God: A Brief History by John Bowker DK

God: A Brief History: Bowker, John

 

Title: God: A Brief History | ISBN : 978-0-7894-8050-7 | Author: John Bowker | Publisher: Dorling Kindersley, DK Publishing Inc. | Year: 1st edition (May 1, 2002) | ISBN-13 : 978-0789480507 | Pages: 404 | Language : English | file: pdf

God: A Brief History by John Bowker

Not just in words, but in art, dance, music and silence -- this book is the perfect overview for viewing divinity from every perspective. The history of God cannot possibly be told. How can you write the history of One who is outside time and space, and who has no beginning and no end? Nevertheless, the desire to understand and experience the divine is a fundamental human need. For billions of people, through many millennia, the quest to answer the basic questions of existence -- Why are we born? What will happen to us when we die? and how should we live out lives? -- has become a search for God. A Brief History of God explores the myriad ways in which humans have sought connection to the divine from the dawn of history to the present -- not just through religion and philosophy, but in art and literature, in music and dance, and in science.

Having already written a lushly illustrated overview of the beliefs and practices of the world's religions (World Religions, also from DK), Bowker turns his attention to God and produces a book chock-full of facts, stories, legends and illustrations about the ways that religious traditions have developed their beliefs in God. Bowker first examines the ideas of Nietzsche, Feuerbach, Freud and others to demonstrate that all individuals and societies grapple with the meaning of God. In roughly chronological order, Bowker surveys the history of belief in God in animistic religions, Hinduism, Buddhism, Chinese religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. He explores various aspects of this belief, such as the meaning of dharma, the concept of wisdom and the nature of pilgrimage. Yet Bowker's book contains numerous problems. First, he never explains what he means by God. Is God the same as the Sacred or the Divine? Without a clearer explanation, many of the religions that he examines—Buddhism, for example—cannot be said to have a God. Second, does God indeed have a history? That implies that God would have had a beginning and will have an end, which runs counter to the notion that God is eternal and ahistorical. Third, because he does not provide a clear definition of God, Bowker levels the differences among the world's religions so that it appears that the God of Judaism is the same as the God of Hinduism. At best, Bowker provides a superficial overview of the history of belief in God for the "religion lite" crowd.

SEJARAH TUHAN: KISAH PENCARIAN TUHAN YANG DILAKUKAN OLEH ORANG-ORANG YAHUDI, KRISTEN, DAN ISLAM SELAMA 4.000 TAHUN (PDF halaman lengkap FULL)

SEJARAH TUHAN by Karen Armstrong

 

Title: SEJARAH TUHAN: KISAH PENCARIAN TUHAN YANG DILAKUKAN OLEH ORANG-ORANG YAHUDI, KRISTEN, DAN ISLAM SELAMA 4.000 TAHUN | ISBN : 979-433-270-4 | Author: Karen Armstrong | Publisher: Penerbit Mizan, Bandung | Year: April 2001 | Translator : Zaimul Am | Editor : Yuliani Liputo | Pages: 693 | Language : Indonesia | file: pdf

SEJARAH TUHAN: KISAH PENCARIAN TUHAN YANG DILAKUKAN OLEH ORANG-ORANG YAHUDI, KRISTEN, DAN ISLAM SELAMA 4.000 TAHUN

"Sangat enak dibaca dan harus dibaca ... Karen Armstrong telah banyak membaca dan tidak melewatkan satu pun. Dia menyajikan pandangan paling solid tentang Tuhan yang dapat diuraikan dalam sebuah buku."

—Anthony Burgess, The Observer

 

"Dia menyegarkan pemahaman tentang apa yang sudah kita ketahui dan memberikan pengenalan yang jelas tentang yang tak kita ketahui ... 'Kerinduan,' kata Agustinus, 'membuat hati menjadi dalam.' Itulah tema yang mengalir di sepanjang buku yang lugas ini, beserta sebersit harapan yang mengakhirinya."

—Robert Runcie, Mantan Uskup Agung Canterbury

 

"Buku yang sangat menantang secara intelektual. Cara yang memesona dalam mendekati subjeknya."

—Rabi Julia Neuberger

 

"Brilian dan autoritatif ... Survei yang luar biasa, sejarah agama yang[sangat] kaleidoskopis ... menyeluruh, cerdas, dan sangat enak dibaca."

