What do you think?
Rate this book
The Lost Art of Scripture: Rescuing the Sacred Texts
In this timely and important book, one of the world's leading commentators on religious affairs examines the lost art of Scripture as a medium to lift humanity and change our perception of reality while evading logical explanation.
Today the Quran is used by some to justify war and acts of terrorism, the Torah to deny Palestinians the right to live in the Land of Israel, and the Bible to condemn homosexuality and contraception.
The significance of Scripture--the holy texts at the centre of all religious traditions--may not be immediately obvious in our secular world but its misunderstanding is perhaps the root cause of most of today's controversies over religion. In this timely and important book, one of the world's leading commentators on religious affairs examines the meaning of Scripture.
Today holy texts are not only used selectively to underwrite sometimes arbitrary and subjective views: they are seen to prescribe ethical norms and codes of behaviour that are divinely ordained--they are believed to contain eternal truths. But as Karen Armstrong shows in this fascinating trawl through millennia of religious history, this peculiar reading of Scripture is a relatively recent, modern phenomenon--and in many ways, a reaction to a hostile secular world. For most of their history, the world's religious traditions have regarded these texts as tools for the individual to connect with the divine, to transcend their physical existence, and to experience a higher level of consciousness that helped them to engage with the world in more meaningful and compassionate ways.
Scripture was not a "truth" that had to be "believed." Armstrong argues that only if the world's religious faiths rediscover such an open and spiritual engagement with their holy texts can they curtail the arrogance, intolerance and violence that flows from a narrow reading of Scripture as truth.
Today the Quran is used by some to justify war and acts of terrorism, the Torah to deny Palestinians the right to live in the Land of Israel, and the Bible to condemn homosexuality and contraception.
The significance of Scripture--the holy texts at the centre of all religious traditions--may not be immediately obvious in our secular world but its misunderstanding is perhaps the root cause of most of today's controversies over religion. In this timely and important book, one of the world's leading commentators on religious affairs examines the meaning of Scripture.
Today holy texts are not only used selectively to underwrite sometimes arbitrary and subjective views: they are seen to prescribe ethical norms and codes of behaviour that are divinely ordained--they are believed to contain eternal truths. But as Karen Armstrong shows in this fascinating trawl through millennia of religious history, this peculiar reading of Scripture is a relatively recent, modern phenomenon--and in many ways, a reaction to a hostile secular world. For most of their history, the world's religious traditions have regarded these texts as tools for the individual to connect with the divine, to transcend their physical existence, and to experience a higher level of consciousness that helped them to engage with the world in more meaningful and compassionate ways.
Scripture was not a "truth" that had to be "believed." Armstrong argues that only if the world's religious faiths rediscover such an open and spiritual engagement with their holy texts can they curtail the arrogance, intolerance and violence that flows from a narrow reading of Scripture as truth.
624 pages, Hardcover
First published June 6, 2019
487 people are currently reading
4473 people want to read
About the author
Karen Armstrong
108 books3,399 followersKaren Armstrong is a British author and commentator of Irish Catholic descent known for her books on comparative religion. A former Roman Catholic religious sister, she went from a conservative to a more liberal and mystical Christian faith. She attended St Anne's College, Oxford, while in the convent and graduated in English. She left the convent in 1969. Her work focuses on commonalities of the major religions, such as the importance of compassion and the Golden Rule.
Armstrong received the US$100,000 TED Prize in February 2008. She used that occasion to call for the creation of a Charter for Compassion, which was unveiled the following year.
Armstrong received the US$100,000 TED Prize in February 2008. She used that occasion to call for the creation of a Charter for Compassion, which was unveiled the following year.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 164 reviews
June 18, 2020
This is a mishmash
The New Testament and Quran were routinely revised since ancient times and their message dramatically reinterpreted to meet the needs of the ever present. The art of scripture erased the past because the sacred text is known to be the Word of God, and it had to conform to the moral rules set in ancient times. Hence, Muslims are practicing the moral and social norms of ninth-century Arabian Desert, and the Quran and Hadith are used to justify acts of Jihad-terrorism as a religious duty. Muslim women deeply believe that God wants them to cover their head, and Christians use the Gospel of John 3:16 to recklessly convert others into the Christian faith. Force, coercion, savagery, and war was used to enforce Christian beliefs.
The take home message from this book is mixed; the author dwells on the role of myth, how it evolved, and why religions need it. She takes us back to very ancient times, about 40,000 years ago: Long before established religions came into existence to reconstruct the human faith systems. The author is known for her work on Abrahamic faiths, Old and New Testaments, and Islam. Her analysis of Hinduism covered mainly in one chapter; namely Chapter 2, falls too short for a good comparisons with religions of The Middle East. The author lacks a comprehensive competence in the vast field of Hinduism. The religious literature includes Vedas, Upanishads, the Epics, the Puranas, Bhagavad-Gita and the six Hindu philosophical systems that articulate this most ancient faith system. The earliest hymns of Rigveda are dated back to 1700 BCE.
The author’s work focuses on commonalities of religions and employs the need for compassion and often invoke political correctness. She is known to be overtly sympathetic to Muslims since they make the most demand from the Western societies to conform to Muslim sentiments and Islamic values.
The New Testament and Quran were routinely revised since ancient times and their message dramatically reinterpreted to meet the needs of the ever present. The art of scripture erased the past because the sacred text is known to be the Word of God, and it had to conform to the moral rules set in ancient times. Hence, Muslims are practicing the moral and social norms of ninth-century Arabian Desert, and the Quran and Hadith are used to justify acts of Jihad-terrorism as a religious duty. Muslim women deeply believe that God wants them to cover their head, and Christians use the Gospel of John 3:16 to recklessly convert others into the Christian faith. Force, coercion, savagery, and war was used to enforce Christian beliefs.
The take home message from this book is mixed; the author dwells on the role of myth, how it evolved, and why religions need it. She takes us back to very ancient times, about 40,000 years ago: Long before established religions came into existence to reconstruct the human faith systems. The author is known for her work on Abrahamic faiths, Old and New Testaments, and Islam. Her analysis of Hinduism covered mainly in one chapter; namely Chapter 2, falls too short for a good comparisons with religions of The Middle East. The author lacks a comprehensive competence in the vast field of Hinduism. The religious literature includes Vedas, Upanishads, the Epics, the Puranas, Bhagavad-Gita and the six Hindu philosophical systems that articulate this most ancient faith system. The earliest hymns of Rigveda are dated back to 1700 BCE.
The author’s work focuses on commonalities of religions and employs the need for compassion and often invoke political correctness. She is known to be overtly sympathetic to Muslims since they make the most demand from the Western societies to conform to Muslim sentiments and Islamic values.
December 4, 2019
This is a remarkable telling of the history of man's desire to commune with his creator, how it has been attempted or accomplished from early man to present day with the thread of left/right brain activity. This book is filled with historical information from the world's varied cultures and faiths.
Whether you are a scholar of any of the world's sacred texts or familiar with the history of worship in all its forms in varying cultures, this book has applications for today.
Highly recommend to anyone interested in the study of worship through the ages.
Library Loan
Whether you are a scholar of any of the world's sacred texts or familiar with the history of worship in all its forms in varying cultures, this book has applications for today.
Highly recommend to anyone interested in the study of worship through the ages.
Library Loan
January 16, 2022
Reading this book was like a throw back to my University days.
Mostly, is a comparative study of Eastern and Western religious traditions and the scriptures that evolved from their oral traditions.
It also touched on some of the similarities these traditions have. The one rule that does cross over in each religion is what is often referred to as the “Golden Rule”, “Don’t do something to someone that you would not want to have done to you”. Each religion and Holy Scripture phrases it differently.
Be up for some interesting facts while reading the book.
Mostly, is a comparative study of Eastern and Western religious traditions and the scriptures that evolved from their oral traditions.
It also touched on some of the similarities these traditions have. The one rule that does cross over in each religion is what is often referred to as the “Golden Rule”, “Don’t do something to someone that you would not want to have done to you”. Each religion and Holy Scripture phrases it differently.
Be up for some interesting facts while reading the book.
September 25, 2019
“In many ways, we seem to be losing the art of scripture in the modern world. Instead of reading it to achieve transformation, we use it to confirm our own views – ether that our religion is right and that of our enemies wrong, or, in the case of sceptics, that religion is unworthy of serious consideration. Too many believers and non-believers alike now read these sacred texts in a doggedly literal manner that is quite different from the more inventive and mystical approach of premodern spirituality.” You could skip to the epilogue and just read its ~30 pages instead of wading through the 400+ pages that precede it. All of Armstrong’s recent books make much the same points and use many of the same examples. Her frame of reference here includes Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism and Chinese religion (chiefly Confucianism).
