The Lost Art of Scripture

'Karen Armstrong has written an amazingly wide-ranging book, showing that the world's religious texts can be a force for good today, rather than a cause of conflict. The scale of her knowledge never ceases to astonish' -- John Barton, author of A History of the Bible
A triumph... Karen Armstrong is one of our great commentators on the sacred. In this book she explores the sacred texts with a scholar’s eye and an illuminating clarity suggesting how much their wisdom and lasting power are still needed today -- Salley Vickers
[The Lost Art of Scripture] takes us on a glorious journey… Armstrong is the most articulate and generous-hearted exegete of religion writing in English at the present time -- AN Wilson * New Statesman *
Rich and wide-ranging… [The Lost Art of Scripture] makes a fascinating read… a treasure chest of social and religious history. Armstrong’s lucid prose makes her many-stranded story remarkably straightforward to follow… a learned and stimulating book -- Teresa Morgan * Tablet *
A remarkable book by a remarkable writer… the author’s mission is urgent in the light of the uses to which the world’s scriptures are sometimes put -- Rev Dr Neil Richardson * Methodist Recorder *
The Lost Art of Scripture… exhibits [Armstrong’s] well-known and admired characteristics as a writer: an ability to be both authoritative on all the major faiths…a reasoned insistence that religion today is misunderstood, as much by the religious as by their critics; and a passionate appeal to our fractious and fractured world to embrace religion’s core message…compassion and respect for others -- Peter Stanford * Sunday Times *
Magisterial ... a dazzling accomplishment, a reflection of an encyclopaedic knowledge of comparative religion and of a wisdom about spirituality in the human species * New York Times Book Review *
Exhilarating, challenging and curiously comforting… [The Lost Art of Scripture has] been written not only with intellectual rigour and an accessible turn of phrase, but also with love -- Lucy Winkett * Prospect *
One of our best living writers on religion * Financial Times *
Karen Armstrong is a genius -- A.N. Wilson
Karen Armstrong is one of the handful of wise and supremely intelligent commentators on religion -- Alain De Botton
A fascinating excursion into neo-Gnosticism… Armstrong…has clearly done an enormous amount of reading and research to handle so skilfully the mass of material she surveys -- Jack Carrigan * Catholic Herald *
[Armstrong] weaves…[a] truly vast history into a coherent and fascinating narrative… an interesting and very well-written book -- Gavin Flood * Church Times *
An epic story with a polemical edge… [a] lucid account of the evolution of sacred text… The Lost Art of Scripture is an impressive achievement, presenting a wide sweep of global religious history in little more than five hundred pages… Armstrong is…an accomplished and fluent writer * Literary Review *