—Kirkus Reviews

 

"Selain banyak menyajikan sejarah agama, [Armstrong] jugamendiskusikan berbagai filosof, mistikus, dan pembaru yang terkaitdengan agama-agama itu ... Buku yang sangat bagus dan informatif."

—Library Journal

 

"Sejarah komparatif yang hebat dan menyeluruh ... tanpa takut-takut menyoroti landasan sosiopolitik bagi mengakar, berkembang, dan berubahnya agama-agama."

—Publishers Weekly

A History Of God The 4000 Year Quest Of Judaism Christianity And Islam

A History Of God The 4000 Year Quest Of Judaism Christianity And Islam

 

Title: A History Of God The 4000 Year Quest Of Judaism Christianity And Islam | ISBN : 9780345384560 | Author: Karen Armstrong | Publisher: Ballantine Books  | Year: 1994 | Pages: 219 | Language : English | file: pdf

A History Of God The 4000 Year Quest Of Judaism Christianity And Islam

About A History of God

Why does God exist? How have the three dominant monotheistic religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—shaped and altered the conception of God? How have these religions influenced each other? In this stunningly intelligent book, Karen Armstrong, one of Britain’s foremost commentators on religious affairs, traces the history of how men and women have perceived and experienced God, from the time of Abraham to the present. 

The epic story begins with the Jews’ gradual transformation of pagan idol worship in Babylon into true monotheism—a concept previously unknown in the world. Christianity and Islam both rose on the foundation of this revolutionary idea, but these religions refashioned ‘the One God’ to suit the social and political needs of their followers. From classical philosophy and medieval mysticism to the Reformation, Karen Armstrong performs the near miracle of distilling the intellectual history of monotheism into one superbly readable volume, destined to take its place as a classic.

Praise for History of God

“An admirable and impressive work of synthesis that will give insight and satisfaction to thousands of lay readers.”—The Washington Post Book World

“A brilliantly lucid, spendidly readable book. [Karen] Armstrong has a dazzling ability: she can take a long and complex subject and reduce it to the fundamentals, without oversimplifying.”—The Sunday Times (London)

“Absorbing . . . A lode of learning.”—Time

Islam in the Bible by Thomas McElwain

Islam in the Bible by Thomas McElwain

 

Title: ISLAM IN THE BIBLE | ISBN: - | Author: Thomas McElwain | language : English | Publisher: Adams & McElwain Publishers | Year: 1998 | Pages: 186 | file: pdf

Islam in the Bible

INTRODUCTION

Not only Judaism in its several varieties, but hundreds of different sects of Christianity all maintain that their beliefs and practices are based on the Bible. If so many different religions can be justified by the Bible, why not Islam?

Most of Christianity recognizes the authority of the Bible, containing the Hebrew and Greek writings. There is some discussion of what writings to include and to what degree they are authoritative, but in principle Christians recognize the Bible. All forms of Judaism recognize the Torah and the other writings of the Tanach, which makes up the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. Islam appeals primarily to the Holy Qur'an, but in principle accepts the Bible. In practice, Muslims reject the Bible on the assump­tion that it is corrupted from the original in order to make it accommodate to Christian teaching.

The problem arises when we compare the beliefs and practices of any particular religious group with the book it appeals to. Inevitably there is much selectivity and interpre­tation, but beyond this remains the bare fact that the book is never the sole source of belief and practice. Where would the Christian year of festivals, the liturgy and a multitude of beliefs and practices be if all had to be founded on the Bible? Many of them would sadly fall by the wayside.

The decoupling of books from actual belief and practice first struck me a few years ago when I noticed how the books relate to the day of worship. The Hebrew Scriptures obviously maintain the observance of the Sabbath or seventh day of the week. Jewish tradition quite consistently puts this in practice. The observance of Sunday is characteristic of Christianity. But there is very little justification for this in the Greek Scriptures, the so-called New Testament.

On the contrary, the Sabbath is men­tioned very often, sometimes quite favorably. I looked in the Qur'an to see how it dealt with the issue, and found that the Sabbath is maintained on a half-dozen occasions in the Qur'an as well. Friday prayer is also well established in the Qur'an, unlike Sunday in the New Testament, which can only be defended by doing violence to the text. But there is no Qur'anic justification for observing Friday as a special day from Thursday evening, as many Muslims do. We thus find the Sabbath to be a feature common to all of the sacred books. By contrast, the traditions vary on how they relate to the Sabbath, Judaism observing Saturday, Christianity Sunday, and Islam Friday.