God: An Anatomy
 | |
| Author | Francesca Stavrakopoulou |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Picador |
Publication date | September 16, 2021 |
| Publication place | United Kingdom |
| Media type | Print (hardcover and paperback), and audiobook |
| Pages | 608 |
| ISBN | 978-1509867332 |
| OCLC | 1240413353 |
God: An Anatomy is a 2021 nonfiction book by Francesca Stavrakopoulou which examines the physical descriptions of God throughout Biblical texts and ancient sources. Contrary to the modern portrayal of God as an invisible, incorporeal being, Stavrakopoulou argues that early worshippers envisioned Yahweh as a physically embodied, male deity.
Background and publication
[edit]The author is Professor of Hebrew Bible and Ancient Religion at the University of Exeter.[1] An atheist, she began studying the Bible because of its cultural significance.[2][3]
God: An Anatomy was published by Picador on September 16, 2021, in the UK,[4] and Alfred A. Knopf on January 25, 2022 in the US.[5] The book has been translated into Greek,[6] Italian,[7] and Croatian.[8]
Synopsis
[edit]God: An Anatomy catalogs the anthropomorphic references to God in the Bible, returning to the original languages of the texts for accuracy;[9] seeing the Bible as a "highly ideological and frequently unreliable portrayal of the past", it compares Biblical writing with other archaeological evidence and engages in comparative analysis with Near Eastern religions, as well as other writing on Yahweh.[10] The book traces how the biblical God was originally depicted as having a physical body with human characteristics, appetites, and behaviors, before gradually becoming more abstract and incorporeal through centuries of theological development:
Stripping away the theological veneer of centuries of Jewish and Christian piety, this book disentangles the biblical God from his scriptural and doctrinal fetters to reveal a deity wholly unlike the God worshipped by Jews and Christians today. The God revealed in this book is the deity as his ancient worshippers saw him: a supersized, muscle-bound, good-looking god, with supra-human powers, earthly passions, and a penchant for the fantastic and the monstrous.[11]
The book argues that the shift into viewing God as corporeal was due to the ideological interests of later scribes and theologians,[12] as well as the influence of Ancient Greek philosophical concepts, particularly those of Platonism, which emphasized the superiority of the immaterial over the material.[13]
Stavrakopoulou makes a case for Yahweh as a result of "pantheon reduction", instead of monotheism: That Yahweh was part of a pantheon headed by the god El who became prominent only in the first century AD, comparable and similar to other gods from the region, with similar characteristics like storm powers, warrior status, mountain dwelling, and—most significantly—intense physicality.[14][15] Though different faiths evolved, the book posits that mapping God’s body, and not the Bible, can provide clearer insight into the transformation of this deity.[16] Organised anatomically—feet and legs, genitals, torso, arms and hands, and head[17]—the book traces how these bodily depictions reflected ancient cultural values.
Critical Reception
[edit]The book was shortlisted for The Wolfson History Prize in 2022.[18] It won the PEN-Hessell Tiltman Prize that same year, judged as "revelatory and brilliant".[19]
The New York Review of Books praised the book's scholarly depth and rigor, as well Stavrakopoulou's examination of original language texts, but said that "Stavrakopoulou's forensic approach loses the poetic beauty of the scriptures", adding that Stavrakopoulu "rejects metaphor, allegory, and any other veil of mystery through which humankind has usually encountered and described the divine. But her method has its own delights."[20]
Karen Armstrong wrote in The New York Times that the book was "long, detailed and scrupulously researched,” its 21 chapters “packed with knowledge and insight.”[21] Kirkus Reviews wrote: "At times, the author’s rejection of allegorical interpretations of this God is unyielding...Nonetheless, Stavrakopoulou provides a refreshing look at ancient Scripture and the people behind it," concluding the book was, "A challenging, engaging work of scholarship that sheds new light on ancient Hebrew conceptions of the divine."[22]
Writing for The Church Times, Katherine Southwood found Stavrakopoulou's argumentation "intellectually penetrating, analytically robust, and sophisticated".[23] In Catholic Herald, Jack Miles wrote, "Boldly simple in concept, God: An Anatomy is stunning in its execution. It is a tour de force, a triumph, and I write this as one who disagrees with Stavrakopoulou on broad theoretical grounds and finds himself engaged with her in one narrow textual spat after another."[24] Miles's review was printed in the Los Angeles Review of Books.[25]
The scholar Carole Hillenbrand said, "It is a thought-provoking book and cannot fail to spark controversy."[26]
God: An Anatomy was listed among The Economist's best books of 2021.[27] The Times also listed it as one of the books of the year.[28]
References
[edit]- ^ "University of Exeter". experts.exeter.ac.uk. Retrieved 2025-05-06.
- ^ Kohls, Ryan (2023-08-25). "An Interview with Francesca Stavrakopoulou". WhatIWannaKnow.com. Retrieved 2025-05-08.
Even when I started my academic studies, when I did my first degree and then my master's and then my doctorate and even doing postdoctoral work, people always said, "But you're an atheist? Why would you be interested in the Bible?" It's like, "What? Why wouldn't I be interested in the Bible?" This collection of texts has shaped so much of our cultural assumptions and preferences and our cultural anxieties. And it just seems to me to be wrongheaded to think that an atheist wouldn't be interested in the Bible.
- ^ Stavrakopoulou, Francesca (2017-06-27). "Post". X (formerly Twitter).
