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' âEUR" 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
GodâEUR(TM)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 GodâEUR(TM)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' âEUR" Sunday Times
