God
An Anatomy
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God
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Narrated by:
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Francesca Stavrakopoulou
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Written by:
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Francesca Stavrakopoulou
About this listen
An astonishing and revelatory history that re-presents God as he was originally envisioned by ancient worshippers - with a distinctly male body, and with superhuman powers, earthly passions, and a penchant for the fantastic and monstrous.
"[A] rollicking journey through every aspect of Yahweh’s body, from top to bottom (yes, that too) and from inside out ... Ms. Stavrakopoulou has almost too much fun.” (The Economist)
The scholarship of theology and religion teaches us that the God of the Bible was without a body, only revealing himself in the Old Testament in words mysteriously uttered through his prophets, and in the New Testament in the body of Christ. The portrayal of God as corporeal and masculine is seen as merely metaphorical, figurative, or poetic. But, in this revelatory study, Francesca Stavrakopoulou presents a vividly corporeal image of God: a human-shaped deity who walks and talks and weeps and laughs, who eats, sleeps, feels, and breathes, and who is undeniably male.
Here is a portrait - arrived at through the author's close examination of and research into the Bible - of a god in ancient myths and rituals who was a product of a particular society, at a particular time, made in the image of the people who lived then, shaped by their own circumstances and experience of the world. From head to toe - and every part of the body in between - this is a god of stunning surprise and complexity, one we have never encountered before.
©2021 Francesca Stavrakopoulou (P)2021 Random House AudioYou may also enjoy...
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 15
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 10
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 37
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 32
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5 out of 5 stars
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Stuff I never heard when I was religious! Wow...
- By Amazon Customer on 2019-01-31
Written by: Bart D. Ehrman
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- Written by: Bart D. Ehrman
- Narrated by: John Bedford Lloyd, Bart D. Ehrman - preface
- Length: 12 hrs and 24 mins
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 53
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 44
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 44
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- Written by: Jerry A. Coyne
- Narrated by: Victor Bevine
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 42
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 38
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- Narrated by: Seth Andrews
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- Unabridged
-
Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 3
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 3
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Story3.5 out of 5 stars 3
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What the critics say
"A detailed and scrupulously researched book . . . [Stavrakopoulou] proceeds, in 21 chapters packed with knowledge and insight, to 'anatomize' the divinity from head to toe, starting with the 'standing stones' that marked the footsteps of deities in the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age and ending with images of God that enabled people to imagine that they were somehow communing with him 'face to face.'\"—Karen Armstrong, The New York Times
“Brilliant . . . Fascinating . . . Boldly simple in concept, God: An Anatomy is stunning in its execution. It is a tour de force, a triumph, and I write this as one who disagrees with Stavrakopoulou both on broad theoretical grounds and one who finds himself engaged with her in one narrow textual spat after another . . . Great fun to read . . . A stunning book.”—Jack Miles, Catholic Herald
“This book is a great rebel shout. . . [A] rollicking journey through every aspect of Yahweh’s body, from top to bottom (yes, that too) and from inside out . . . Ms. Stavrakopoulou has almost too much fun.”—The Economist
What listeners say about God
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Romeo
- 2024-11-13
an excellent plot and vast references to archeological sources. Most parallels are awesome
political attacks laynched by the author and mainly aimed at "patriarchy" somehow reduce the value of this great book. Feminism that reaches extreme points where the author loses common sense.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- David Henry McKay
- 2023-01-26
An extraordinary revelation.
I haven’t known a lot about the old testament except from the carefully curated Sunday school account. This book has been an extraordinary revelation on what was carefully omitted from that education.
For instance, the other day I learned that the god of the oldest books in the bible was El, who’s wife was Athirat and one of who’s sons was Yahweh. Later Yahweh worshipers decided that there’s was the only true god and scholars retconned the older mythology to say that El was Yahweh all along. The son became the father retroactively. Which was probably kinda controversial at the time.
Then just yesterday it clicked that this is exactly what was happening at the Council of Nicaea. Arius and his followers held that Jesus was the Son of God (Yahweh) and that he was made, new by his father. On the other hand the Nicene Creed, which triumphed, was intent on retconning Jesus the son to be the god himself, replacing Yahweh in exactly the same way centuries before Yahweh had replaced El, his father. The Council of Nicaea makes more sense in this context.
I suspect that many readers who were subjected to a very dishonest account of the Hebrew bible like I was will find over and over again that important details, background and context had been expurgated from their “education.” This is the overview that makes sense of a very messy and conflicted mythology.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Jamie Charles
- 2022-02-04
God's Beard And Other Musings
February 2022 | 4.5/5
Professor Stavrakopoulou examines how the Western idea of God came to be using her knowledge of ancient religions and deep examination of the Hebrew bible.
She shows how the ancient God had a human shaped body, walked and talked with his followers, laughed, cried, and loved his people.
A male god with bulging muscles, long hair, a well kept mustache and a luxurious beard, a long thick member with heavy testicles, reddish tinged skin, thonged sandles on feet, and perfumes on his skin. Look once and hes young and athletic with dark blueish hair, look again and he's aged and wise with white hair and beard. He has blood under his nails the faint impression of a tight band around his forehead.
The western God is a post biblical fable - an assembly of 2000 years of selected stories and books to create a God that lets cancer kill too young and hunger to run rampant across the globe. A god that has little in common with those created in his image.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Linda in Nepean, Canada
- 2023-07-19
Fascinating; Will relisten in future
This is a fascinating examination of the treatment of God's body in the Bible but it is also much more. With references to other written works, art, and general history, the author weaves a narrative that helps to explain how modern society's conceptions of God have been formed. I download all my audiobooks onto a small MP3 player so I can listen to them on my daily walks. Up until now, any audiobooks that I have finished have been removed to make space for others. This audiobook is going to permanently reside on my MP3 player as I plan to dip into it again and again in the hopes that I can clearly remember more of what I have heard. I will never look at a work of religious art or hear a bible story the same way again thanks to this well written and well narrated audiobook.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Emily
- 2022-05-01
The content is sometimes a challenging listen
I didn't realize how difficult parts of this would be to listen to. Other chapters were fascinating, but the section describing the Bibles use of gang rape as a metaphor was tough going
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- sparX
- 2024-02-07
Fascinating
Authoritative and informative . Entertaining and insightful. Simply Fascinating.
I will listen many times over and over again.
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