The Bible: A Biography
Written by Karen Armstrong
Narrated by Josephine Bailey
4/5
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About this audiobook
In this seminal account, acclaimed historian Karen Armstrong discusses the conception, gestation, and life of history's most powerful book. Armstrong analyzes the social and political situation in which oral history turned into written scripture, how this all-pervasive scripture was collected into one work, and how it became accepted as Christianity's sacred text. She explores how scripture came to be read for information and how, in the nineteenth century, historical criticism of the Bible caused greater fear than Darwinism. The Bible is a brilliant, captivating book, crucial in an age of declining faith and rising fundamentalism.
Karen Armstrong
Karen Armstrong was born in Worcestershire. After becoming a nun in the 1960s, she left her order and lectured in literature at London University before becoming a full time writer, broadcaster and international adviser on religious and political affairs. She has addressed US Congress, the UN and Canadian parliament on Islam and fundamentalism. Among her other books is the bestselling ‘History of God’.
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Reviews for The Bible
58 ratings25 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Karen Armstrong is a great purveyor/interpreter/teacher of religious history and this book (an awe-inspiring task, to write a "biography" of the Bible in a couple hundred pages) is no exception. She concentrates on the liberality in methods of interpretation that were encouraged throughout history and (some might say) over-emphasizes that in an attempt to counter fundamentalist notions as the "real" interpretation. I will most likely be checking out other entries in this series of "Books That Changed the World." (And yes, I read the Large Print edition...ah, sweet bird of youth, you flew away so fast...)
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- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5I was disappointed. Although I am used to disagreeing with Karen Armstrong on matters of opinion, I have always before found that what she presents as her factual information is dependable. To present a history of how the Bible was written without any mention that scholars (even those working within a general academic historical-critical framework) disagree about many of the details is dishonest. As for her statement, 'Historical Criticism of the Bible makes it impossible for us to read the scriptures synchronistically any longer, linking passages widely separated in time,' (p 218) that night have seemed true ten years ago, but someone publishing a book in 2007, ought to at least be aware of post-modernist directions in Biblical Theology.
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- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Looking at the length of the book and the size of the type I though this might be a bit half-arsed, but it’s actually very good. I looked back at the end of chapter one and was amazed to see how much ground Armstrong had covered. Hardly a word wasted and still very readable. She can only hit the main beats of the story, of course, but as an introduction to the history of the Bible you could do a lot worse.Some of the information I’d come across before in scholarly Protestant and Jewish sources. I therefore conclude that these are her biases. She has to take a few shortcuts, saying so-and-so is such-a-thing, whereas her more technical sources will give it as one of several possibilities. However, she makes sensible choices, and importantly for an introduction, interesting ones. In a couple of places where I knew what she was talking about she has a way of looking at something that I had never considered.The notes function as a bibliography. She references lots of primary sources and a few books that look heavy and difficult, but I notice that she makes an effort to reference recent books intended for the general reader. Where I found I knew what she was talking about I had usually read it in Peake’s Commentary. If you’re looking for something more technical, try there.If you’re looking for a good introduction or just have a passing interest in the history of the Bible then Armstrong’s book could well be for you.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This volume is more approachable in my mind than was A History of God. In under 250 pages, Armstrong gives an overview of how the Bible as Scripture was assembled and interpreted over the course of two thousand years. What I found surprising was that this was less about assembling and translating the books of the Bible than it was about the paths taken in interpretation of the disparate documents that make up the Bible. She does seem to devote equal time to Christian and to Judaic interpretative tradition. For all that the book is short, it does require attention and (in my own case) note-taking in order to absorb the names and vocabulary Armstrong presents to the lay reader.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This 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. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I found it interesting, but brief.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I love how she writes. Definitely a high level biography but it gives a nice overview of the history of the Bible and how it became what we see today. It’s a shame that so many have taken the stories of the Bible and reduced them to historical events that often don’t coincide with archeology. It makes much more sense to read it as the authors intended and glean the allegorical truths that can be applied to our lives. I learned a lot from this book and look forward to delving deeper into some of the topics she mentions.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This is an essential read for anyone who wishes to understand the bible. It is very readable, "popular" even, but nevertheless quite scholarly. It will be bad news for those who wish to read the bible in a literal or fundamentalist manner, but good news for Christians who see the bible as a living entity, relevant to our lives in any century, to be interpreted by the community in the light of tradition - the world's "first interactve text", to borrow a phrase which she actually attributes to a Jewish commentary (p99).
