This volume was an interesting, brief history of the written texts that eventually became the Christian Bible. More than merely a history of the documents, the renowned religious scholar Karen Armstrong shows how text and reader have influenced each other back forth over time and how successive generations bring their own meaning to this book. It may surprise some readers to learn that taking every word of the Bible as literally true is a radical and very new concept. Historically speaking, the faithful have seen the Bible as a site welcoming revelation, interpretation, and sparking endlessly renewable insights into the issues of the day, not as a factual, literal document with a single, narrowly defined meaning to any given passage. Armstrong is a fantastically knowledgeable writer and she sums up even the most esoteric religious debates in ways the reader can grasp and internalize, even a subject like the Arian Heresy is handled succinctly in a few pithy pages.
However, despite Armstrong’s lively, readable style and mastery of her field, she shines as a writer in the hopeful and understanding tone she strikes throughout the whole book. Yes, she seems to say, religious history and doctrine are difficult subjects and yes, religious interpretations are used to justify all sorts or atrocities, but that isn’t all there is. The author consistently points out a common vein of compassion and charity in this and other sacred texts and speculates optimistically on how these compassionate elements may eventually win the day against narrow-minded, hateful interpretations of scripture. Though I myself am a nonbeliever, this line of reasoning nevertheless gives me hope for a less hateful future on this planet where the majority of people are still religious to some degree.
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A small book but lots of food for thought. ( )

Armstrong is quickly becoming one of my favorite non-fiction authors. This is because, in addition to writing about interesting topics, she is a truly superb story teller. In this book, Armstrong weaves together history, the revelations of Biblical scholarship, and the Bible itself to form the story of the Bible's writing and canonization and the different ways it has been perceived throughout history.

At a high level, all of the content in this book is in textbook introductions to the Bible, but this book is a much more interesting read. It also has a different balance. Where textbooks focus on the origins and content of the Biblical texts and spend little time on the process of canonization and the subsequent history of the Bible, Armstrong spends time on all of those things. Overall, Armstrong's book was a quick, entertaining, and educational read. If you read only one book about the Bible, I recommend this one.

The limitation of Armstrong's style is that it does not allow for much detail. She limits herself to the most generally agreed on claims of Biblical scholarship and does not spend time discussing different theories or their merits. When there are legitimate differences of opinion within the scholarly community, she limits herself to the common kernel (e.g., when discussing books with a disputed date of composition, she limits her claims of composition date to a general period). To get those sorts of details, you are going to need a textbook.

One of the most useful things I got out of this book was the overview of Jewish thought, especially how it evolved after the Hebrew canon was closed. I think that people who have not been educated otherwise often assume that Jewish thought stopped after what was recorded in the Bible. I know that people who use the New Testament as their main reference on Jewish thought at the time of Jesus have an unfairly negative view of the Jews of the time. Learning a little about the actual history of Jewish thought shows how many of the tenants of Christianity which people now claim were novel innovations actually followed quite directly from the thoughts of the Jewish contemporaries of Jesus and his followers. ( )

This is a really excellent book that illuminates the history of the Bible, not in terms of what's in it, but in how it was read and interpreted by the generations of people that came before us. After reading this, I have a much better understanding of what the Bible is and how it was compiled, as well as a fresh perspective on how to read it and gain greater insight.

The only thing that really disappointed me is that I had to learn this from this book, rather than from the religious institutions that I attended growing up. Narrow-mindedness never solves anything. Understanding God and the world around us requires, at the least, knowledge of what others believe as well. ( )

I've always enjoyed Karen Armstrong's work on theology, be it Christianity, Judaism, Islam, or Buddhism. Her works on religion are always superb. And this is definitely no exception.

Despite taking me a while, which is no problem of hers, but typically mine, and making sure I understand it all, its a fascinating read and very thorough of the Bible. Though a bit light on how some books got added, or when, or why, this work does go into incredible details on how the Bible was constructed, and how its been used up until modernity (2006 is the last dated).

She breaks down the various ways the Bible, the Talmud, the Torah, etc, has been used, by the different groups and subsects of both Judaism and Christianity (think: all the denominations, all the different mysticisms like Kabbalah or Greek Orthodoxy).

I would have liked to see how and why some of the prophet's works were chosen, and who exactly made the choices, and I feel like this WAS covered but barely, and in the greater scheme of things gets overlooked/forgotten. Armstrong's work primarily covers the Pentateuch / Torah and covers the Gospels. Noting how they were written, why, and when.

She always does a great job of providing in-depth details that doesn't say "religion is fake" meanwhile not assuming its infallible and actually discusses how this or that should be interpreted as mythos rather than straight truth. (It does amaze me that in this day and age, you typically have only one viewing of the Bible by the religious - that its all literal, that there is no mythos, that the world was created in seven days, that Noah really did take two of every animal, that there was talking burning bushes, that God did walk through the Garden of Eden, etc.). ( )