Gods: A History of the Sacred traces humanity's great religious adventure from prehistory to the present day. From the spirits and ancestors of the Palaeolithic world to the gods of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, India, China, Africa, and pre-Columbian America; from the emergence of the one God in Israel to Christianity and Islam; from ancient temples to the new forms of sacredness that have arisen in modernity.
With a historical and anthropological perspective, and in a clear, engaging, and rigorous style, this book explores how different cultures have understood the divine, how they have represented it, how they have linked it to power, the body, death, and the order of the world, and how that experience has shaped the history of civilisation.
This is not a book of defence or attack. It is a book of understanding. Because to study the history of the sacred is also to study the deepest questions of the human being: fear, hope, justice, suffering, death, and the need for meaning.
The history of the gods is also the history of humanity standing before mystery.
INDEXIntroduction. Why Do Human Beings Create Gods?
PART I - THE BIRTH OF THE SACREDChapter 1. Before the Temples. Spirits, the Dead, and Invisible Forces
Chapter 2. When the Sky Became Power. Storm, Sun, Moon, Fertility
Chapter 3. From Village to Temple. Agriculture, City, and the Administration of the Divine
PART II - GODS AND CIVILISATIONChapter 4. Mesopotamia. Gods for a Fragile Humanity
Chapter 5. Egypt. Eternal Order and the Promise of Defeating Death
Chapter 6. Canaan, Phoenicia, and Israel. From the Storm God to the One God
Chapter 7. Persia. Fire, Truth, and Judgement: Zoroastrianism and the Moralisation of the Cosmos
Chapter 8. Greece. Gods with Human Faces
Chapter 9. Rome. Religion, Empire, and the Usefulness of Worship
Chapter 10. India. The Infinite Face of the Divine
Chapter 11. China and Japan. Heaven, Ancestors, and Harmony
Chapter 12. Africa. Vital Force, Mediation, and Presence
Chapter 13. Pre-Columbian America. Cosmos, Sacrifice, and Balance
PART III - WHAT THE GODS DO IN HUMAN LIFEChapter 14. Gods of Power. Kings, Cities, and Empires
Chapter 15. Gods of the Body and Fertility. Sex, Birth, Abundance, and Continuity
Chapter 16. Gods of War and Fear. Violence, Sacrifice, and Protection
Chapter 17. Gods of Death. Judgement, Shadow, Resurrection, and Immortality
Chapter 18. Gods of Knowledge and Meaning. Wisdom, Destiny, and the Order of the World
PART IV - FROM POLYTHEISM TO THE ONE GODChapter 19. The Invention of Universality. From Local Gods to the God of All
Chapter 20. Judaism. The God of Covenant, Law, and Memory
Chapter 21. Christianity. Incarnation, Salvation, and Universal Expansion
Chapter 22. Islam. The Radical Unity of God
PART V - THE ECLIPSE OF DIVINITYChapter 23. After the Gods. Secularisation, Disenchantment, and the Void
Chapter 24. The Invisible Gods of the Present. Nation, Progress, Market, Technology, and the Self
