Creating God

Robin Derricourt is an Honorary Professor of History in the School of Humanities at the University of New South Wales and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. He holds a PhD in archaeology from the University of Cambridge. His previous books include Inventing Africa: History, Archaeology and Ideas (2011), Antiquity Imagined: The Remarkable Legacy of Egypt and the Ancient Near East (2015) and Unearthing Childhood: Young Lives in Prehistory (2018), which received the PROSE Award for Archaeology and Ancient History.

‘Religions are among the most potent inventions of the human imagination. This magisterial study will help us understand them not as divine, but as human constructs.’Richard Holloway, author of Stories We Tell Ourselves'An intriguing and sensitively presented survey of the often surprising links and continuities between some of the world's great religions over three millennia.'Diarmaid MacCulloch, author of A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years'Creating God is an attempt to recreate the worlds in which the founders of several major religions lived and laboured. The result is a book rich in detail, consummate in its scholarship, and revelatory in exposing for modern eyes the conditions that allowed religious movements to flourish. Derricourt’s approach is to work backwards chronologically through Mormonism, Islam, Christianity, Judaism to Zoroastrianism. The outcome of all this work is one of the most exciting books of modern times.'Queensland Reviewers Collective'If you are a student of Theology, History or simply someone who enjoys discovering much about the history of humanity, the good, the bad and the indifferent and where the fundamental beliefs that form a part of our society and bloody history were formed, Creating God is a very good place to begin. Fascinating, well researched and very readable Creating God is not a light read but one that is very worthwhile.'BlueWolf Reviews, Janet Mawdesley'The book is comprehensively annotated, and, in addition, contains a very useful ‘select’ bibliography for further reading. It provides an excellent entry point for those seeking secular perspectives on the origins of the five religions that are its focus, and for those seeking secular perspectives on the origins of religions more broadly'Journal of Religious History

• 1 Introduction: religions’ origins in context2 Frontiers of place and belief: Mormon origins and journeys3 Vision, faith and conquest: the source and power of Islam4 Rural Galilee to imperial cities: the beginnings and spread of Christianity5 Scribes, priests and exiles under foreign rule: the emergence of monotheistic Judaism6 Ahura Mazda and the enigmas of Zoroastrian origins7 Prophets, texts, religions and history: some conclusionsIndex