Title: The Bible: A Biography
Author: Karen Armstrong
Year: 2007
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press
Pages: 302
Armstrong is a clear and agreeable writer, though I'd wish for more citations and, sometimes, explanatory material for readers less steeped in the Christian tradition.
Here, Armstrong's actual and central contribution is to encourage the reader to focus less on the content of sacred texts and more on the different ways of understanding these contents and the different ends that these ways of reading have served.
Armstrong reminds us that textual literalism is not an ancient tradition, but a more recent and "scientific" one. As she elaborates more thoroughly elsewhere, "truth" as we understand it (historical accuracy, and attempt at an objective perspective, documentary narrative) is different from the "truth" of many historical and sacred texts and biographies. I recommend her Buddha for an in-depth exploration of this idea.
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