Synopsis
Winner of The PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize 2022
Shortlisted for The Wolfson History Prize 2022
A The Times Books of the Year 2022
Three thousand years ago, in the Southwest Asian lands we now call Israel and Palestine, a group of people worshipped a complex pantheon of deities, led by a father god called El. El had seventy children, who were gods in their...
Details
16 September 2021608 pages
9781509867332Imprint: Picador
Reviews
A learned but rollicking journey through every aspect of Yahweh's body. A book that will offend some but delight more.Economist Best Books of the Year
Lively . . . [with] a wealth of scholarly detail and much gustoRowan Williams, New Statesman
Rivetingly fresh and stunning . . . I rather like this inexhaustibly powerful, shouting, bearded giant of a God, a fiery, fierce and startlingly “pagan” God, alive to his very fingertips, laughing at human hubris and singing with unbridled joy.
Christopher Hart, Sunday Times
A marvelous conspectus of references to the divine body in ancient southwest Asian texts. But more than this, it is about recalibrating our understanding of these difficult texts to better understand ourselves.Simon Yarrow, Literary Review
