A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam

Let us begin our journey at the dawn of human consciousness, when the world was a vast mystery and every shadow held a secret. Imagine a circle of people gathered around a crackling fire, their faces painted with awe as stories swirl in the night air. These are not just tales—they are living bridges to the invisible, the first attempts to make sense of thunder, birth, and death. In those ancient days, myth was not a fanciful escape but a vital tool for survival, a way to weave meaning into the unpredictable fabric of life. The spirits of wind, sun, and earth were honored in ritual and song, their presence felt in the trembling of the forest and the flicker of stars above.

Across continents, early societies carved standing stones and molded figurines, believing these objects to be more than mere art. They were portals—touchstones to the sacred, drawing down the power of the gods to ensure the fertility of the soil and the safety of the tribe. In the caves of Europe and the valleys of Mesopotamia, the stories of creation, destruction, and renewal echoed through generations. Each myth was a thread, connecting people to the mysteries that surrounded them.

It is here that we meet the first whisper of a single, supreme being—a Sky God, distant and unapproachable, watching over the world yet rarely intervening. In Africa, tribes prayed to a creator who had withdrawn, leaving lesser spirits to manage daily affairs. In Canaan, El was the high god, serene and remote, while in Babylon, the gods struggled and schemed, mirroring the chaos of human life. Even as new gods arose, the memory of the Sky God lingered, a silent presence in the background of myth and ritual.

These early gods were not always kind. Sometimes they demanded sacrifice, sometimes they vanished altogether, leaving a sense of absence—a God-shaped hole—in the hearts of their people. But their stories endured, carried by the firelight and the dance, shaping the way humans saw themselves and their place in the cosmos.

As we leave the circle of the ancients behind, we carry with us their longing for connection, their reverence for the unknown, and their unending quest to find meaning in a world of shadows. This is the soil from which all later visions of God will grow. And so we step forward, from the flickering light of myth into the dawn of history, where a new kind of faith is about to emerge. Let us follow the path to the next chapter, where the idea of God begins to take shape in the lives of a wandering people.