The Invention of God

The Invention of God
Author: Thomas Römer
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 316
Release: 2015-12-14
Genre: History
ISBN: 0674504976

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Who invented God? When, why, and where? Thomas Römer seeks to answer these questions about the deity of the great monotheisms—Yhwh, God, or Allah—by tracing Israelite beliefs and their context from the Bronze Age to the end of the Old Testament period in the third century BCE. That we can address such enigmatic questions at all may come as a surprise. But as Römer makes clear, a wealth of evidence allows us to piece together a reliable account of the origins and evolution of the god of Israel. Römer draws on a long tradition of historical, philological, and exegetical work and on recent discoveries in archaeology and epigraphy to locate the origins of Yhwh in the early Iron Age, when he emerged somewhere in Edom or in the northwest of the Arabian peninsula as a god of the wilderness and of storms and war. He became the sole god of Israel and Jerusalem in fits and starts as other gods, including the mother goddess Asherah, were gradually sidelined. But it was not until a major catastrophe—the destruction of Jerusalem and Judah—that Israelites came to worship Yhwh as the one god of all, creator of heaven and earth, who nevertheless proclaimed a special relationship with Judaism. A masterpiece of detective work and exposition by one of the world’s leading experts on the Hebrew Bible, The Invention of God casts a clear light on profoundly important questions that are too rarely asked, let alone answered.


The Invention of God
Language: en
Pages: 316
Authors: Thomas Römer
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2015-12-14 - Publisher: Harvard University Press

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Who invented God? When, why, and where? Thomas Römer seeks to answer these questions about the deity of the great monotheisms—Yhwh, God, or Allah—by tracin
The Invention of God
Language: en
Pages: 168
Authors: Bill Lauritzen
Categories: Religion
Type: BOOK - Published: 2011-01-15 - Publisher: Earth360.com

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How did mythology and religion first begin? Where did the ideas of “God,” “spirit” and “soul” come from? The author takes us to ancient times, showi
A History of God
Language: en
Pages: 0
Authors: Karen Armstrong
Categories: God
Type: BOOK - Published: 2004 - Publisher: Gramercy

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A study of the deity of the world's three dominant monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In a dynamic interplay between religion and society
Is God Just a Human Invention?
Language: en
Pages: 304
Authors: Sean McDowell
Categories: Religion
Type: BOOK - Published: 2011-03-24 - Publisher: Kregel Publications

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Sean McDowell and Jonathan Morrow have penned an accessible yet rigorous look at the arguments of the New Atheists. Writing from a distinctively Christian persp
And Man Created God
Language: en
Pages: 160
Authors: Robert Banks PhD
Categories: Religion
Type: BOOK - Published: 2011-04-06 - Publisher: Lion Books

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This book addresses one of the oldest questions posed to religious believers: if God made everything, who made God? Most recently levelled by the New Atheists,