The Bible is the bestselling book of all time. It has been venerated -or excoriated as God's
word but so far no one has read the Bible for what it is: humanity's diary chronicling our
ancestors' valiant attempts to cope with the trials and tribulations of life on Earth.In The
Good Book of Human Nature evolutionary anthropologist Carel van Schaik and historian Kai
Michel advance a new view of Homo sapiens' cultural evolution. The Bible they argue was
written to make sense of the single greatest change in history: the transition from egalitarian
hunter-gatherer to agricultural societies. Religion arose as a strategy to cope with the
unprecedented levels of epidemic disease violence inequality and injustice that confronted
us when we abandoned the bush and which still confront us today.Armed with the latest findings
from cognitive science evolutionary biology archeology and religious history van Schaik and
Michel take us on a journey through the Book of Books from the Garden of Eden all the way to
Golgotha. The Book of Genesis they reveal marked the emergence of private property one can no
longer take the fruit off any tree as one could before agriculture. The Torah as a whole is
the product of a surprisingly logical even scientific approach to society's problems. This
ground-breaking perspective allows van Schaik and Michel to coax unexpected secrets from the
familiar stories of Adam and Eve Cain and Able Abraham and Moses Jesus of Nazareth and Mary.
The Bible may have a dark side but in van Schaik and Michel's hands it proves to be a
hallmark of human indefatigability.Provocative and deeply original The Good Book of Human
Nature offers a radically new understanding of the Bible. It shows that the Bible is more than
just a pillar for religious belief: it is a pioneering attempt at scientific inquiry.
