"The Discovery of God" reconstructs the life of Abraham, disentangling history from myth and tracing the steps of his physical and religious journey through the ancient Middle East, describing the landscapes and routes of travel Abraham used, the different peoples he encountered, and the revolutionary impact of his teachings.
Abraham was not the first Jew and did not seek to establish the Jewish religion. Rather he sought to bring the whole world to the embrace of ethical monotheism. Beginning with Abraham's birth in Mesopotamia as the son of a dealer in idols, Klinghoffer describes his earliest intimations of God and presents him in a fresh and fascinating light as a wandering preacher and missionary. Along the way his relationship with God deepens as does the depth and power of his message. Many of the crucial episodes of Abraham's life occurred at sites still visible today; Klinghoffer has visited these sites and describes what they were like then and how they appear today.
The Bible is full of apparent errors and contradictions that have led modern scholars to conclude that it is the work of a series of editors. Klinghoffer maintains that the Bible is an esoteric book whose apparent inconsistencies point to hidden teachings that can only be revealed by consulting the ancient oral tradition preserved by Jewish sages from the Talmud to Maimonides. With a combination of rigorous scholarship and interpretive ingenuity, Klinghoffer opens these mysteries to the uninitiated reader.
