Books like Through the narrow gate by Karen Armstrong

A history of God traces the evolution of monotheistic concepts from ancient Judaism through Christianity and Islam, highlighting their differences and shared foundations.

Karen Armstrong traces humanity’s lifelong quest to answer profound questions through the evolving concept of God, focusing on Western monotheistic traditions, especially Christianity.

In the ninth century BCE, the peoples of four distinct regions of the civilized world created the religious and philosophical traditions that have continued to nourish humanity to the present day: Confucianism and Daoism in China, Hinduism and Buddhism in India, monotheism in Israel, and philosophical rationalism in Greece. Later generations further developed these initial insights, but we have never grown beyond them. Now, Karen Armstrong reveals how the sages of this pivotal "Axial Age" can speak clearly and helpfully to the violence and desperation that we experience in our own times. The Axial Age faiths began in recoil from the unprecedented violence of their time. There was a remarkable consensus in their call for an abandonment of selfishness and a spirituality of compassion. The traditions of the Axial Age were not about dogma--all insisted on the primacy of compassion even in the midst of suffering.--From publisher description.

Karen Armstrong recounts leaving her convent, battling depression and epilepsy, and finding a new vocation studying sacred texts.

An ancient Syriac manuscript, awaiting discovery in the British Library, has been translated into English, revealing new details about Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and early Christian politics.