God: A Human History

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER € The bestselling author of Zealot and host of Believer explores humanity€s quest to make sense of the divine in this concise and fascinating history of our understanding of God.
 
In Zealot, Reza Aslan replaced the staid, well-worn portrayal of Jesus of Nazareth with a startling new image of the man in all his contradictions. In his new book, Aslan takes on a subject even more immense: God, writ large.
 
In layered prose and with thoughtful, accessible scholarship, Aslan narrates the history of religion as a remarkably cohesive attempt to understand the divine by giving it human traits and emotions. According to Aslan, this innate desire to humanize God is hardwired in our brains, making it a central feature of nearly every religious tradition. As Aslan writes, €œWhether we are aware of it or not, and regardless of whether we€re believers or not, what the vast majority of us think about when we think about God is a divine version of ourselves.€
 
But this projection is not without consequences. We bestow upon God not just all that is good in human nature€"our compassion, our thirst for justice€"but all that is bad in it: our greed, our bigotry, our penchant for violence. All these qualities inform our religions, cultures, and governments.
 
More than just a history of our understanding of God, this book is an attempt to get to the root of this humanizing impulse in order to develop a more universal spirituality. Whether you believe in one God, many gods, or no god at all, God: A Human History will challenge the way you think about the divine and its role in our everyday lives.

Praise for God

€œTimely, riveting, enlightening and necessary.€€"HuffPost

€œTantalizing . . . Driven by [Reza] Aslan€s grace and curiosity, God . . . helps us pan out from our troubled times, while asking us to consider a more expansive view of the divine in contemporary life.€€"The Seattle Times

€œA fascinating exploration of the interaction of our humanity and God.€€"Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

€œ[Aslan€s] slim, yet ambitious book [is] the story of how humans have created God with a capital G, and it€s thoroughly mind-blowing.€€"Los Angeles Review of Books

€œAslan is a born storyteller, and there is much to enjoy in this intelligent survey.€€"San Francisco Chronicle