The Left Hand of God A Biography of the Holy Spirit [Paperback]

Adolf Holl's divine biography examines the life of the Holy Spirit in the context of the history of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.  Interweaving scholarship with religion, myth, and culture, Holl expertly traces the influence of the Holy Spirit on men and women from all walks of life, over the course of centuries.  The result is quite unlike anything written before.

The Holy Spirit inspired a few Galilean fishermen to find the courage to preach a new world religion.  The Jews recognized it as the breath of God.  Mohammed was inspired by it in the dictation of the Koran.  Yet this same spirit has moved individuals to rebel against convention, authority, and even sanity.  Through Holl's freewheeling yet always crystal-clear discourse, we see how the Holy Spirit informs an incredible array of beliefs (including those underlying the rituals of Appalachian snake handlers) and ideas (the works of Freud and James Joyce are among the many discussed).

When the book was published in Germany,Der Spiegelwrote, "Holl has presented a formidable history, linking together the most distant things in a surprising way and leaving the whole as a paradox.  He leaves it to the reader to judge the encounter with the Holy Spirit as a manifestation of the divine in the human being--or as a case for the psychiatrist."

Whatever the reader's conclusion may be,The Left Hand of Godis sure to be hailed as a major religious publishing event."For years the Third Person of the Christian Trinity has either been neglected or just demoted to second-class status.  This book almost makes up for all that....The book may annoy some people but it will inform and (may I say it) entertain more."
--Harvey Cox, Thomas Professor of Divinity, Harvard University and author ofFire from Heaven: The Rise of Pentecostal Spirituality and the Reshaping of Religion in the Twenty-l“Å