Francesca Stavrakopoulou

Pan Macmillan Publishing India Pvt Ltd

608

Paperback

English

1509867376

9781509867370

2022

1 piece

An Anatomy

44805

India Book Distributors (Bombay) Limited

India Book Distributors (Bombay) Limited

United Kingdom

Email: [email protected]
Customer Care Number: 1-800-208-8888

Three thousand years ago, in the lands we now call Israel and Palestine, a group of people worshipped a complex pantheon of deities, led by a father god called El. El had seventy children, who were gods in their own right. One of them was a minor storm deity, known as Yahweh. Yahweh had a body, a wife, offspring and colleagues. He fought monsters and mortals. He gorged on food and wine, wrote books, and took walks and naps. But he would become something far larger and far more abstract: the God of the great monotheistic religions. But as Professor Francesca Stavrakopoulou reveals, God’s cultural DNA stretches back centuries before the Bible was written, and persists in the tics and twitches of our own society, whether we are believers or not. The Bible has shaped ideas about God and religion, but also cultural preferences about human existence and experience; our concept of life and death; attitude to sex and gender; habits of eating and drinking; the understanding of history.Examining God’s body, from his head to his hands, feet and genitals, she shows how the Western idea of God developed. She explores the places and artefacts that shaped our view of this singular God and the ancient religions and societies of the biblical world. And in doing so she analyses not only the origins of our oldest monotheistic religions, but also the origins of Western culture.

Every effort is made to maintain accuracy of all information. However, actual product packaging and materials may contain more and/or different information. The colour of the product displayed in the image may differ from that received in the order.