For many people today, the Hebrew Bible is the one supreme channel through which the Word of God was transmitted to humanity. In The Birth of God, Jean Bottero, one of the world's leading figures in Ancient Near Eastern Studies, approaches the Bible from a different perspective. He sees in it an astounding variety of documents that reveal much of their time of origin, historical events, and climates of thought. Therefore, we owe to the Bible at least the same respect we give to Homer, Shakespeare, and other classics of world literature. The Birth of God addresses...