August 10, 2019
Karen Armstrong is a profound thinker, writer, and historian. I felt like I understood about half of what she wrote, but that half was really worth the long read. My sense of her thesis is that to "rescue the sacred texts" we need to read them aloud and repeatedly, bringing them to bear on our present day histories. This far more of a right brain transformative experience than a left brain academic one.
January 11, 2020
Perhaps the most conspicuous thing about Karen Armstrong's new book The Lost Art of Scripture is that it is about twice as long as it needs to be. This is not really surprising. Most books are twice as long as they need to be. But this one is really, really twice as long as it needs to be. If an editor had required her to cut 50% of it before publication, it would have been a much stronger book.
And this does not mean that it is a weak book. It is not. It has a strong and compelling thesis and a lot of relevant support for the thesis, but it has a lot if irrelevant support for the thesis too, and that is why it is twice as long as it needs to be.
Armstrong's primary argument, if I understand it correctly, is that "scripture" is, like "poetry," "drama," or "teen paranormal romance," a specific art form (I would be tempted to say "genre") with expectations, conventions, and assumptions. Among the most important of these assumptions are: 1) scriptures are a way to approach a "true and ultimate reality"; 2) scriptures are designed to help people connect with said TaUR within specific historical and cultural contexts; and 3) scriptures are normally part of a whole package that includes myths and rituals and liturgies and other stuff that helps people connect with the divine; and, perhaps most importantly, scriptures are never "done," and canons are never closed, because, while the true and ultimate reality never changes, historical and cultural realities are constantly shifting, so the way to contact the one to the other must change to.
Scriptures, in other words, must always be updated and made relevant to new contexts. Canons are always evolving. We should never close the book and say "no more." But, she suggests, most Western religions have done just that. They have locked in a certain culture's ways of connecting to true and ultimate reality--Iron-age Levantine culture, say, or Early Roman Empire or Arabian-Peninsuala tribal culture. Because this is the context of the books we consider sacred, we have locked in something that should be fluid and created unchanging idols where there should be works in progress.
I am quite sympathetic to this argument and would like to have seen it made and supported more as an argument. But that is not quite what Armstrong does. Rather, she spends most of the book looking at the development of religion in the Ancient Near East, the Indus Valley, and the Chinese Empire. A lot of this information is fascinating, and, by the end of the book the reader will have a good idea of how each major region produced a line of religions with sacred texts. In China, Confucianism lead to Mohism, Taoism, Legalism, and Neo-Confucianism, each with its own sets of sacred texts. In India it was Vedic Hinduism, Upanishadic Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism. And in Mesopotamia it was Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, each of which went through classical, mystical, and Enlightenment phases.
The problem is that this is either way too much for a book making an argument about the genre conventions of the scriptures, and not nearly enough for a comprehensive survey of all of the world's major religions. And instead of focusing on the former, she often wanders off into general descriptions of the religions themselves that are too fragmented, and too cursory, to do justice to any of them. The result, I think, is a book that spends too little time doing what it should be doing and way too much time doing other things that it doesn't do very well.
All of that said, though, I do agree with Armstrong's thesis about the art of scripture and how we lost it. And I find enugh support for this assertion in the book to make it a valuable way to think about sacred texts.
And this does not mean that it is a weak book. It is not. It has a strong and compelling thesis and a lot of relevant support for the thesis, but it has a lot if irrelevant support for the thesis too, and that is why it is twice as long as it needs to be.
Armstrong's primary argument, if I understand it correctly, is that "scripture" is, like "poetry," "drama," or "teen paranormal romance," a specific art form (I would be tempted to say "genre") with expectations, conventions, and assumptions. Among the most important of these assumptions are: 1) scriptures are a way to approach a "true and ultimate reality"; 2) scriptures are designed to help people connect with said TaUR within specific historical and cultural contexts; and 3) scriptures are normally part of a whole package that includes myths and rituals and liturgies and other stuff that helps people connect with the divine; and, perhaps most importantly, scriptures are never "done," and canons are never closed, because, while the true and ultimate reality never changes, historical and cultural realities are constantly shifting, so the way to contact the one to the other must change to.
Scriptures, in other words, must always be updated and made relevant to new contexts. Canons are always evolving. We should never close the book and say "no more." But, she suggests, most Western religions have done just that. They have locked in a certain culture's ways of connecting to true and ultimate reality--Iron-age Levantine culture, say, or Early Roman Empire or Arabian-Peninsuala tribal culture. Because this is the context of the books we consider sacred, we have locked in something that should be fluid and created unchanging idols where there should be works in progress.
I am quite sympathetic to this argument and would like to have seen it made and supported more as an argument. But that is not quite what Armstrong does. Rather, she spends most of the book looking at the development of religion in the Ancient Near East, the Indus Valley, and the Chinese Empire. A lot of this information is fascinating, and, by the end of the book the reader will have a good idea of how each major region produced a line of religions with sacred texts. In China, Confucianism lead to Mohism, Taoism, Legalism, and Neo-Confucianism, each with its own sets of sacred texts. In India it was Vedic Hinduism, Upanishadic Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism. And in Mesopotamia it was Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, each of which went through classical, mystical, and Enlightenment phases.
The problem is that this is either way too much for a book making an argument about the genre conventions of the scriptures, and not nearly enough for a comprehensive survey of all of the world's major religions. And instead of focusing on the former, she often wanders off into general descriptions of the religions themselves that are too fragmented, and too cursory, to do justice to any of them. The result, I think, is a book that spends too little time doing what it should be doing and way too much time doing other things that it doesn't do very well.
All of that said, though, I do agree with Armstrong's thesis about the art of scripture and how we lost it. And I find enugh support for this assertion in the book to make it a valuable way to think about sacred texts.
January 4, 2020
I arrived here after watching Karen Armstrong talking about scripture on TV, on how its modern , narrow, and often misguided interpretation needs to be understood and redressed. Certainly, the first few pages set up this argument, but then the text seems to veer off on a tangent leaving that very argument behind and losing its grip on a clear and solid interpretation. There is some talk or neuroscience, but this comes down to the difference between the left and right brain hemispheres, which hardly clears anything up. It is a pity because I think there is a real discussion to be had, and having watched her talk, I believe she has a lot to say, but, unfortunately this book doesn’t really work for me.
February 18, 2021
No matter what you believe, this is one of the must-read books for everyone on this planet. Read it. Read it. & read it. That's what I have to say about this book.
November 12, 2023
The author uses the paradigms of all the world’s myths which call themselves religions today with their always malleable adjustments to describe the religion within their own terms. Their special pleading for their own religious truth is sublimated by their own specialness and the criteria they use to reject others is not applied to themselves. Jehovah Witnesses (JW) are rationally consistent when their own myths are accepted and their cultish behavior is never recognizable within the cult itself.
Each myth that became a religion presented in this book always seems reasonable and wise when presented using their own selective assertions. They are not. Confucianism tweaked by Taoism and then added to Legalism and then reformatted by Buddhism still retains mystical nonsense and is detached from reality. Go ahead use mindfulness from Buddhism but that doesn’t mean you have to pretend to believe the other nonsense. Armstrong seemed to have thought practicing mindfulness without the fiction was wrong.
The author did mention something about Islam saying it was okay to beat your wife, but in the section on Augustine she did not mention how St. Augustine gave advice on how men should make sure they beat their wife such that their bruises won’t be visible to others. Are we sure that we want to artfully re-interpret the religious text from our past and make them relevant for today?
Is our meaning and purpose best acquired from bigots from the past? Maimonides gives insights for today, but, in addition, he thinks menstruating women should be shunned and a thousand other superstitious things. I like Maimonides as much or more than the next person and I clearly see how St. Thomas Aquinas incorporates him in his “Summa Theologica” and understand why he similarly thinks that God’s essence is his existence, but the art-of-scripture means ignoring the absurdities and the assertions with no foundation to believe the indefensible.
Ockham’s nominalism ends the nonsense and makes the substance irrelevant. As I was reading this book, another book mentioned to me that Anslem’s God is a thing (defn.: God is a being that no greater can be conceived). Ockham with his nominalism takes away the universal truth while bringing reality back to the world. Armstrong mentions these thinkers in this book, but never steps out of their own paradigm and keeps their myths as they believed them as part of the art-of-scripture, and never manages to see the logical conclusion that nominalism would lead to or how Aquinas opened the door for reason preceding faith and in turn leads to science that ignores pretending to believe in things that aren't true.
The author surprised me by her lack of psychological, philosophical, or historical expertise, but clearly, she is an expert on religious texts. Her synopsis of the Reformation(s) and the Enlightenment was surprisingly superficial, and her application of left/right brain metaphor is mostly muddled (btw, ‘The Master and His Emissary’ was my favorite book of 2019 and I’m not adverse to the metaphor that the author tries to use).
She ended her story by going through Thomas Mann’s “Joseph and His Brethren,” a book I would recommend as one of the best commentaries on Genesis which sees the myths for what they are.
