Creating God: The birth and growth of major religions
What do we really know about how and where religions began, and how they spread?
In this bold new book, Robin Derricourt takes us on a journey through the birth and growth of the major religions, along the way using history and archaeology to recreate the times, places and societies that witnessed the birth of significant monotheistic faiths.
Beginning with Mormonism and working backwards in time through Islam, Christianity and Judaism to Zoroastrianism, Creating God opens up the conditions that allowed religious movements to emerge, attract their first followers and grow. Throughout history there have been many prophets: individuals who believed they were in direct contact with the divine, with instructions to spread a religious message. While many of these new religious movements disappeared without trace, some gained millions of followers to establish a lasting religion.
In Creating God, Robin Derricourt has produced a panoramic book that offers new insights on the origins of major religions and raises essential questions about why some succeeded where others failed.
Manchester University Press, May 2021, ISBN: 978-1-5261-5617-4
Blog: Writing a secular history of religious origins
Podcast: New Books Network
Reviews
‘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, Professor of the History of the Church, University of Oxford
‘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
Robin Derricourt, Author 