• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

395 The Roman empire is divided into eastern and western empires, a move that is considered temporary but becomes permanent.

399 North African cleric-philosopher Augustine writes Confessions. Before his death in 430, Augustine also writes The City of God (426), which declares that empires like Rome are temporal and the only permanent community is the church. He also states that the purpose of a marriage is procreation. His views, more influential than those of anyone besides Paul, dominate church thinking for the next twelve hundred years.

431 The Council of Ephesus. Recognizing Mary as the Mother of God, the Council begins the spread of the cult of the Virgin.

610 In Arabia, the prophet Muhammad secretly begins a new religion, to be called Islam. Three years later, he starts to preach openly and is opposed by Mecca’s leaders, who oppose any change in traditional tribal customs. After Mohammed flees from Mecca to Yathrib (Medina)—a flight commemorated as the Hegira—a civil war begins. In 628, Mecca falls to Mohammed’s forces and the prophet writes letters to the world’s leaders explaining the principles of Islam. He returns to Mecca with the Quran (Koran) which means “recitation.” It says, “There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his messenger.”

Mohammed dies in 632, leaving behind an Islamic monotheism that will soon dominate the Near East and North Africa. His youngest daughter also dies that year, leaving two sons—Hasssan and Hussein—who found a dynasty that rules Egypt and North Africa for nearly three centuries.

638 Jerusalem falls to Islamic forces.

AFTERWORD

WHOSE GOD IS IT ANYWAY?

The Lord is a man of war. (Ex. 15:3 KJV)

The Lord is my shepherd. (Psalm 23:1)

“Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matt. 5:48)

The longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth, that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid?

—BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

I believe in one God and no more, and hope for happiness beyond this life. I believe in the equality of man; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow creatures happy.

—THOMAS PAINE

The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe?

—RALPH WALDO EMERSON

Religion…is the opium of the people.

—KARL MARX

I myself believe that the evidence of God lies primarily in inner personal experiences.

—WILLIAM JAMES

God is dead.

—FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE

I began this book by asking, “Whose Bible is it anyway?” That question was difficult enough. I end it with another question, a much tougher one: “Whose God is it anyway?”

Or perhaps it would be more appropriate to ask, “Which God is it?”

Is it the angry, jealous, temperamental, punishing Yahweh? The war God celebrated by Moses? The God who swept life off the face of the earth in the Flood, killed the firstborn of Egypt, helped conquer the people of Jericho and had them put to the sword, and silently accepted the sacrifice of Jephthah’s daughter? The God who took pleasure from the smell of burnt animal flesh?

Or is it the merciful, just, patient, forgiving God? The tender Shepherd of the Twenty-third Psalm? The hunky “lover” of Song of Solomon? The “perfect” Father of Jesus? And could they all possibly be the same God?

It would be very simple—having read all of these stories—to dismiss the Bible and its various images of God as an elaborate set of myths. All of these tales of arks, plagues, battles, burnt-out cities, and miracles might legitimately be viewed as little more than “Just-so stories,” as Robin Fox describes them in The Unauthorized Version. In Fox’s entertaining and provocative book about the Bible, “just-so” stories are tales that men create to explain away rainbows, or the name of a village, or the existence