Myths are made up stories which tell us something about ourselves and are worthwhile for that reason alone, and become dangerous when they turn non-believers of their favorite myths into the other; myth believers divide us and separate us into the other, because I don’t believe your mumbo jumbo you say I am going to eternal damnation or such nonsense, that is a chasm that I cannot cross.
“The Baghdad Gita” has its main theme as ‘know thy place, and be glad of it,’ and she doesn’t say that when she describes the book. Telling others to know their own place and not improve themselves is a dangerous belief system.
Just because people at one time believe the myths were historical doesn’t make them anything more than nice stories with sometimes good moral lessons and more often awful moral lessons (go ahead enslave others if you don’t beat them such that in two days they will die, or feel free to beat your wife), and if we're lucky the myths give us some understanding to our purpose and meaning in life, but they are always best seen as fairy-tales for adults.
The book suffers from its approach of making a literary criticism across history of mythic traditions that have become religious faith systems of today and re-contextualizing the religious system when it started to take their myths too seriously. JW is a dangerous life-draining cult regardless of how effectively they argue using their own premises, and all myths are meaningful but become dangerous when taken seriously and get reformatted by the art-of-scripture. Nietzsche, who of course is mentioned in this book, would say one should never outsource their truth to others and that nihilists are the ones who do that.
Each myth that became a religion presented in this book always seems reasonable and wise when presented using their own selective assertions. They are not. Confucianism tweaked by Taoism and then added to Legalism and then reformatted by Buddhism still retains mystical nonsense and is detached from reality. Go ahead use mindfulness from Buddhism but that doesn’t mean you have to pretend to believe the other nonsense. Armstrong seemed to have thought practicing mindfulness without the fiction was wrong.
The author did mention something about Islam saying it was okay to beat your wife, but in the section on Augustine she did not mention how St. Augustine gave advice on how men should make sure they beat their wife such that their bruises won’t be visible to others. Are we sure that we want to artfully re-interpret the religious text from our past and make them relevant for today?
Is our meaning and purpose best acquired from bigots from the past? Maimonides gives insights for today, but, in addition, he thinks menstruating women should be shunned and a thousand other superstitious things. I like Maimonides as much or more than the next person and I clearly see how St. Thomas Aquinas incorporates him in his “Summa Theologica” and understand why he similarly thinks that God’s essence is his existence, but the art-of-scripture means ignoring the absurdities and the assertions with no foundation to believe the indefensible.
Ockham’s nominalism ends the nonsense and makes the substance irrelevant. As I was reading this book, another book mentioned to me that Anslem’s God is a thing (defn.: God is a being that no greater can be conceived). Ockham with his nominalism takes away the universal truth while bringing reality back to the world. Armstrong mentions these thinkers in this book, but never steps out of their own paradigm and keeps their myths as they believed them as part of the art-of-scripture, and never manages to see the logical conclusion that nominalism would lead to or how Aquinas opened the door for reason preceding faith and in turn leads to science that ignores pretending to believe in things that aren't true.
The author surprised me by her lack of psychological, philosophical, or historical expertise, but clearly, she is an expert on religious texts. Her synopsis of the Reformation(s) and the Enlightenment was surprisingly superficial, and her application of left/right brain metaphor is mostly muddled (btw, ‘The Master and His Emissary’ was my favorite book of 2019 and I’m not adverse to the metaphor that the author tries to use).
She ended her story by going through Thomas Mann’s “Joseph and His Brethren,” a book I would recommend as one of the best commentaries on Genesis which sees the myths for what they are.
Myths are made up stories which tell us something about ourselves and are worthwhile for that reason alone, and become dangerous when they turn non-believers of their favorite myths into the other; myth believers divide us and separate us into the other, because I don’t believe your mumbo jumbo you say I am going to eternal damnation or such nonsense, that is a chasm that I cannot cross.
“The Baghdad Gita” has its main theme as ‘know thy place, and be glad of it,’ and she doesn’t say that when she describes the book. Telling others to know their own place and not improve themselves is a dangerous belief system.
Just because people at one time believe the myths were historical doesn’t make them anything more than nice stories with sometimes good moral lessons and more often awful moral lessons (go ahead enslave others if you don’t beat them such that in two days they will die, or feel free to beat your wife), and if we're lucky the myths give us some understanding to our purpose and meaning in life, but they are always best seen as fairy-tales for adults.
The book suffers from its approach of making a literary criticism across history of mythic traditions that have become religious faith systems of today and re-contextualizing the religious system when it started to take their myths too seriously. JW is a dangerous life-draining cult regardless of how effectively they argue using their own premises, and all myths are meaningful but become dangerous when taken seriously and get reformatted by the art-of-scripture. Nietzsche, who of course is mentioned in this book, would say one should never outsource their truth to others and that nihilists are the ones who do that.
January 30, 2020
Karen Armstrong, for those unfamiliar with her work, is a former nun and British writer who has written extensively on religion and religious themes. I've read and learned a lot from a few of her many books, including A History of God, to which this current book seems almost a sequel. Armstrong, who is 75, is now an ambassador for the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations.
The Lost Art of Scripture could almost serve as a textbook for a course in comparative religions. In it, Armstong takes us on a tour of the scriptural foundations of most of the major religious thought of humans. It is a fascinating and lengthy (more than 600 pages) journey.
We visit India for the origin of the Vedas. And we revisit to pick up on variations of Hindu texts and the evolution of Jainist thought and of the beginnings of Sikhism. It is a rich and wide-ranging history that could fill - and has filled - many books by itself.
Then we see the beginnings of Buddhism. The Buddha never wrote a text and so it was left to others to gather and record his philosophy as expounded in his teachings to disciples. China was the origin of much philosophy that could be termed religious, although the Confucian and Taoist texts that are most familiar to us are not about a "God" in the Western sense; instead, they are guides about how to live a good and compassionate life. They emphasize the idea that we are to revere all life and to treat others as we would ourselves wish to be treated.
And here, Armstrong does not stop with what we might normally think of as religious texts or scripture. She includes the Greek philosophers and the ancient plays which also are instructions about living moral lives. She makes the argument throughout that God, or if you prefer right thought and righteous living, is revealed in poetry, music, love, sex, as well as religion. It is revealed perhaps most clearly in Nature itself.
A major portion of her book deals with the origins of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam and their scriptures. She traces the development of the Hebrew Bible and makes the point that scripture was not meant to be read "with eyes passing swiftly over a written page." Instead, it was to be read or recited out loud, often with rituals that included music and body movements. In this way, the words would be imprinted upon one's heart and mind and remembered.
The beginnings of Christian scripture can fairly be traced to St. Paul and his various letters to Christian communities, although scholars believe that some of the writings attributed to him were actually written by others, including some of the most misogynist passages that continue to be used by conservatives to justify the subjugation of women.
The contradictions in the accounts in the earliest Christian texts regarding the life of Jesus are many. A comparison of the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, is revelatory. For example, the oldest of the Gospels, Mark, does not mention the Virgin Birth or the Resurrection, curious omissions to say the least. But, of course, such contradictions are replete throughout the scriptures, including various versions of the Ten Commandments that are found in the Hebrew texts. Armstrong makes the case throughout that scripture is not to be taken literally. The reader should adopt the more inventive and mystical approach of premodern spirituality. It is wrong to try to fit it into the confines of scientific discovery or historical facts. Religion and scripture should be approached as an art form, an invention of the human mind, just like music or painting or poetry. As such, understanding of it evolves over time.
The understanding of Islam and its scripture, the Quran, have evolved over time. The origins of Islam emphasize compassion and justice and its bedrock gospel is that it is wrong to build a private fortune for one's own benefit; one should share one's wealth to create a society in which the poor and vulnerable are treated with respect. This is still the faith espoused by millions around the world, but, unfortunately, a few militant passages from the Quran, written at a time when the new faith was under attack and surrounded by enemies, are taken out of context by Muslim extremists as well as by Christian fundamentalists who despise them in order to transform Islam (which at its root means submission to God) into an excuse for violence and hatred.
Christianity has seen a similar evolution through the Protestant Reformation, right down to the premillennialists of today who look forward to the Rapture and being able to sit on a cloud and look down to gloat at the suffering of those left behind. It all, perhaps, harkens back to the beginnings of the Hebrew Bible which has their God repeatedly ordering genocides or, as in the Noah story, committing genocides. One would do well to once again recall Armstrong's reminder that the scriptures are an art form that expresses "the complexity of the human dilemma" and are not to be taken literally.
I have barely scratched the surface of the material that Armstrong covers in her book, including many references to poetry and secular literature which might be taken as adjuncts to sacred scripture. It is an admirable compendium of religious thought through the ages. The narrative slowed to a crawl at times as she emphasized or sought to explain a point and I admit my eyes glazed over at times, but, on the whole, it is a very readable account for a skeptical layperson such as myself.
