God

Uncover the scandalous, corporeal origins of God in this groundbreaking and controversial journey through religious history.

Winner of The PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize

Shortlisted for The Wolfson History Prize

A The Times Book of the Year

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.

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. God: An Anatomy examines God's body, from his head to his hands, feet and genitals, showing how the Western idea of God developed. Exploring the places and artefacts that shaped our view of this singular God and the ancient religions and societies of the biblical world, Stavrakopoulou analyses not only the origins of our oldest monotheistic religions, but also the origins of Western culture.

Beautifully written, passionately argued and frequently controversial, God: An Anatomy is cultural history on a grand scale that will challenge everything you thought you knew about religion, civilization, and the divine.

'Rivetingly fresh and stunning' – Sunday Times