Cameron Burkholder's Reviews > God: An Anatomy

This book is dense with information, and I do mean dense. It becomes immediately apparent that Stavrakopoulou is a subject matter expert in ancient near eastern culture and religion, and we get to benefit from her experience as each chapter serves as a semi-contained journey which meanders through a myriad of historical and cultural touchstones.

The central thesis of this book is the notion that the biblical writers understood God corporeally, just as their contemporaries had their own bodily deities. Personally, I found her establishment of this fact fairly convincing, even though some of her interpretations of biblical passages to that effect are less so. However, her polemical bent towards Christianity is readily apparent, and at least in some places it seems to result in the assertion of things not warranted by the evidence, at least in my view (even as a non Christian).

Otherwise, the book is incredibly well written, if not a bit too meandering at times. This book took forever for me to get through because I felt as though I had to stop and take notes every few pages. It was the literary equivalent of drinking from a firehose.

I would not recommend this book as an introductory text to those unacquainted with the Bible or biblical scholarship, but for those acquainted, it is an incredibly rewarding and informative journey.