The Lost Art of Scripture could almost serve as a textbook for a course in comparative religions. In it, Armstong takes us on a tour of the scriptural foundations of most of the major religious thought of humans. It is a fascinating and lengthy (more than 600 pages) journey.
We visit India for the origin of the Vedas. And we revisit to pick up on variations of Hindu texts and the evolution of Jainist thought and of the beginnings of Sikhism. It is a rich and wide-ranging history that could fill - and has filled - many books by itself.
Then we see the beginnings of Buddhism. The Buddha never wrote a text and so it was left to others to gather and record his philosophy as expounded in his teachings to disciples. China was the origin of much philosophy that could be termed religious, although the Confucian and Taoist texts that are most familiar to us are not about a "God" in the Western sense; instead, they are guides about how to live a good and compassionate life. They emphasize the idea that we are to revere all life and to treat others as we would ourselves wish to be treated.
And here, Armstrong does not stop with what we might normally think of as religious texts or scripture. She includes the Greek philosophers and the ancient plays which also are instructions about living moral lives. She makes the argument throughout that God, or if you prefer right thought and righteous living, is revealed in poetry, music, love, sex, as well as religion. It is revealed perhaps most clearly in Nature itself.
A major portion of her book deals with the origins of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam and their scriptures. She traces the development of the Hebrew Bible and makes the point that scripture was not meant to be read "with eyes passing swiftly over a written page." Instead, it was to be read or recited out loud, often with rituals that included music and body movements. In this way, the words would be imprinted upon one's heart and mind and remembered.
The beginnings of Christian scripture can fairly be traced to St. Paul and his various letters to Christian communities, although scholars believe that some of the writings attributed to him were actually written by others, including some of the most misogynist passages that continue to be used by conservatives to justify the subjugation of women.
The contradictions in the accounts in the earliest Christian texts regarding the life of Jesus are many. A comparison of the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, is revelatory. For example, the oldest of the Gospels, Mark, does not mention the Virgin Birth or the Resurrection, curious omissions to say the least. But, of course, such contradictions are replete throughout the scriptures, including various versions of the Ten Commandments that are found in the Hebrew texts. Armstrong makes the case throughout that scripture is not to be taken literally. The reader should adopt the more inventive and mystical approach of premodern spirituality. It is wrong to try to fit it into the confines of scientific discovery or historical facts. Religion and scripture should be approached as an art form, an invention of the human mind, just like music or painting or poetry. As such, understanding of it evolves over time.
The understanding of Islam and its scripture, the Quran, have evolved over time. The origins of Islam emphasize compassion and justice and its bedrock gospel is that it is wrong to build a private fortune for one's own benefit; one should share one's wealth to create a society in which the poor and vulnerable are treated with respect. This is still the faith espoused by millions around the world, but, unfortunately, a few militant passages from the Quran, written at a time when the new faith was under attack and surrounded by enemies, are taken out of context by Muslim extremists as well as by Christian fundamentalists who despise them in order to transform Islam (which at its root means submission to God) into an excuse for violence and hatred.
Christianity has seen a similar evolution through the Protestant Reformation, right down to the premillennialists of today who look forward to the Rapture and being able to sit on a cloud and look down to gloat at the suffering of those left behind. It all, perhaps, harkens back to the beginnings of the Hebrew Bible which has their God repeatedly ordering genocides or, as in the Noah story, committing genocides. One would do well to once again recall Armstrong's reminder that the scriptures are an art form that expresses "the complexity of the human dilemma" and are not to be taken literally.
I have barely scratched the surface of the material that Armstrong covers in her book, including many references to poetry and secular literature which might be taken as adjuncts to sacred scripture. It is an admirable compendium of religious thought through the ages. The narrative slowed to a crawl at times as she emphasized or sought to explain a point and I admit my eyes glazed over at times, but, on the whole, it is a very readable account for a skeptical layperson such as myself.
August 2, 2022
I finally gave up on this book on page 269. It felt like I was getting diminishing returns for the time spent with it and I have plenty of other books I want to read. In fact, I have immediately begun a new book, Mysticism by Evelyn Underhill, and am relieved to find it is well written and free of the elements I had begun to find repugnant in The Lost Art of Scripture.
So, what is wrong with the Armstrong volume? I have little time, so I will have to be succinct, if I can. I have previously read Fields of Blood by Armstrong, which I enjoyed with some reservations. I liked the title of the current volume and had a favourable enough impression of Armstrong to begin it. However, after a while I began to get the uncanny feeling that I was reading the same book as before. As with Fields of Blood, this began with a supposed misconception about religion, went back to the dawn of civilisation, found counter-examples in one culture, then another, then another, came forward a bit, repeated the pattern, came forward a bit, repeated the pattern, etc. With one book, one can be impressed with a certain panorama and breadth of the author's reading. Seeing the pattern again, one begins to suspect it's a template used by someone not inspired enough to write in any other way. The only difference is that in one book the misconception to be addressed is that there is something particular about religion that makes people violent and in the other the misconception is that scripture is to be read for some kind of literal meaning as a sort of user's manual for life. I was rather hoping, in this second book, for some actual depth in guiding the reader in acquiring the "lost art" of the title, but there is little of that.
On top of this, I began to find the repeated sloganeering about letting go of the ego and the rather crude message that left-brain = bad, right-brain = good, deeply irritating. These are merely fashionable positions and little is done either to illuminate or to substantiate them. At one point, to give an example of this kind of annoying, sermonising vagueness, the author says that there is no mind-body divide in the Chinese tradition. Oh really? No disembodied ghosts in China? I doubt very much the author has given any thought to what the mind-body divide really is and what are its alternatives. All of this, I have to say, I find symptomatic of the decline in contemporary education.
The end result is a sort of collage of interesting facts assembled without much apparent thought to flow, effect and argument, and interspersed with vague and sanctimonious reminders to let go of your ego by someone who has clearly never stopped to ask what an ego even is.
What a contrast with Underhill, whose book I have just begun! Underhill's prose actually flows! It is free of fashionable buzz-words that disguise a lack of thought. It shows the development, indeed, of sustained thought. And this in a work about mysticism, supposedly a matter of great intangibility. (And tellingly, a few pages in, Underhill says that in our search for knowledge we must start with the ego. No fashionable ego-rejection here.)
But I must say one or two positive things about this work. I do at least appreciate the attempt to address a misconception. I found the sections on midrash fascinating. I have been very much galvanised by it into bumping the work of Mozi up my reading list. Etc. In fact, I think I can say that the best thing about this book is the extensive bibliography. There are some fascinating works referenced here. So, as I think I said about Fields of Blood, too, this can be treated as a fingerpost pointing to interesting things.
So, what is wrong with the Armstrong volume? I have little time, so I will have to be succinct, if I can. I have previously read Fields of Blood by Armstrong, which I enjoyed with some reservations. I liked the title of the current volume and had a favourable enough impression of Armstrong to begin it. However, after a while I began to get the uncanny feeling that I was reading the same book as before. As with Fields of Blood, this began with a supposed misconception about religion, went back to the dawn of civilisation, found counter-examples in one culture, then another, then another, came forward a bit, repeated the pattern, came forward a bit, repeated the pattern, etc. With one book, one can be impressed with a certain panorama and breadth of the author's reading. Seeing the pattern again, one begins to suspect it's a template used by someone not inspired enough to write in any other way. The only difference is that in one book the misconception to be addressed is that there is something particular about religion that makes people violent and in the other the misconception is that scripture is to be read for some kind of literal meaning as a sort of user's manual for life. I was rather hoping, in this second book, for some actual depth in guiding the reader in acquiring the "lost art" of the title, but there is little of that.
On top of this, I began to find the repeated sloganeering about letting go of the ego and the rather crude message that left-brain = bad, right-brain = good, deeply irritating. These are merely fashionable positions and little is done either to illuminate or to substantiate them. At one point, to give an example of this kind of annoying, sermonising vagueness, the author says that there is no mind-body divide in the Chinese tradition. Oh really? No disembodied ghosts in China? I doubt very much the author has given any thought to what the mind-body divide really is and what are its alternatives. All of this, I have to say, I find symptomatic of the decline in contemporary education.
The end result is a sort of collage of interesting facts assembled without much apparent thought to flow, effect and argument, and interspersed with vague and sanctimonious reminders to let go of your ego by someone who has clearly never stopped to ask what an ego even is.
What a contrast with Underhill, whose book I have just begun! Underhill's prose actually flows! It is free of fashionable buzz-words that disguise a lack of thought. It shows the development, indeed, of sustained thought. And this in a work about mysticism, supposedly a matter of great intangibility. (And tellingly, a few pages in, Underhill says that in our search for knowledge we must start with the ego. No fashionable ego-rejection here.)