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5‘Because scripture has become such an explosive issue, it is important to be clear what it is and what is not.’ So says Karen Armstrong in the introduction to her The Bible: The Biography. And she’s right—this is a very important question when it comes to knowing what to make of the Bible.The strength of Armstrong’s book is her insight into the way that the Bible was written and interpreted historically. Some of the interpretations that are nowadays common, such as new-earth creationism, were simply unheard of until around 150 years ago. The doctrine contained in the Bible is not so strong; it simply asserts, in a somewhat picturesque and poetic description, that God created the world, but does not necessarily teach that it was created in 7 days.Describing the way the Bible was written, Armstrong mentions two pivotal events that influenced the writers’ thoughts: the exile of the Jewish people in the Old Testament, and the destruction of the temple and Jerusalem by the Romans after the New Testament. These, she writes, ‘inspired an astonishing burst of creativity,’ among Israelite exiles and Christians respectively.The Messiah narrative of the Old Testament can thus be attributed to the longings of the exiles living in Babylon and Assyria. It was entirely natural that they would hope and long for rescue from their situation. The break with the temple system which is so sharp in Mark’s gospel is attributed to the ‘terror and anxiety’ of living in a time when the temple had been recently destroyed. This analysis of context gives real insight into the writers’ purpose for writing, and into the message they were trying to convey. This does not, I think, invalidate the writings but adds an explanatory factor to them.Armstrong’s book has its flaws, however. Her lack of focus on specific exegisis of Biblical texts may be the result of the surprising belief that the New Testament ‘was not interested in scientifically objective history’. In fact the gospel writers were very concerned with recounting an accurate history. Luke states his intention to ‘write an orderly account,’ at the very outset. Armstrong’s similar claim that the gospels are ambiguous as to whether Jesus claimed to be the Messiah is plain wrong (see, for example, Mark 14.61-62). This does cast doubt on the seriousness of her scrutiny of the gospels.In her conclusion, Armstrong urges people to interpret the Bible primarily through the lens of charity. This is laudable, and the Bible does indeed contain much about charity, but it reflects Armstrong’s disinclination to allow the Bible to speak for itself. Armstrong prefers to cast around for frameworks to impose on the text rather than letteing the text itself dictate themes. The Bible’s central claim is to reveal God, to explain who he is and to describe what he has done. It may be a mere invention, a notion that Armstrong’s book does much to support, but it is what the Bible claims to be.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This is one of Armstrong's weaker books although I liked it in most respects. She mamanges to, in my opinion, skip over completely, how the books of the Bible became "canon." Other works of hers are much more detailed and specific, but this work would be good for a general reader curious about the subject.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I was very dissapointed with this book, because it didn't give me what I was expecting. Billed as "The Biography", I expected a history of the bible; it's origins and how it developed into the book we have now. Unfortunately this book is subtley different. It covers not just the bible but the torah too and is a study of the development of these books, through their influence and interpretation over time. So we are given a very brief, at times incredibly sparse, narrative of how the the various books of the bible came to be. For example, there was little or no discussion on how the books of the new testament were chosen and why other gospels were left out. Also frustrating is that, what is said, is told as fact. There is no explanation of why this is the case, or perhaps alternative views. For example, on the development of the first books of the old testament, we are told they were written at a certain time and with different authors. Interesting, but no explanation of how we know this, no chance for the reader to challenge or assess the arguments and the evidence and from that understand more about the bible and how I should view and interpret it.That said what is written is fairly well paced, so that we (thankfully) don't dwell too long on any one area or theological cul-de-sac. One of the most interesting parts was at the end, discussing the impact and current status of the bibe. For example, when we are told that the current literal interpretation on the bilble in America means they are very keen on the creation of the state of Isreal as they believe it is foretold in Revelation and is a prequisite for the final struggle between good and evil. A fascinating insight helping to explain the current political situation.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Karen Armstrong is a great purveyor/interpreter/teacher of religious history and this book (an awe-inspiring task, to write a "biography" of the Bible in a couple hundred pages) is no exception. She concentrates on the liberality in methods of interpretation that were encouraged throughout history and (some might say) over-emphasizes that in an attempt to counter fundamentalist notions as the "real" interpretation. I will most likely be checking out other entries in this series of "Books That Changed the World." (And yes, I read the Large Print edition...ah, sweet bird of youth, you flew away so fast...)
