Winner of The PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize Shortlisted for The Wolfson History Prize A The Times
Books of the Year A fascinating surprising and often controversial examination of the real
God of the Bible in all his bodily uncensored scandalous forms. 'One of the most remarkable
historians and communicators working today' - Dan Snow 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. But 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. The Bible has shaped ideas
about God and religion but also cultural preferences about human existence and experience our
concept of life and death attitude to sex and gender habits of eating and drinking the
understanding of history. Examining God's body from his head to his hands feet and genitals
she shows how the Western idea of God developed. She explores the places and artefacts that
shaped our view of this singular God and the ancient religions and societies of the biblical
world. And in doing so she 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. 'Rivetingly
fresh and stunning' - Sunday Times