But I must say one or two positive things about this work. I do at least appreciate the attempt to address a misconception. I found the sections on midrash fascinating. I have been very much galvanised by it into bumping the work of Mozi up my reading list. Etc. In fact, I think I can say that the best thing about this book is the extensive bibliography. There are some fascinating works referenced here. So, as I think I said about Fields of Blood, too, this can be treated as a fingerpost pointing to interesting things.
April 14, 2020
It is always a pleasure to read Karen Armstrong - her clear prose and balance between scholarship and general interest. I was particularly appreciative of how she used Iain McGilchrist's thesis to structure this work (from The Master and His Emissary on neuroscience and the roles of the linear and literal left brain and the holistic right brain).
"There is no specific ‘God-spot’ in the human brain that yields a sense of the sacred. But in recent decades, neurologists have discovered that the right hemisphere of the brain is essential to the creation of poetry, music and religion. It is involved with the formation of our sense of self and has a broader, less focused mode of attention than the left hemisphere which is more pragmatic and selective. Above all, it sees itself as connected to the outside world, whereas the left hemisphere holds aloof from it. Specialising in language, analysis and problem-solving, the left side of our brain suppresses information that it cannot grasp conceptually. The right hemisphere, however, whose functions tended in the past to be overlooked by scientists, has a holistic rather than an analytical vision; it sees each thing in relation to the whole and perceives the interconnectedness of reality. It is, therefore, at home with metaphor, in which disparate entities become one while the left hemisphere tends to be literal and to wrest things from their context so that it can categorise and make use of them. News reaches the right hemisphere first, where it appears as part of an interlocking unity; it then passes to the left hemisphere, where it is defined, analysed and its use assessed. But the left can produce only a reductive version of complex reality, and once processed, this information is passed back to the right hemisphere, where we see it – insofar as we can – in the context of the whole" (p.2).
"There is no specific ‘God-spot’ in the human brain that yields a sense of the sacred. But in recent decades, neurologists have discovered that the right hemisphere of the brain is essential to the creation of poetry, music and religion. It is involved with the formation of our sense of self and has a broader, less focused mode of attention than the left hemisphere which is more pragmatic and selective. Above all, it sees itself as connected to the outside world, whereas the left hemisphere holds aloof from it. Specialising in language, analysis and problem-solving, the left side of our brain suppresses information that it cannot grasp conceptually. The right hemisphere, however, whose functions tended in the past to be overlooked by scientists, has a holistic rather than an analytical vision; it sees each thing in relation to the whole and perceives the interconnectedness of reality. It is, therefore, at home with metaphor, in which disparate entities become one while the left hemisphere tends to be literal and to wrest things from their context so that it can categorise and make use of them. News reaches the right hemisphere first, where it appears as part of an interlocking unity; it then passes to the left hemisphere, where it is defined, analysed and its use assessed. But the left can produce only a reductive version of complex reality, and once processed, this information is passed back to the right hemisphere, where we see it – insofar as we can – in the context of the whole" (p.2).
July 8, 2023
Armstrong takes us through the history of scripture and how it is used--and discusses it through the lens of left brain/right brain thinking. Her argument is that we understand the world through two ways of knowing: our left brain creates meaning out of rationality, facts, and empirical evidence while our right brains are continually seeking to create a comprehensive perspective from which to understand life. Scripture, Armstrong argues, was created from the right-brain need to account for the mystical, unknowable, and immaterial world.
The Renaissance ushered in a new era of understanding in both the arts and sciences, and then across the world, we became a species looking for more concrete ways of seeing the world. This swing toward the preference of left-brain understanding meant that people started applying left-brain analysis to right-brain systems. In the world of religion, this inspired Martin Luther's reformation, where he stripped Catholicism of all its manifested mysticism while also engaging in a much more literal examination of the Bible. (Similar things were happening in other world religions as well, not just the people of The Book.)
And then, during and after the Enlightenment, scriptures began being subjected to the world of scientific reality. Suddenly people wanted a rational explanation for the mystical parts of the text--while others insisted that the Bible itself was an authoritative historical text to be ready completely literally. Prior to these historic overhauls of human thought (which, again, was happening not just in Christianity but in Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc), the question of whether or not sacred texts told stories of history that happened exactly as told and accounted for all human rationality, was entirely irrelevant.
What does it matter if Adam and Even actually existed or whether the Garden of Eden was a real place we could find on a map? When the real value of that story has nothing to do with its historicity and everything to do with the fact that all, from time to time, wonder which fruit to eat. We all at some point find ourselves cast out of a world we can never go back to and have to make peace with a new, more difficult world that takes more work to hold together. The point isn't whether scriptural texts happened--it's that they have happened for everyone since the beginning of time, they are happening right now, and they will continue to happen for each of us individually and collectively as we try to live well.
Scripture is a record of knowing about the intuitive process of personal and social transformation. And yet, we now live in a world where the mainstream of every major (and most minor) world religions use scripture as evidence of supremacy over each other; or they are subjected to scientific scrutiny that leads many to believe that since the events couldn't possibly have literally happened in this world that the entirety of spiritual/religious life has no value whatsoever. Which is really missing the point. It reminds me of something else Karen Armstrong said in an interview. "Science can diagnose cancer and even find a cure for it... It can't help you deal with the distress and terror that comes with the diagnosis. Nor can it help you to die well."
The Renaissance ushered in a new era of understanding in both the arts and sciences, and then across the world, we became a species looking for more concrete ways of seeing the world. This swing toward the preference of left-brain understanding meant that people started applying left-brain analysis to right-brain systems. In the world of religion, this inspired Martin Luther's reformation, where he stripped Catholicism of all its manifested mysticism while also engaging in a much more literal examination of the Bible. (Similar things were happening in other world religions as well, not just the people of The Book.)
And then, during and after the Enlightenment, scriptures began being subjected to the world of scientific reality. Suddenly people wanted a rational explanation for the mystical parts of the text--while others insisted that the Bible itself was an authoritative historical text to be ready completely literally. Prior to these historic overhauls of human thought (which, again, was happening not just in Christianity but in Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc), the question of whether or not sacred texts told stories of history that happened exactly as told and accounted for all human rationality, was entirely irrelevant.
What does it matter if Adam and Even actually existed or whether the Garden of Eden was a real place we could find on a map? When the real value of that story has nothing to do with its historicity and everything to do with the fact that all, from time to time, wonder which fruit to eat. We all at some point find ourselves cast out of a world we can never go back to and have to make peace with a new, more difficult world that takes more work to hold together. The point isn't whether scriptural texts happened--it's that they have happened for everyone since the beginning of time, they are happening right now, and they will continue to happen for each of us individually and collectively as we try to live well.
Scripture is a record of knowing about the intuitive process of personal and social transformation. And yet, we now live in a world where the mainstream of every major (and most minor) world religions use scripture as evidence of supremacy over each other; or they are subjected to scientific scrutiny that leads many to believe that since the events couldn't possibly have literally happened in this world that the entirety of spiritual/religious life has no value whatsoever. Which is really missing the point. It reminds me of something else Karen Armstrong said in an interview. "Science can diagnose cancer and even find a cure for it... It can't help you deal with the distress and terror that comes with the diagnosis. Nor can it help you to die well."
June 22, 2020
A lot of knowledge of the material here, but I felt like Armstrong bit off more than she could chew. You get an overview of theology and scripture from China, India, and the West going back 4,000 years. The start of the book introduces the book's main point: how we've come to a point where we don't do a good job reading scripture. We go to scripture to confirm what we already think, not to learn from it. But that point gets lost in the mass of info. The last chapter takes the idea head-on, but it barely mentions China or India in doing so. It's two books in one: a history of religion, and an intepretation of modern theology - but the two parts never quite come together.
Read
December 25, 2020Shout out to this book here https://themillions.com/2020/12/a-yea...
March 17, 2020
Karen Armstong is recognized as one of the most respected religious scholars alive today. She has a remarkable range of knowledge about the history of various religions including China, India, Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
She argues in this book that scripture, in its origins, was wedded to ritual and to art and its intent was to bring about kenosis (the ‘emptying’ of the self). It was chanted, sung and acted out long before it was written down and was intended to bring about an experience of the ‘divine within’. In all of the faith traditions she enumerates, one of the consequences of the encounter with divinity was empathy and concern for others. In agrarian societies, however, only a minority of people had the luxury and time to pursue this inner experience and there developed a ‘priestly elite’. Over time, as well, the words were written down (though still unavailable to the uninitiated). Society moved from a period of mythos, when the important truths were understood to be timeless, to logos where the power was invested in words. She describes this as the difference between the right brain (mythos) and the left brain (logos).
In Greece, theater was a form of worship and communal spiritual exploration. I was particularly struck by the ‘Prayer to Zeus’(p150):
We must suffer, suffer into truth,
We cannot sleep, and drop by drop at the heart
The pain of pain remembered comes again,
And we resist, but ripeness comes as well,
From the gods enthroned on the awesome rowing bench
There comes a violent love.
