The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions

by Karen Armstrong

Book Overview

NATIONAL BESTSELLER - An extraordinary investigation of a critical moment in the evolution of religious thought--from the New York Times bestselling author of A History of God and The Spiral Staircase... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0375413170
• ISBN13: 9780375413179
• Release Date: March 2006
• Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
• Length: 469 Pages
• Weight: 1.98 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.6" x 6.6" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

A must read book!

I really loved this book, and it is a must in any serious library. This is a book to read and reread several times in order to really understand the roots of the religions of the world. Why did prophets come to our aid? Who are prophets in the first place? Are philosophers like Plato and Aristotle prophets? What about Confucius and the Buddha, are they prophets? Who determines who is a prophet and who is not? And when it comes to prophets, who is right and who is wrong? Not all prophets preached the same message, and not all teachings spanned the test of time. Buddha, for example, did not believe in a monotheistic God. The Greeks believed in many gods. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, on the other hand, believe in one God, though they call Him by different names. The earliest Greek religions rewarded warriors for indiscriminate conquests, while latter religions like Christianity and Islam forbade unprovoked wars and conquests. Some prophets, like Jesus for example, preached to leave all worldly possessions and ambitions behind and follow him to the way of God. Buddha too left his newlywed bride and his newly born child to search for enlightenment, and together with his followers begged for food and lived almost naked during their entire spiritual journey. Islam and Judaism, on the other hand, place great importance on family life and one's role in society. Abandoning one's family is condoned in both Judaism and Islam. Is there such a thing as a right and a wrong religion? And which religion should one follow? Should one choose his religion or is religion chosen for a person at birth? This is a really fascinating book that will leave you bombarded with many questions. Karen Armstrong shows how all religions differ in their roots and motivation, yet in a subtle way are very similar. You will learn of many early religions such as Zoroastrianism. Zoroastrianism is the religion and philosophy based on the teachings ascribed to the prophet Zoroaster (also known as Zarathustra or Zartosht). I mentioned here because some scholars have suggested that Zoroastrianism was where the first prophet of a monotheistic faith arose. It is probably the oldest of the revealed creedal religions. Scholars believe that Zoroastrianism had more influence on mankind both directly and indirectly than any other faith. It was once the dominant religion of much of Iran. As of 2007 the faith has dwindled to small numbers; some sources suggest that it is practiced by fewer than 200,000 worldwide, with its largest centers in India and Iran. One thing is common to all religions and spiritual movements: they all sprang from social unrest and injustice during a period known as the axial age. In case you are wondering what the "axial age" is, the philosopher Karl Jaspers (1883-1969) first originated the term in his book entitled The Origin and Goal of History (published in 1949): " ... In the years centering around 500 B.C. -- from 800 to 200 -- the spiritual foundations of

Spiritual insights in the Axial Age

The range of Karen Armstrong's work on the history of religion is becoming ever more ambitious. To her previous works on Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam she has added in this book sections on Hinduism, Confucianism, Taoism and Greek thought. She examines how thought in China, India, Ancient Greece and the Biblical Middle East became transformed during the Axial Age (the phrase was coined by Karl Jaspers)- the seven hundred years between about 900 BC and 200 BC - from primitive beliefs and practices into the more sophisticated religious and philosophical teachings which laid the intellectual foundations of the following centuries. All this in 400 pages, so it is sometimes a bit of a gallop, especially in the first two chapters (about a fifth of the book) which describe the 800 or so years before the Axial Age begins. After that, when the transformation really gets going, Armstrong allows herself much more space to expound the teachings of the great axial thinkers. She argues that axial insights were often the result of suffering and that the search for them was born out the experience of the local region being convulsed in unsettling change, in chaos and in violence, the political and economic background of which she provides in rather more detail than I think is really necessary. The 700 years described as the Axial Period are quite long and have been stretched to this length in order to accommodate processes that happened in different phases and at different speeds within it. Indian thought, for instance, was already becoming quite sophisticated at the beginning of that period, whereas Greek thought matured much later. Armstrong considers `the first phase of the Axial Age of Israel' to have ended with Ezra in the 5th century BC, but to have had a second flowering four hundred years later, outside the limits of the so-called Axial Period, under the rabbinical sages in the first century BC, and then through the teachings of Jesus and of Paul. Even further beyond these chronolgical limits, she sees in Muhammad's message of peace and tolerance (she does not mention his other side) the teachings of the Axial Age being again renewed. What is interesting is that the insights of the Axial Period emerged from societies that were after all very different from each other. I was struck at least as much by the differences that emerge from her account between the attitudes of the various civilizations as I was by their similarities. For example the fascinating sections on China (fascinating because the material is probably the least familiar to most of the readers of this book) show an approach there which I think is in many ways quite unlike that found in India, Greece or the Middle East, even if at the end some similar insights are reached. Karen Armstrong herself from time to time contrasts, en passant, the views of the axial sages from different civilizations, just as she points up similarities, sometimes ingeniously and illum

