A book George W Bush should have read - Rated 
It is depressing that a benign, liberal book such as this should attract so much vitriol from some Amazon reviewers. True, this book exposes some of the contradictions of the Bible, leading to the inevitable conclusion that at least some of it was written by imperfect Man.
Perhaps what is most disturbing for believers is the even-handed approach that Armstrong uses to tackle Christianity and Judaism. (Islam is mentioned occasionally, but Armstrong's book is about the Old and New Testaments, not the Qu'ran.)
I learnt a lot from this book about Jewish scholarship, an area I knew almost nothing about beforehand.
The only reason I could not award this volume five stars is for its organisation. I would have liked the chapters to be broken up into digestible sections. I didn't know until I reached the end that there was a glossary -- some words such as 'theophany' weren't in the dictionary I tried referring to. Maybe boxes in the text, or illustrations or diagrams, would have helped. There is a lot to take in.
Unusually for non-fiction books of today, the final chapter (on Modernity) is the best. (Most airport books now seem to pile virtually everything into the first chapter.) Having read of all the awful things that have happened earlier in the world as a result of a literal reading of the Bible, it's so depressing to find parts of 20th century America re-inventing the literal approach, and using it to justify violence and death in the Near East.
A skilled popularizer but faults within - Rated 
This book has attracted predictable criticism from religious conservatives, evident in some of the reviews here. One suspects the author would be entirely unperturbed by this - avoiding the ills of higher criticism is the concern only of fundamentalists. Their criticism that Armstrong's tone of scholarly detachment fails when she addresses twentieth-century fundamentalism is easily answered - this brand of Christianity has nothing to do with detached scholarship, they parted company a long time ago. The argument over Arianism is just one case in point. As just about any serious scholar who has studied early Christianity will tell you, early Christians were not Trinitarians.
On a more general level, Armstrong shows an ability to draw together an impressive amount of material into an accessible synthesis, and she has few peers in this regard. Her treatment of the twentieth century is, as noted by others, sketchy. More seriously perhaps, her knowledge of early modern history is inadequate. Whilst generalisations are unavoidable in a work of this kind, her treatment of the early modern period is simplistic and often misleading. Deism was not a 'new religion' (p.185), nor was it espoused by John Locke, author of a Paraphrase of the Epistles of St Paul. To say that Isaac Newton 'scarcely mentioned the Bible in his copious writings' (p.184) is utter nonsense. Had Armstrong read Newton's copious unpublished manuscripts on scripture, or any of the published works analysing these manuscripts in the last twenty years, she would know that Newton spent at least as much time buried in scripture and prophecies about the end of days as he did thinking about the laws of gravity. Armstrong's understanding of the Enlightenment is simply out of date, historians have realised that the so-called "age of reason" was a far more complex time in European history than this author realises.
Whilst Armstrong is to be congratulated on opening up the history of the Bible to a wider audience in such an engaging manner, her analysis should be treated with caution, not taken as gospel.
For those with open minds only - you know who you are. - Rated
Authors are on a hiding to nothing when taking on this sort of subject. I found this well written and obviously well researched but was amazed at how short it was. I am not so sure it contributes much to the overall religion versus atheism debate but as long as it draws correspondents like I Haynes out of the woodwork (what is all that about?) and you ignore the zealots who will give it 1 star (or indeed 5 stars) as a matter of principle, then it is a valuable tome. I would however draw interested parties to "The unauthorised version" by Robin Lane Fox, a very good and readable account of "truth and fiction in the bible" as it is subtitled
Fascinating survey of how the Bible was written and received - Rated
Despite impressive scholarly apparatus (copious references, index, glossary), this book seems to be aimed at a popular readership. It starts off as an account of how the books of the Bible were written and compiled, how and why they were chosen by different communities (and touches on those not chosen, including the Gnostic texts, the Apocrypha, etc), and goes on to describe how they were received and interpreted over the centuries by all who used them. In the end, we get what is almost a very swift history of Judaism and Christianity.
For a lay person such as myself, the most interesting parts concerned the origins of the texts, and the (sometimes shocking) ways in which these texts have been misused, twisted and cited as excuses for unacceptable behaviour.
Karen Armstrong's purpose, I think, is to show that fundamentalism - the idea that every word of the Bible is literally true and gives an uncontestable mandate for action - is not only a very recent phenomenon in the history of the Bible, but is wholly unprecedented in either Judaism or Christianity, incompatible with the way the books of the Bible were written, they way they were selected for the Old and New Testaments, and the way Jews and Christians read and understood them, from the time they were written onwards. No one taking cognizance of these facts (backed up as they are by painstaking references to the leading Biblical scholars), could reasonably claim that any one version of the Bible gives a clear, minute, unequivocal guide to action. As Armstrong shows, it is only in the past 100 years or so that anyone ever suggested that it could.
I have only two reservations about the book. The survey of current attitudes to the Bible seemed a bit rushed; and, while it may have been outside her remit, it would have been interesting to hear about how Biblical subjects are viewed in Islam: I understand that Muslims have sayings and traditions associated with Jesus, for example, which most Christians know nothing of.
Where would the world be without Ms. Armstrong? - Rated 
As usual, Karen Armstrong's consummate scholarship is equalled by an almost scientific approach towards a subject that in others tends to invoke other responses. Her knowledge of the subject is huge, her distinction between the roles of God and man in composing the Bible is truly helpful, and her style is immensely readable. Unlike other reviewers, I find her treatment of Christian and Judaic fundamentalism both honest, enlightening and helpful. The world would be a better place if more people read this immensely important book along with this exceptional author's other works (including her biographies of Muhammad and Buddha and her exceptional analysis of the age of transformation).
Now where's that SIX star button?
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