As societies entered the modern period the characteristics of the left brain took precedence over those of the right brain and scripture came to be taken literally, leading to an unhealthy emphasis on literalism followed by scepticism. Instead of interpreting scripture in the current context, it was taken to be literally true and the ability to use it to achieve kenosis was lost. (Though she doesn’t mention him, Julian Jaynes work on the origin of consciousness fits in well here). “By forcing the sacred into a wholly rational mode of thought that was alien to it and by reading their scriptures as factual, Europeans had made religion unviable.” (p403) She sees this as a grave error: “Throughout this book we have seen that scripture is incarnational. It must enter the mind and body of the prophet or sage who receives and recites it, as well as the interpreter who explores its meaning. The Word must somehow be made flesh.” (p442) “ Scripture always drew on the past to give meaning to the present. Its message was never cast in stone.” (p457) and “Unlike science, scripture always had a moral dimension and was essentially a summons to compassionate, altruistic action… and that it issue positive, practical action.” (p457)
Armstrong describes these trends taking place in all of the major religions and provides copious historical detail to support her argument. She also gives illustrations of how art sometimes continues to re-interpret scripture in modern context, just as scripture originally did. The examples she uses here are mostly literary such as Thomas Mann’s tetralogy on Joseph.
She argues in this book that scripture, in its origins, was wedded to ritual and to art and its intent was to bring about kenosis (the ‘emptying’ of the self). It was chanted, sung and acted out long before it was written down and was intended to bring about an experience of the ‘divine within’. In all of the faith traditions she enumerates, one of the consequences of the encounter with divinity was empathy and concern for others. In agrarian societies, however, only a minority of people had the luxury and time to pursue this inner experience and there developed a ‘priestly elite’. Over time, as well, the words were written down (though still unavailable to the uninitiated). Society moved from a period of mythos, when the important truths were understood to be timeless, to logos where the power was invested in words. She describes this as the difference between the right brain (mythos) and the left brain (logos).
In Greece, theater was a form of worship and communal spiritual exploration. I was particularly struck by the ‘Prayer to Zeus’(p150):
We must suffer, suffer into truth,
We cannot sleep, and drop by drop at the heart
The pain of pain remembered comes again,
And we resist, but ripeness comes as well,
From the gods enthroned on the awesome rowing bench
There comes a violent love.
As societies entered the modern period the characteristics of the left brain took precedence over those of the right brain and scripture came to be taken literally, leading to an unhealthy emphasis on literalism followed by scepticism. Instead of interpreting scripture in the current context, it was taken to be literally true and the ability to use it to achieve kenosis was lost. (Though she doesn’t mention him, Julian Jaynes work on the origin of consciousness fits in well here). “By forcing the sacred into a wholly rational mode of thought that was alien to it and by reading their scriptures as factual, Europeans had made religion unviable.” (p403) She sees this as a grave error: “Throughout this book we have seen that scripture is incarnational. It must enter the mind and body of the prophet or sage who receives and recites it, as well as the interpreter who explores its meaning. The Word must somehow be made flesh.” (p442) “ Scripture always drew on the past to give meaning to the present. Its message was never cast in stone.” (p457) and “Unlike science, scripture always had a moral dimension and was essentially a summons to compassionate, altruistic action… and that it issue positive, practical action.” (p457)
Armstrong describes these trends taking place in all of the major religions and provides copious historical detail to support her argument. She also gives illustrations of how art sometimes continues to re-interpret scripture in modern context, just as scripture originally did. The examples she uses here are mostly literary such as Thomas Mann’s tetralogy on Joseph.
November 9, 2019
I received The Lost Art of Scripture: Rescuing the Sacred Texts through a Goodreads Giveaway.
It took me some time to finish this book, mostly because it was quite a long book filled with foreign information, but I did enjoy the overall experience. I'm not familiar with too many other forms of faith, but the excellent writing helped to explain different ideologies alongside conflicts that arose because of them. Overall, it's a nice book to have, but it definitely isn't a "read for fun" type of book instead it is an academic review of various faiths with historical information on wars and religious themes.
It took me some time to finish this book, mostly because it was quite a long book filled with foreign information, but I did enjoy the overall experience. I'm not familiar with too many other forms of faith, but the excellent writing helped to explain different ideologies alongside conflicts that arose because of them. Overall, it's a nice book to have, but it definitely isn't a "read for fun" type of book instead it is an academic review of various faiths with historical information on wars and religious themes.
December 14, 2019
Scholars lose me a little when they say something like, "We always used to understand X to mean Y, but there's no real historical evidence supporting that. I propose X means Z, but I can offer no real historical evidence for that, either...I'm just hoping you won't notice." Still, Armstrong is a solid researcher, and there's lots of interesting information, here.
November 26, 2019
dry and dull
Read
January 29, 2020Having read several other Karen Armstrong books, when I read the introduction talking about the science of the brain on religious experience, I thought, how much more deeper do you want to go? The Lost Art of Scripture builds upon the research of her previous works, although, because the scope is so large, one can see how many directions could be to expound this narrative.
Like Armstrong's other book, The Bible: A Biography, a large focus of the subject, is reconciling modernity with religion, using allusions about left and right parts of the brain and how this changed during the Enlightenment. Where for centuries, religion was more of an art form according to Armstrong, with the Age of Reason, the now dominate binary left brain was creating a poisonous cocktail of snotty atheists and dogmatic fundamentalists.
The Postscript led the multiple narratives of this book in a lot of directions, for examples, the Chinese narrative drops off in the 20th century, and the role of Communism globally in shaping religious and philosophical attitudes. That was not part of Armstrong's investigation of all things. Suddenly, there is a discussion about global warming and it's over. Perhaps the book was intended to be like the Mahabharata, with a large unwieldy narrative that can derive different meanings from it. Overall, the main point is to engage in the text as they are new, have vitality and speak to modern issues of our own time. An art form that engages people to connect the past's imagination with our present time.
Like Armstrong's other book, The Bible: A Biography, a large focus of the subject, is reconciling modernity with religion, using allusions about left and right parts of the brain and how this changed during the Enlightenment. Where for centuries, religion was more of an art form according to Armstrong, with the Age of Reason, the now dominate binary left brain was creating a poisonous cocktail of snotty atheists and dogmatic fundamentalists.
The Postscript led the multiple narratives of this book in a lot of directions, for examples, the Chinese narrative drops off in the 20th century, and the role of Communism globally in shaping religious and philosophical attitudes. That was not part of Armstrong's investigation of all things. Suddenly, there is a discussion about global warming and it's over. Perhaps the book was intended to be like the Mahabharata, with a large unwieldy narrative that can derive different meanings from it. Overall, the main point is to engage in the text as they are new, have vitality and speak to modern issues of our own time. An art form that engages people to connect the past's imagination with our present time.
May 1, 2021
The only way to read this book is slowly and as part of a group discussion. Luckily, I have such a group. It was quite an undertaking for Armstrong to write this -- and it requires a lot of the reader as well. The book is a history of scripture throughout history and across the world: Israel, India, China, Greece, Europe. The detail is at times overwhelming, but Armstrong is attempting to help the reader understand how scripture arose in various cultures, how it was used, what it meant, and how it changed. All of this is aimed at illuminating large themes, and finally bringing us to an understanding of the various roles scripture plays in the world today, how its misunderstanding has contributed to many of today's controversies and how scripture might be restored to what Armstrong believes is its best use. Although this is challenging to summarize, scripture has always required study and interpretation, in many parts of the world it is sung or chanted to create a sense of the divine or help us experience a different level of consciousness. Some of Armstrong's main take points are that God has always been unknowable, scripture aims to help us become more compassionate towards others and that "Scripture has never yielded clear, univocal messages or lucid incontrovertible doctrines." The rigid narrow interpretation of scripture that fundamentalists engage in is a perversion of its true role in life. "In many ways, we seem to be losing the art of scripture in the modern world. Instead of reading it to achieve transformation, we use it to confirm our own views--either that our religion is right and that of our enemies is wrong, or, in the case of skeptics, that religion is unworthy of serious consideration." "We only know the 'God' we have created for ourselves and should remind ourselves that what we call 'God' is always greater than we can conceive."
May 20, 2022
Scripture and Religion is always a tricky subject to write about but Armstrong has done a good job of sticking to facts and leaving her audience to draw her own conclusions from the provided narrative.
While the narrative did get boring in the middle of the book, the story like way in which she talks about how Scripture has evolved with the evolution of the human race, it kept things intriguing.
The book made me learn quite a number of new things and helped shed light on a few new perspectives that kind of assuage my curiosities and beliefs as far as religion, religious practices, and religious scripture is concerned.
Recommended for those who are interested in comparative religion.
While the narrative did get boring in the middle of the book, the story like way in which she talks about how Scripture has evolved with the evolution of the human race, it kept things intriguing.
The book made me learn quite a number of new things and helped shed light on a few new perspectives that kind of assuage my curiosities and beliefs as far as religion, religious practices, and religious scripture is concerned.
