 pg. 67