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The story of how the Bible was written and compiled takes up just a fraction of the book. That fraction is far from dry, being interested less in explicating the significance of particular bits than in placing the broad elements of the Bible in their historical moments.The US title, 'The Bible: A Biography', is not only catchier, it also gives a better sense of what the book is: once it has told how the books of the Bible were written and assembled, it goes on with the process of canonisation (which happened over centuries, and was of course still being debated in Luther's time), and then the really interesting stuff: how the way they were read changed over the centuries – by Jews, Catholics, Orthodox Christians and Protestants. The Midrash and Talmud, the Platonists, the early Christian Fathers up to St Augustine, the mediaeval exegetes and the Kabbalists all brought different understandings of what the Bible was, and how it should be read, and what one was to make of its many inconsistencies. Then came the Protestant Reformation and capitalism, and Lurianic Kabbalah and tikkun olam, followed – in a chapter entitled 'Modernity' – by the Enlightenment, which brought Spinoza 'who studied the historical background and literary genres of the Bible with unprecedented objectivity' and was the forerunner of the German Higher Criticism, by the mystical reading of the Hasidim, and the extreme literalism of the fundamentalism that came into being in late 19th century USA, which, she says, was distorting the scriptural tradition it was trying to defend. And then there's post-Holocaust Judaic literalism which adopted the until-then secular ideology of Zionism.The blurb tells us Karen Armstrong was a religious sister briefly some decades ago, but you can't tell from this book whether she is still a Catholic or even a believer. But there's no hostility to religion. What does come through loud and strong is her antagonism to movements that hijack the Bible for political purposes, while disregarding the extraordinary richness of its history.There are dry stretches, potentially useful as orientation if one were to go on to further study, but skippable for the drive-by reader. On the whole, though, I found the book fascinating, for its immediate subject, but also – among other things – for the way it illustrates that reading, reading anything at all, is a tremendously complex act.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The first part of the book is best, where she goes into the history of the Bible. Also goes into the ways of studying the Bible in the second half of her book. Kind of loses her way in places, but a good first history for the Bible.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5¿Cómo se conformó este texto que llamamos la Biblia? ¿Cómo ha sido interpretado a lo largo de la historia? ¿Cúales han sido sus fuentes? ¿Por qué la elección de los libros que la conforman? Son algunas de las preguntas que Karen Armstrong contesta en este apasionante libro que invita a leer la biblia a la luz de todos los procesos históricos que la han configurado tal como es, antes que como una justificación para el odio.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Should be required reading for all literate citizens of a liberal western democracy.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Fascinating history of how the old and new testaments came to be written, how they became part of the "canon", and how they have been read and interpreted over the ages. Ms. Armstrong is of course a noted historian of religion; she is also a very gifted writer, who can make complex and at times highly technical material fascinating to the general reader.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This book is more or less a survey of the history of all the various components and possible authors of both the Old and New Testament, along with the various Jewish commentaries. I found it interesting, but now I'll need to go into some of these subjects in more depth.One set of ideas, however, was VERY interesting. Armstrong talks about the clash of religion and science that generated the Scopes trial for teaching the theory of evolution, and states that the literalist fervor with which some fundamentalist Christians endow the story of creation came as a reaction to this trial, and thus created a great divide in the United States that is very much in evidence today. Although Scopes lost, the ferocity of the prosecution (by William Jennings Bryan) and defense (by Clarence Darrow) caused people to adopt more radical, unbending positions than they had had before.She also talks about the American fundamentalist support of Israel as much less benign to Israel and Jews than it might appear. Some of the communities of faith believe that at the end of days, which the existence of the state of Israel precedes, 75% of all Jews will be slaughtered by the forces of the second coming.There and elsewhere in the history of the bible, the forces of polarization recapitulate the effects of the story of the Tower of Babel, and keep us from peace.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5As a biography of the Bible, this not only covers (quite briefly) how the book was put together, but also how it has been used and abused over the centuries. I am more interested in the composition so would have preferred this to be covered in more detail, but it was still a fascinating read to see how attitudes have changed. In particular, how utterly alien the modern idea is that parts of the Bible like the Genesis story could have been meant to be literally true.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Quite a useful discussion and history of how the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures came to be, as well as a look at the evolution of biblical scholarship and interpretation. As usual, Armstrong packs a lot of learning into a readable book.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This is an essential read for anyone who wishes to understand the bible. It is very readable, "popular" even, but nevertheless quite scholarly. It will be bad news for those who wish to read the bible in a literal or fundamentalist manner, but good news for Christians who see the bible as a living entity, relevant to our lives in any century, to be interpreted by the community in the light of tradition - the world's "first interactve text", to borrow a phrase which she actually attributes to a Jewish commentary (p99).
