“A lively and engaging chronicle,” writes Publishers Weekly. “Kirsch helpfully points out that the conflict between the worship of many gods and the worship of one true god never disappeared from the lives of Jews or Christians…and demonstrates clearly the ways in which this conflict gave rise to tensions that exist even today.”

“No book in recent memory tells us as much about both the limits and necessity of supernatural beliefs,” writes David Rosenberg, co-author of The Book of J and author of A Poet’s Bible. “With an astonishing singularity of purpose and clear-headed exposition, Jonathan Kirsch extracts the civilizing elements of our religion from the bloody history of its origins and marriages of convenience. It is a breath-taking and history-making achievement.”

“Kirsch’s book tells us a great deal about the religious imagination and its ongoing struggle for meaning and value,” writes Karen Armstrong, author of A History of God. “This is an accessible and engaging study that will challenge some facile religious assumptions, but does so creatively and constructively.”

“In God Against the Gods, Jonathan Kirsch tackles the central issue bedeviling the world today — religious intolerance,” says Leonard Shlain, author of the best-selling The Alphabet Versus the Goddess. “Filled with fascinating anecdotes, Kirsch traces the historical origins of this relatively recent malevolent human tendency, focusing on the tipping points in history when people began to kill other people solely because they held different religious beliefs. A timely book, well-written and researched.”

“Jonathan Kirsch has written another blockbuster about the Bible and its world — before, during and after, down to our own day,” says David Noel Freedman, distinguished Bible scholar and general editor of The Anchor Bible and The Anchor Bible Dictionary. “It will evoke strong, even passionate, responses from different sides of the perennial argument about ‘God against the gods.’”

Kirsch’s last book was THE WOMAN WHO LAUGHED AT GOD: The Untold History of the Jewish People (Viking Compass), a “counter-history” of Judaism that explores the richness and diversity in Jewish tradition by focusing on the surprising and shocking “counter-traditions” that have always shaped what it means to be Jewish. The Woman Who Laughed at God is published in hardcover and quality paperback by Viking, and an unabridged audio version is published by Books on Tape with the author as reader.

“A grand story, grandly told,” is how the Chicago Tribune describes The Woman Who Laughed at God. “An entertaining tour of Jewish history,” says the Washington Post.

“Writing with vivacity, Kirsch has produced a readily accessible and entertaining version of Jewish history,” writes Publishers Weekly in its review of The Woman Who Laughed at God. “Kirsch’s well-written re-examination of Jewish history tells the remarkable story of how Jewish diversity has contributed to Jewish survival.”

“A new way of thinking about a very old subject,” says Booklist. “Kirsch makes a persuasive case that orthodoxy has only existed in the minds of those who considered themselves Orthodox. Of considerable interest is Kirsch’s treatment of goddess worship hidden in the Bible.”

“Recommended,” says Library Journal. “Kirsch, author of such well-received and popular titles as King David and The Harlot by the Side of the Road, here uses stories from the vast history of the religion (including the story of Sarah, alluded to in the title) to show that Judaism has always been characterized by creativity, strength, and growth. His insights will be appreciated by Jewish and non-Jewish readers alike.”

Kirsch is also a columnist and book critic for the Los Angeles Times, a guest host and commentator for National Public Radio affiliates KCRW-FM and KPCC-FM, and an attorney in private practice in Century City, specializing in intellectual property matters, including copyright, trademark and publishing law. Among his other affiliations, he recently concluded his third term as President of PEN Center USA West, and he is a member of the Authors Guild and the National Book Critics Circle.

Kirsch served as chair of the non-fiction judging panel for the National Book Awards in 2003.

