The Birth of God addresses questions that "educated readers" usually avoid when the topic of the bible comes up: What is the bible if we consider it a historical document? Bottero is fully aware of the special place the Bible has in the circles of many faithful Jews and Christians, but he focuses on the need for an understanding of Israel as a major root of our entire Western tradition. With grace and insight, he brings out the extraordinary originality of Israel's question and ideas, many of which have shaped our thinking ever since. In Bottero's hands, Moses, Job, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and other familiar figures take on real life and present to us thoughts we might never have assiociated with th Bible

Jean Bottero has held a chair in Assyriology in the departement of Philology and History at the EHESS(Ecoles pratique des Hautes Etudes) since 1958. He is the author of Mesopotamia: Writing, Reasoning, and the God. (Chicago University Press, 2002)