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5That the Holy Bible is one of the most influential books of all time is hardly up for debate. It has inspired actions, thoughts, ideas, research, invention…But the content of the Bible is not what interests Armstrong. Her focus is how people have read the Bible over the last several thousand years. Different groups have read it as allusion, allegory, fiction, or the inerrant word of God, and each has believes their way was the most correct and most holy. Armstrong does an excellent job of not passing judgment on any of the thinkers she considers, just of presenting the facts of how they decided (or were inspired or trained) to read scripture, laws, and gospels. It’s amazing to consider how important certain books were in earlier churches, and how little thought they are given now. You’re probably never going to read the Song of Songs in Sunday school, and yet many scholars and theologians believed that if you understood this book, you understood God. It could be read literally, spiritually, and allegorically—each reading helped the reader see more of God’s will. She examines the history of how the Bible was read, from when it was simply a set of scrolls and not yet the Pentateuch, to modern dispensationalists eagerly awaiting the Second Coming and Rapture.It’s not a bad idea to have a dictionary handy when reading. Armstrong uses many not-so-common terms, especially theological terms. Because she doesn’t waste a single phrase or sentence, there is a lack of context clues for figuring out the precise meaning.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The book seems to be making a very convincing case against literal interpretation of the Bible. It takes us through ages of its development, adding and deleting texts, their interpretation and re-interpretation; from its origins in the Torah, through the Old Testament, the New Testament, to the Christian Bible. One of its main points seems to be that the Bible was never meant to be read literally, as it contains both logos and mythos. Mythos is '...not intended to be factual.. it was concerned with meaning rather than historically accurate information, and described a religious experience.' Logos, or the reason, on the other hand, enables to translate those experiences into 'allegories of divine'. The whole Scripture depends on the balance between the mythos and the logos. Since nowadays we have come to depend more on the logos- scientific and rational reading, the fundamentalist reading of the Bible is trying to turn the mythos into the logos, and read the allegory literally.The book was somewhat interesting, but in the end it did not meet my expectations. Since it was labeled ‘a biography’, I was expecting much more about the origins of the texts and of what’s in them. Being non-religious, I have a rather hazy picture of the details and less known stories, constituting parts and where they came from. What the book gave me instead was a string of historical dates and monks or philosophers who have added and re-interpreted the texts. Not to mention that I was lost to the very end as to what really constituted the Bible. Overall, I have enjoyed other books by Armstrong more. I found them more informative and better written than this one.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In roughly 230 pages, Karen Armstrong provides a cogent overview of how the Jewish and Christian Scriptures were assembled, and how they have been viewed by leading Jewish and Christian thinkers since. Armstrong's explanation for how Christianity and Judaism were influenced by the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE tracks closely the explanation offered by Donald Akenson in his much longer, rambling 1998 book, Surpassing Wonder. Armstrong's book provides a memorable framework and will be a terrific jumping off point for further reading about specific figures.Beyond providing an overview of the history of biblical interpretation, Armstrong urges students of the Scriptures to practice charity - which she also terms loving kindness - towards other believers and nonbelievers. She argues convincingly that charity lies at the heart of the greatest interpreters in both the Jewish (Hillel) and the western Christian (Augustine) traditions. On the other hand, she largely ignores the competing trope of God as cosmic authority and order; I think the elevation of that idea over the notion of God as compassionate love accounts for the most damaging features of fundamentalism.I found the last chapter, Modernity, good but less compelling than the rest of the book. Part of this is a reflection of the broadening of Western civilization over the last 300 years; Armstrong is stuck hopping from one thinker to another, and several of the recent thinkers she cites seem more like samples than exemplars. But her account shifts in another key respect, also: she appears to see the horrors of the 20th century -- genocide, nuclear weapons, massive environmental destruction -- as existential threats to humanity, making charity in spiritual matters essential to human survival. That's a different take on worldly evils than she offers in discussing earlier events that seemed like the end of the world at the time: the destruction of the Second Temple; the Fall of Rome; the expulsion of Jews from Spain following the Reconquista. Those events triggered some responses of charity, but others of fear and narrowing of identity. The non-charitable reactions created further misery, but didn't wipe out the entire tradition. I strongly support Armstrong's call for charity, but whether one buys the final step of her argument, that charity is now necessary, seems to me to turn on whether one thinks the world's current potential catastrophes are qualitatively worse that those of the past; or larger and more terrible, but not existential.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I'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.).1 person found this helpful