Recommended for those who are interested in comparative religion.
February 9, 2022
As always, Armstrong tells a grand, sweeping story. Unfortunately, she has told as historical fact what is at best one set of possibilities suggested from the actual historical and archaeological data. She would have done much better to have been a bit humbler in her storytelling.
February 21, 2022
Highly recommended for everyone. A lyrical title that sells short how wide ranging and important this book is. A salve for anyone who has ever had faith, questioned faith, dismissed faith; felt hope, or lost hope. This is history with a purpose and a message.
December 5, 2024
Ambitious book looking at the overlapping trends and nature of scripture across the major world religions. Due to that scope, major moments are covered in a sentence and possibly flattened. But ultimately love and agree with the thesis and I appreciate all that I learned.
December 27, 2019
This book has several over-generalizations, and controversial positions presented as the only option. Sometimes the very scripture passage she is discussing provides an answer to what she presents as an open question. Right-brain and left-brain thinking are not as independent as she presents, other than in trances, deep meditation, or drug-induced states. On the other hand, she has a valuable emphasis on the use of communal chanting, singing, and preforming of scriptures to help internalize them, resulting in loving-kindness to all. However, communal chants, songs, and performances can also intensify communal violence and hatred, even genocide (e.g., Trump and Hindu rallies). The book gets overwhelming after the first 100 pages.
December 15, 2020
Түүхэн хөгжлийн явцад бичиг үсэг яаж өөрчлөгдөж хувьсаж, ард түмний дунд ямар ойлголт түгж өнөөдөр бидний энэ цаг ирснийг тодоор харуулсан сонирхолтой ном байлаа. Sacred Text гэдэг ойлголт өөрөө их адармаатай эд байна.
April 3, 2020
The Lost Art of Scripture is a colossal feat of scholarship; I can’t think of one I admire more. Karen Armstrong has studied scriptures from a wide variety of cultures, and summed up the basic messages from the scripture of every major religion and a number of minor ones. Her thesis is that scripture has not traditionally been a collection of writings set in stone, but was regarded as tentative attempts to reflect the divine. It’s stunning to see the variety of ways that human beings have done that, beginning with “a small ivory figurine in the Ulm Museum” which “may be the earliest evidence of human religious activity.” It is estimated to be 40,000 years old. Confronting the ineffable mystery of how we got here and what our life is intended to be, human beings have come up with any number of answers. The idea that one of them is “right” seems preposterous.
At various times in human history, in fact, religious groups which today are at war actually read one another’s scriptures and learned from them. People didn’t isolate themselves as belonging to this or that religion; humankind faced the mystery and people learned from one another. And the tendency toward fundamentalism, the idea that scripture represents a historical truth and that it is one hundred percent accurate in everything it says, is a late arrival. It doesn’t show up in Christianity until the late nineteenth century, for instance. Until then scriptures weren’t presumed to be historical accounts (especially because they often contradicted one another). They were stories that were intended to convey meaning.
Looking at this vast output, and considering its huge breadth, makes me proud to be human (a rare occurrence these days). It also makes me glad to be living in an age when we can see the extent of all this. In the past, people were often confined to the scripture of their own religion.[1]
When you look at these scriptures as a whole, one of the most startling things is the way Christianity emerged as a world religion. Judaism was focused on the Torah and commentaries on it, which formed a vast tradition and were in many ways as important as the original words. Jesus was somewhat independent of that, a wandering teacher from a background of poverty who taught not as a scholar but as a healer and intuitive teacher who’d had his own revelation. He was crucified as a criminal—a common punishment at the time—and Armstrong thinks the act probably happened in obscurity; she thinks the accounts of the trial with Pontius Pilate were made up later, because Jesus wasn’t terribly significant at the time.
Nothing was written about him during his lifetime; the letters of Paul came first, preceding the Gospels by a number of years. The Gospels are similar, but each is its own book, with its own emphasis. The idea that Paul’s letters to early Christians and these four differing accounts could be cobbled together with Hebrew scriptures to form a vast world religion with any number of denominations is mind boggling. In the history of world religion, it doesn’t seem that substantial a collection of writings. And it’s definitely a collection, not a single entity.
Far vaster and more varied are the Indian scriptures, which go way back in history. It’s ironic that India today is rallying around being a Hindu nation, because according to Armstrong the word Hindu was coined by Westerners to describe a collection of writings that hardly form a coherent religion. It’s a rich source of stories, staggering in its extent.
Islam is a comparatively late arrival, since Mohammed lived in the eleventh century. He drew on the older Abrahamic traditions, of course, but the Quran was a series of revelations that came to him through agony and difficulty; they weren’t dictated from above but required a lot of work to be expressed in verbal form. It’s odd, then, when parts of the work are taken to be etched in stone. They didn’t come to Mohammed that way.
I find myself drawn to the Chinese tradition, the early writings of Daoism as well as what Confucionism adds, especially through the years as Buddhism joined the mix to create the Chan/Zen tradition. I can still remember in my mid-thirties—a little late, I suppose—encountering the Dao De Ching and feeling immediately that it expressed an appropriate sense of awe and mystery in the face of the Divine. Christianity has a similar feeling in the apophatic[2] tradition, but I didn’t come across that until years later. And of course sitting meditation captured me immediately, far more than any Buddhist scripture.
Armstrong talks from the start about how scripture was meant to be not just a left-brain activity, to be read and pondered, but a right-brain activity as well, through being performed and chanted. In Zen we do both things, read and talk about and interpret koans, but also meditate with them and chant famous teachings. Revelations about scripture come just as often from chanting as from study. Our understanding is intuitive more than rational.
It seems petty to mention that Armstrong left something out, but I definitely noticed that the towering figure Eihei Dogen is not even mentioned. Armstrong couldn’t read everything, of course, and, as many a Zen student has discovered, Dogen’s writings are a vast and intriguing sinkhole from which one never emerges. But they’re a great example of what Armstrong is talking about. Dogen was a brilliant intellectual and scholar, as well as an intuitive mystic whose writings reflect the relative and the absolute all at once. They’re an important part of world scripture.
The impression I was left with eventually is not of a world divided by religions, but a world confronting a mystery and coming up with a variety of ways to explain it, including, eventually, people who find a scientific explanation adequate. Armstrong writes about Western philosophers and atheists as well. Descartes was pivotal; though he himself was a religious person, his emphasis on thinking took an essentially right-brained activity and focused it on the left brain, where it often doesn’t make much sense. Religion became something where you affirmed a set of beliefs instead of exploring a mystery. It became a set of answers rather than a set of questions.
I’ve long been an Armstrong fan, and am shocked to think that, at age 75, she has published this mammoth work that sums up so much, and may be her chef d’oeuvre. I hope she continues to write for many years. But I can’t imagine a greater accomplishment than this.
[1] I vividly remember my grandfather, who grew up on a West Virginia farm, talking about the doctrines of Calvinist Presbyterianism as if they were, so to speak, Gospel truth. “That’s what we believe,” he would say to me. Why? I wanted to ask, but I don’t think that question ever occurred to him. He rooted for Presbyterianism the same way he rooted for the Pirates and the University of Pittsburgh (to beat Notre Dame, which they never did. One time my uncle was rooting for Alabama in a bowl game against Notre Dame, and I asked him why. He said, “Because I don’t want every Catholic in the country saying he’s number one”).
[2] “Apophatic theology, also known as negative theology, is a form of theological thinking and religious practice which attempts to approach God, the Divine, by negation, to speak only in terms of what may not be said about the perfect goodness that is God.”
www.davidguy.org
At various times in human history, in fact, religious groups which today are at war actually read one another’s scriptures and learned from them. People didn’t isolate themselves as belonging to this or that religion; humankind faced the mystery and people learned from one another. And the tendency toward fundamentalism, the idea that scripture represents a historical truth and that it is one hundred percent accurate in everything it says, is a late arrival. It doesn’t show up in Christianity until the late nineteenth century, for instance. Until then scriptures weren’t presumed to be historical accounts (especially because they often contradicted one another). They were stories that were intended to convey meaning.
Looking at this vast output, and considering its huge breadth, makes me proud to be human (a rare occurrence these days). It also makes me glad to be living in an age when we can see the extent of all this. In the past, people were often confined to the scripture of their own religion.[1]
When you look at these scriptures as a whole, one of the most startling things is the way Christianity emerged as a world religion. Judaism was focused on the Torah and commentaries on it, which formed a vast tradition and were in many ways as important as the original words. Jesus was somewhat independent of that, a wandering teacher from a background of poverty who taught not as a scholar but as a healer and intuitive teacher who’d had his own revelation. He was crucified as a criminal—a common punishment at the time—and Armstrong thinks the act probably happened in obscurity; she thinks the accounts of the trial with Pontius Pilate were made up later, because Jesus wasn’t terribly significant at the time.
