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Johnson is more impressive as a journalist than as a polemicist. He has digested and organized a staggering amount of complex information without neglecting the anecdotes and tidbits that revive a reader's attention span. The word Hebrew, for example, is believed to have been derived from the ancient Egyptian Habiru, a derisive name for a group that often made its living as itinerant tinkers and peddlers. But are their descendants the Chosen People? As a Semitophile, Johnson would like to think so. But as a Christian, he heads for an existential exit: "The Jews believed they were a special people with such unanimity and passion, and over so long a span, that they became one."
A visit to the Shrine of the Book in Jerusalem should dispel any doubt. There you can practically put your nose into fragments of the oldest known biblical writings. The letters have flickered across the parchment for more than 2,000 years yet can be read today by any Israeli fifth-grader. That these small, dark tongues of fire remain unextinguished should astonish Jew, non-Jew and non-Jewish Jew alike.