The Lost Art of Scripture: Rescuing the Sacred Texts by Karen Armstrong: A review
Karen Armstrong, for those unfamiliar with her work, is a former nun and British writer who has written extensively on religion and religious themes. I've read and learned a lot from a few of her many books, including A History of God , to which this current book seems almost a sequel. Armstrong, who is 75, is now an ambassador for the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations. The Lost Art of Scripture could almost serve as a textbook for a course in comparative religions. In it, Armstong takes us on a tour of the scriptural foundations of most of the major religious thought of humans. It is a fascinating and lengthy (more than 600 pages) journey. We visit India for the origin of the Vedas. And we revisit to pick up on variations of Hindu texts and the evolution of Jainist thought and of the beginnings of Sikhism. It is a rich and wide-ranging history that could fill - and has filled - many books by itself. Then we see the beginnings of Buddhism. The Buddha never wrote a text and...