Nothing was written about him during his lifetime; the letters of Paul came first, preceding the Gospels by a number of years. The Gospels are similar, but each is its own book, with its own emphasis. The idea that Paul’s letters to early Christians and these four differing accounts could be cobbled together with Hebrew scriptures to form a vast world religion with any number of denominations is mind boggling. In the history of world religion, it doesn’t seem that substantial a collection of writings. And it’s definitely a collection, not a single entity.
Far vaster and more varied are the Indian scriptures, which go way back in history. It’s ironic that India today is rallying around being a Hindu nation, because according to Armstrong the word Hindu was coined by Westerners to describe a collection of writings that hardly form a coherent religion. It’s a rich source of stories, staggering in its extent.
Islam is a comparatively late arrival, since Mohammed lived in the eleventh century. He drew on the older Abrahamic traditions, of course, but the Quran was a series of revelations that came to him through agony and difficulty; they weren’t dictated from above but required a lot of work to be expressed in verbal form. It’s odd, then, when parts of the work are taken to be etched in stone. They didn’t come to Mohammed that way.
I find myself drawn to the Chinese tradition, the early writings of Daoism as well as what Confucionism adds, especially through the years as Buddhism joined the mix to create the Chan/Zen tradition. I can still remember in my mid-thirties—a little late, I suppose—encountering the Dao De Ching and feeling immediately that it expressed an appropriate sense of awe and mystery in the face of the Divine. Christianity has a similar feeling in the apophatic[2] tradition, but I didn’t come across that until years later. And of course sitting meditation captured me immediately, far more than any Buddhist scripture.
Armstrong talks from the start about how scripture was meant to be not just a left-brain activity, to be read and pondered, but a right-brain activity as well, through being performed and chanted. In Zen we do both things, read and talk about and interpret koans, but also meditate with them and chant famous teachings. Revelations about scripture come just as often from chanting as from study. Our understanding is intuitive more than rational.
It seems petty to mention that Armstrong left something out, but I definitely noticed that the towering figure Eihei Dogen is not even mentioned. Armstrong couldn’t read everything, of course, and, as many a Zen student has discovered, Dogen’s writings are a vast and intriguing sinkhole from which one never emerges. But they’re a great example of what Armstrong is talking about. Dogen was a brilliant intellectual and scholar, as well as an intuitive mystic whose writings reflect the relative and the absolute all at once. They’re an important part of world scripture.
The impression I was left with eventually is not of a world divided by religions, but a world confronting a mystery and coming up with a variety of ways to explain it, including, eventually, people who find a scientific explanation adequate. Armstrong writes about Western philosophers and atheists as well. Descartes was pivotal; though he himself was a religious person, his emphasis on thinking took an essentially right-brained activity and focused it on the left brain, where it often doesn’t make much sense. Religion became something where you affirmed a set of beliefs instead of exploring a mystery. It became a set of answers rather than a set of questions.
I’ve long been an Armstrong fan, and am shocked to think that, at age 75, she has published this mammoth work that sums up so much, and may be her chef d’oeuvre. I hope she continues to write for many years. But I can’t imagine a greater accomplishment than this.
[1] I vividly remember my grandfather, who grew up on a West Virginia farm, talking about the doctrines of Calvinist Presbyterianism as if they were, so to speak, Gospel truth. “That’s what we believe,” he would say to me. Why? I wanted to ask, but I don’t think that question ever occurred to him. He rooted for Presbyterianism the same way he rooted for the Pirates and the University of Pittsburgh (to beat Notre Dame, which they never did. One time my uncle was rooting for Alabama in a bowl game against Notre Dame, and I asked him why. He said, “Because I don’t want every Catholic in the country saying he’s number one”).
[2] “Apophatic theology, also known as negative theology, is a form of theological thinking and religious practice which attempts to approach God, the Divine, by negation, to speak only in terms of what may not be said about the perfect goodness that is God.”
www.davidguy.org
August 27, 2021
In our modern world, religion has come to have very specific connotations - most of which are frustrating at best and appalling at their worst. Fundamentalism and self-righteousness the world over has wrested the power of religion as an art of challenge and mystery and co-opted it into a weapon of violence and oppression. As a self-professed “mystic”, I often can see peoples’ eyes glaze over as I mention my faith. I suddenly gain the image of a crystal healer, an anti-vaxxer or a New Age chakra-aligning hippie. Putting me in the “woo-woo camp”, as it were, has always been preferable to placing me in a fundamentalist camp - but there is space in between new age ethereality and tribalism. In this book, Karen Armstrong traces the long history of faith, and argues that contrary to popular opinion, we need to engage with the mysteries of faith now more than ever.
If you have read much of her other works, you will find quite a bit of intersection in this that may read as redundancy - much of the later chapters discusses literalism and fundamentalism, which is more deeply discussed in The Battle for God . Regardless, the work was deeply moving in many places, and provided insights both into the variability of human encounters with the numinous, and also the surprising consistency within varying traditions. Armstrong argues that the core of religious experience is expanding our empathy through understanding our one-ness with the world and with our fellow man, and encountering the spark of impossible wonder that life carries. The wrestling, struggling, existential dance of pressing up against this wonder is not bound by creed and dogma - far from it. In fact, scripture has always transformed to respond to the problems of the day; it is only recently that they have been seen as inert. That dynamism and deep yearning for unity is what needs to be cultivated as we increasingly see the effects of isolated, myopic thought - both secular and religious - manifested in the world around us. 3 stars for the material, and another star for the extensive and fascinating bibliography I will doubtless be pulling from for a long time to come.
If you have read much of her other works, you will find quite a bit of intersection in this that may read as redundancy - much of the later chapters discusses literalism and fundamentalism, which is more deeply discussed in The Battle for God . Regardless, the work was deeply moving in many places, and provided insights both into the variability of human encounters with the numinous, and also the surprising consistency within varying traditions. Armstrong argues that the core of religious experience is expanding our empathy through understanding our one-ness with the world and with our fellow man, and encountering the spark of impossible wonder that life carries. The wrestling, struggling, existential dance of pressing up against this wonder is not bound by creed and dogma - far from it. In fact, scripture has always transformed to respond to the problems of the day; it is only recently that they have been seen as inert. That dynamism and deep yearning for unity is what needs to be cultivated as we increasingly see the effects of isolated, myopic thought - both secular and religious - manifested in the world around us. 3 stars for the material, and another star for the extensive and fascinating bibliography I will doubtless be pulling from for a long time to come.
December 7, 2019
Take a deep breath before you start this book. It is brilliant and dense. If, like me, you find yourself overwhelmed by information around halfway through - persist! It will be worth it. Karen Armstrong takes a long, hard, detailed look at the world's major religions: Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Bhuddism, Confusianism and Daoism and asks, 'What went wrong?'
According to the author the rise of secularism and a scientific world view put 'objective' truth on a pedestal and everything else that didn't make logical sense was therefore factually incorrect, misleading and wrong. The response from amongst some of the faithful was to recast their religions in scientific mode in order for their scriptures to reamain literally true.
As she examines each of the worlds biggest faiths she shows how each of them went through phases of etablishment, growth, schism, conflict, decay and revival. Central to this story is the treatment of Scripture. Karen Armstrong is very clear that the word 'Scripture' is misleading. To begin with it is derived from a Latin word that means 'write' and the writing is only a small part of it. Scripture has a strong oral inheritance and it is fundamentally the word embodied rather than on paper. This embodiments takes place in private and public recitations of the words as well as ritual. Without these the words are just words and, if taken literally, will lead to either ridicule or fundamentalism.
The job of scripture, says the author, is to reach the ineffable sense of the divine through these words, teachings and rituals. They're not meant to make sense. And how do the ineffable, unnameable and sacred aspects of life manifest themselves in our lives? Through mercy, compassion and equality.
According to the author the rise of secularism and a scientific world view put 'objective' truth on a pedestal and everything else that didn't make logical sense was therefore factually incorrect, misleading and wrong. The response from amongst some of the faithful was to recast their religions in scientific mode in order for their scriptures to reamain literally true.
As she examines each of the worlds biggest faiths she shows how each of them went through phases of etablishment, growth, schism, conflict, decay and revival. Central to this story is the treatment of Scripture. Karen Armstrong is very clear that the word 'Scripture' is misleading. To begin with it is derived from a Latin word that means 'write' and the writing is only a small part of it. Scripture has a strong oral inheritance and it is fundamentally the word embodied rather than on paper. This embodiments takes place in private and public recitations of the words as well as ritual. Without these the words are just words and, if taken literally, will lead to either ridicule or fundamentalism.
The job of scripture, says the author, is to reach the ineffable sense of the divine through these words, teachings and rituals. They're not meant to make sense. And how do the ineffable, unnameable and sacred aspects of life manifest themselves in our lives? Through mercy, compassion and equality.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 164 reviews