The Roots of Religion

This is an outstandingly interesting book, even if you do not agree with every one of Karen Armstrong's conclusions. The great German psychiatrist and philosopher Karl Jaspers first proposed the idea of an "Axial period" that ran from approximately 800 to 200 BCE. During this time all the fundamental creations that underlie our current civilization came into being. It was also during this time that four of the world's great religions and philosophical traditions emerged: Hinduism and Buddhism in India; Confucianism and Taoism in China; Monotheism in Israel, that eventually gave expression to Judaism, Christianity and Islam; and rationalism in Greece. Some experts - including Jaspers - included a fifth: Zoroastrianism in Persia. Most scholars now consider that Zoroastrianism emerged before the Axial period, so it is discussed in this book, but is not one of the four great strands. Following Jaspers' lead, Karen Armstrong credits this six to seven hundred year period as the turning point in the development of human spiritual consciousness. She describes these developments as a reaction to political disintegration and religious intolerance that lead large numbers of people to turn away from their customary systems of ritual and worship, and instead to search for and to create new systems based on justice, compassion and love. This search provided the catalyst for major transformations in religious culture. Though she is a scholar, Karen writes a clear and easily digestible account about the spiritual heart of each of these religious doctrines, and shows that they all have some things in common: primarily the need for compassion and love in overcoming violence, hatred and selfishness. All the great sages of the time from Socrates to some of the Old Testament prophets, the mystics of the Upanishads and the Buddha taught the central importance of personal responsibility and self-criticism, which had to be followed by practical. effective action. Although a great step forward, the emergence of the ethics and religions of the Axial period was far from perfect. As the most glaring example, women were largely excluded from a significant place in most of these systems. Karen's approach also begs another question: did religions emerge as a reaction to the times or had some people reached a point in their development where they were able to receive Divine guidance? It is easy to see many of the parallels between the Axial period and the turmoil of today. Perhaps a return to the ethos of the time, in an evermore interconnected world, armed now with the cognitive and emotional insights of the last two thousand years, might help provide the guidelines for another great step forward along the spiritual path. And a way of dealing with some of the problems that threaten to engulf us. As Karen Armstrong say, "In the last resort, "love" and "concern" will benefit everybody more than self-interested or shortsighted policies." This book makes for absorbing and

Profound And Moving

The Great Transformation is a history of the Axial Age, the period in the approximate first millenium B.C.E. when nearly all of our present day religions and philosophies were born. The Axial Age was a time when religion and philosophy evolved from the mere worship of something out of fear it could hurt you to a true ethical, compassionate belief. Karen Armstrong is a brilliant writer and thinker, and this is her finest work. In a series of well organized and clearly developed chapters Armstrong traces the development of Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Greek philosophy, Confucianism, Daoism, Hinduism, and Buddhism. Armstrong provides context for the developments of these thought systems by succinctly describing the troubles of the time: invasions, epidemics, and the ebb and flow of cultural diffusion and change. She then relates these problems to the developing thought systems and shows how their influence penetrated the minds of the seers, prophets, and philosophers who were at work throughout the turmoil. Most interestingly, she interconnects the ideas with each other, showing how similar circumstances and contacts created philosophies and religions which shared the same concerns and often advocated many of the same solutions. The Great Transformation should be on the shelves of all who seek to better understand the origins of so much of our human cultural heritage.

Original Religions Stress Compassion

Karen Armstrong spent seven years as a nun, has written 16 previous books about religious matters, and is a prominent commentator on religious affairs in Britain. Her views have changed considerably since her earlier days in the convent, but she maintains tremendous respect for the world's great religions. She is a self-proclaimed "monotheist," but her writings seem to merely support and encourage a spiritual approach toward life - rather than a belief in any deity..."Human beings are spiritual animals...homo sapiens is also homo religiosus." Armstrong's topic in this book is the Axial Age - those seven centuries from 900BCE to 200BCE that were marked by violence and warfare. In four different regions of the world, four great theologies (or ideologies) arose specifically to oppose these violent trends: China - Daoism and Confucianism India - Hinduism and Buddhism Palestine - Judaism, which led to Christianity and Islam Greece - philosophical rationalism In all four geographical regions, the initial teaching was of tolerance, love, and humane treatment of others - despite the tendency for some of these to evolve into something else. Each tradition formulated its own version of the Golden Rule because what mattered was how one acts - putting ethical behavior at the heart of the spiritual life. The original prophets never relied on dogma - their emphasis was consistently on compassion. "The consensus of these four areas is an eloquent testimony to the unanimity of the spiritual quest of the human race. The Axial peoples all found that the compassionate ethic worked." When secondary prophets or philosophers did start to insist on obligatory doctrines, it was usually a sign that the movement was losing its momentum. In our religious institutions and their dogmas, we are at times creating the exact type of religiosity that the prophets from the Axial Age were trying to get rid of. Armstrong follows the progress of the religious development of the four Axial peoples side by side, charting their progress, sometimes in fits and starts. According to the author, we have never surpassed the insights of the Axial Age. Each generation since has tried to adapt the original insights to their particular situation and that is our task today. The following themes are apparent throughout: 1. God is made in man's image rather than the other way around. He is a projection of man's cultural needs, changing as culture evolves, and as new charismatic leaders present themselves. 2. Each tradition wrestled with Mythos versus Logos - the more mystical, spiritual, and tolerant approach versus the one more analytical and theological. An emphasis shift from a mystical, unknowable God to a more personal God has its advantages, but tends to allow intolerance and fundamentalism. 3. When concentrating on the similarities as to how humanity has always searched for God, they are more obvious than the differences. Armstrong started life with a conservative