The Bible is one of the most important and influential of ancient literary anthologies. I don't have to believe it to study it.
- ^ "God by Francesca Stavrakopoulou". www.panmacmillan.com. Retrieved 2025-05-09.
- ^ "God: An Anatomy by Francesca Stavrakopoulou: 9780525520450 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books". PenguinRandomhouse.com. Retrieved 2025-05-09.
- ^ Σταυρακοπούλου, Φραντσέσκα (2024). Θεός: Μια ανατομία [God: An Anatomy] (in Greek). Translated by Καράμπελας Θ., Γιώργος. Αλεξάνδρεια. ISBN 9786182230718.
- ^ Stavrakopoulou, Francesca. Anatomia di Dio [God: An Anatomy] (in Italian). Translated by Ambasciano, Leonardo. ISBN 9788833929750.
- ^ Stavrakopoulou, Francesca (2024). Anatomija Boga [God: An Anatomy] (in Croatian). Translated by Mlađenović, Sandra. Naklada OceanMore. ISBN 978-953-332-169-1.
- ^ Subin, Anna Della (2023-04-06). "A Body That's Divine". The New York Review of Books. Vol. 70, no. 6. ISSN 0028-7504. Retrieved 2025-05-06.
- ^ Stavrakopoulou, Francesca (2021). "Chapter One: Dissecting the Divine". God: An Anatomy. Alfred A. Knopf. p. 14. ISBN 9780525520450.
Non-biblical material can also flag the limitations of the Bible's portrayal of the past, warning us that it cannot be taken as a comprehensive or reliable 'record' of history. [...] To put it bluntly, the Hebrew Bible offers a highly ideological and frequently unreliable portrayal of the past. It is a story told from the perspective of pro-Jerusalem writers and editors, for it was the trauma of Judah's conquest in the sixth century BCE, and Jerusalem's gradual regeneration in the Persian era, that triggered the literary activities giving rise to the texts of the Hebrew Bible as we find them today.
- ^ Stavrakopoulou, Francesca (2021). "Prologue". God: An Anatomy. USA: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 9780525520450.
- ^ Stavrakopoulou, Francesca. God: An Anatomy. p. 12. ISBN 150986735X.
But none of these texts have reached us in their 'original' form. Instead, all were subject to creative and repeated revision, addition, emendation and editing across a number of generations, reflecting the shifting ideological interests of their curators, who regarded them as sacred writings. It is this long process of creative curation that has given narrative shape to the biblical story of God's relationship with 'Israel', the people in whom he takes a special interest.
- ^ Stavrakopoulou, Francesca (2022-01-01). God: An Anatomy. United States: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 978-0525520450.
But towards the close of the first millennium BCE, and into the early centuries of the Common Era, these [Ancient Greek] erudite philosophical ideas would gradually come to shape the thinking of certain Jewish and Christian intellectuals, so that they began to re-imagine their deity in increasingly incorporeal, immaterial terms, drawing ever-sharper distinctions between the heavenly and the earthly, the divine and the human, and the spiritual and the bodily. It is the broadly Platonic notion of the otherness and unlikeness of the divine to anything in or beyond the universe that has shaped the more formal theological constructions of God in the Western religious imagination.
- ^ Weatherbee, James (2022-01-01). "God: An Anatomy". Library Journal. Retrieved 2025-05-10.
In doing so, she presents a larger-than-life but all-too-human deity who rose from being a minor member of a large pantheon to being its sole and all-encompassing occupant.
- ^ Stavrakopoulou, Francesca (2022). "Chapter One: Dissecting the Divine". God: An Anatomy. Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 978-0525520450.
- ^ Williams, Rowan (2021-10-13). "When God was an alpha male". New Statesman. Retrieved 2025-05-06.
- ^ "God: An Anatomy". Kirkus Reviews. 2021-10-11.
Stavrakopoulou explores this God one part at a time: feet and legs, genitals, torso, arms and hands, and, finally, head.
- ^ "God: An Anatomy - The Wolfson History Prize shortlist 2022". The Wolfson History Prize. Retrieved 2025-05-06.
- ^ "Stavrakopoulou wins £2,000 PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize for 'revelatory' work God: An Anatomy". The Bookseller. Retrieved 2025-05-06.
- ^ Subin, Anna Della (2023-04-06). "A Body That's Divine". The New York Review of Books. Vol. 70, no. 6. ISSN 0028-7504. Retrieved 2025-05-06.
- ^ Armstrong, Karen (2022-01-25). "Piecing Together God's Body, From Head to Toe". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2025-05-06.
- ^ "God: An Anatomy". Kirkus Reviews. 2021-10-11. Retrieved 2025-05-11.
- ^ Southwood, Katherine (2022-04-02). "God: An anatomy by Francesca Stavrakopoulou". www.churchtimes.co.uk. Retrieved 2025-05-06.
- ^ Miles, Jack (2021-09-02). "Getting to grips with God - Catholic Herald". Retrieved 2025-05-06.
- ^ Miles, Jack (2022-01-12). "God's Body Up Close". Los Angeles Review of Books. Retrieved 2025-05-06.
- ^ Books, Five. "The Best History Books: the 2022 Wolfson Prize Shortlist". Five Books. Retrieved 2025-05-10.
- ^ "The best books of 2021". The Economist. ISSN 0013-0613. Retrieved 2025-05-06.
- ^ "The 37 best books of 2022". www.thetimes.com. 2022-10-28. Retrieved 2025-05-06.