The Discovery of God: Abraham and the Birth of Monotheism

by David Klinghoffer

Book Overview

Fifty-three percent of the world s population practices Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, religions that all trace their lineage to the towering, quasi-mythological figure of Abraham. In this reverent biography of the man who invented or discovered God, David Klinghoffer disentangles history from myth and uncovers the profound impact of Abraham s message on his time and on the development of the modern world. The Discovery of God chronicles Abraham...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385499744
• ISBN13: 9780385499743
• Release Date: September 2004
• Publisher: Three Leaves Publishing
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.5" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Great Discoveries

I love this book. It has facts, humor, side stories and thoughts as the author really did his homework for this book, including traveling and looking up the sites he was talking about in Abraham's history. He really makes it come to life yet gives contradictive thoughts that can be really discussed about from one side or another. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to know more on Abraham's story from the Jewish(particularly), Christian side as well as from the Archeological side as well. The author is just a great writer.

Thought provoking journey with Abraham and God

There is a wide range of ratings for this book - the next few give very poor ratings (1 star), while the latter reviews give 5. I've just finished reading it and can concur with most of what both groups of reviewers have said. On the up side, the book paints vivid and dramatic pictures of Abraham's life, his journeys, his relationships and his God. Klinghoffer argues strongly and well for Abraham's role in being an evangelist for monotheism. On the down side, Klinghoffer does treat the Oral Torah as almost more inspired than the Torah itself. His arguements about Isaac are incomprehensible. He introduces various bits of information that I found bizarre. But, put together I, for one, found the book deeply thought provoking. He helped me get a real sense of Abraham the man, and the societies in which he moved. Many bits of Oral Torah trivia were really interesting and I am grateful to have them. I am a theology student, in training to become a pastor in a conservative demonination. I found the book well worth reading.

Fascinating, challenging, and moving

Having read Mr. Klinghoffer's wonderful memoir "The Lord Will Gather Me In," I had high hopes for this new book. Even so, "The Discovery of God" exceeded my expectations. Using Jewish tradition (oral and written) to flesh out the account of Abraham's life in Genesis, Klinghoffer paints an incredibly vibrant picture of the the patriarch. As he tells this story, he also provides fascinating discussions of the cannons of Biblical exegesis, rabbinical scholarly traditions, and the sources of conflict between traditional and modernist scholars. This is weighty stuff, but Klinghoffer writes so beautifully, and has such an eye for the interesting detail, that the book never sags--rather, it soars. All in all, "The Discovery of God" is a fascinating journey through the life of the man who Jews, Christians, and Muslims all can rightfully call "Father Abraham." Highly recommended.

Exciting Biblical Biography!

I met David Klinghoffer at a ...author's party and bought his book, the discovery of God. I could not stop reading his biography of Abraham. David weaves in some of his trip to Israel, the Midrash and the oral tradition with the Bible. Not only does he save me the trouble of doing all the research but his writing style is fresh and kept me on the edge of my seat wanting to know more about stories that I have heard a hundred times. What a treat!I have since purchased his spiritual journey The Lord Will Gather Me In and would liken it to a Jewish Seven Storey Mountain. David has become one of my favorite writers and his refreshingly honesty about his faults and his willingness to keep on his spiritual journey gives me hope about my own.

An astonishing and vivid experience

Klinghoffer has written a brilliant book: a combination detective story -- who was this patriarch with the half-sister marriage and the bombshell concubine and the funny relationship with his kid? -- and meditation. (If the book were an album, its title would be "Abraham Comes Alive.") To write a biography of a pre-modern figure -- a man who stands somehow at the back of much of the modern world, the way D.W. Griffith hangs at the back of every movie theater, mildly grinning -- Klinghoffer has performed an immense amount of digging. By definition, there are no photos, letters, phone records, eyewitness accounts, no talkative siblings or rivalrous contemporaries; to begin with, there are just the stones and weather of the Bible. Klinghoffer excavates his story's bones from that source, pressing also into Midrash and a shamingly wide range of archaeological and critical sources. What he comes up with is an intensely readable story about one of history's great, pivotal figures; a lone man in an dusty region of the world who gave birth to the three of the world's major religions. (Birth, and also the roiling within families, is one of Klinghoffer's consistent interests in the book.)The book is about founding a tradition, but it's also a story. Abraham rejected his own father's idolatry, found the first modern path to God, fought armies, dealt with the problems of love, marriage, fatherhood, kinship, family; one of the surprises encountered again and again in Klinghoffer's story is how much of our modern turbulence - essentially, doubt versus fidelity, and the many avenues that conflict seeks for expression -- Abraham's own life anticipates. The approach to whether miracles in the bible are "literally" true is a great feat of perception: they're "true" because they were necessary to our own understanding and acceptance of God. The author's passages on the love between Sarah and Abraham read as a kind of sweet, best-case marriage: as he sees them, the two are halves of a whole, Abraham the accepting, understanding heart, Sarah the stern, unbending head; as in any relationship, partners will fill out the available role. Klinghoffer takes the reader through the story we half-know, giving it blood and muscle along the way. It's a daring, dramatic thing to have pulled off; at a time when those three religions (in the way children in the Bible so often do) have come into conflict, it feels almost necessary.