Kirsch is also the author of the national best-seller KING DAVID: The Real Life of the Man Who Ruled Israel (Ballantine), a biography of the single most crucial and controversial figure in the Hebrew Bible. Drawing on the sometimes suppressed passages of the biblical text and the latest discoveries of biblical scholarship, King David shows David to be a compelling but disturbingly complex man who was also a voracious lover, a troubled father, and a merciless warrior. Above all, Kirsch offers an open-eyed reading of the Bible that reveals David as a strikingly modern figure who prefigures Shakespearean tragedy, Machiavellian politics, and Freudian psychology. An abridged audio version of King David is published by Dove Audio, and an unabridged audio version is published by Books on Tape with the author as reader.

“With his energetic, modern reading of the best story in the Hebrew Bible, Kirsch achieves an immediacy more scholarly works can’t touch,” the Washington Post writes. “The book can be heartily recommended for the questions it raises and the attention it draws....Readers’ appetites will be whetted for this handsome, troubled king.”

“King David bids fair to become the favorite portrait of the most-favored son in the biblical tradition and also the best-selling life of King David in present company,” writes international Bible scholar David Noel Freedman in the Los Angeles Times. “He emerges from the shadows of legend and myth into the full glare of history. Kirsch has retold this very dramatic, suspenseful tale exceedingly well.”

“The significant discoveries of scholars and the fanciful speculation of literary critics alike have provided the ground for a stunning synthesis in Jonathan Kirsch’s King David,” writes David Rosenberg, author of The Book of David and co-author of The Book of J. “Kirsch has fashioned a story that is the first of its kind — a biography of biblical proportions, anchored in the imaginative sweep of fiction and the tactile surprise of fact.”

“Kirsch welcomes a wide audience to a scandalous, violent and surprisingly familiar ancient Israel,” writes Publishers Weekly. “King David both educates and entertains.”

Among Kirsch’s other national best-sellers is MOSES: A Life, a definitive but “unauthorized” biography of Moses, published in both hardcover and paperback by Ballantine Books. MOSES: A Life explores the “real” Moses as depicted in the Bible and biblical traditions, and shows him to be a much richer and stranger figure than we are accustomed to seeing in Sunday school lessons and movie matinees. MOSES: A Life is published in audio by Dove (abridged) and Books on Tape (unabridged). A national best-seller, MOSES: A Life was named as one of the best books of 1998 by the Los Angeles Times, and was selected by the Book of the Month Club.

The Washington Post called MOSES: A Life “a brightly written work that shows how much life remains in the Bible.” The San Francisco Chronicle calls the book “a deeply probing search for ‘the real Moses’...the writing is clearly fired by a conviction that the unexamined Moses is not worth having.” According to the Los Angeles Times, “Kirsch takes us perhaps as far as we can go in the search for the historical Moses.” And the Toronto Globe and Mail writes: “Kirsch expresses himself with zeal and showmanship, skill and sensitivity...he makes the riches of 20th-century biblical research accessible to a much larger audience.”

Kirsch is also the author of the best-selling THE HARLOT BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD: Forbidden Tales of the Bible, an exploration of Bible stories that have been censored or suppressed because of their erotic, mystical or violent content, Published in hardcover by Ballantine Books in the U.S. and Rider Books in Great Britain, and by publishers in Holland, Italy, Portugal, Brazil and Korea, The Harlot by the Side of the Road has been called “masterful” by the Washington Post, “fascinating and refreshing” by the Christian Science Monitor, “readable and insightful” by the San Francisco Chronicle, and “guaranteed to turn the heads of bookstore browsers from coast to coast” by the Los Angeles Times. And the San Francisco Chronicle urged: “Go out and buy Jonathan Kirsch’s fascinating new book.” The audio edition of The Harlot by the Side of the Road (Audio Literature, 1997) was honored by Publishers Weekly as one of the “Best Audio Books of 1997.”

He is also the author of Kirsch's Handbook of Publishing Law for Authors, Publishers, Editors and Agents (Acrobat Books, 1996) and Kirsch's Guide to the Book Publishing Contract (Acrobat Books, 1998), and he serves as adjunct professor in the Professional Publishing Institute of New York University.

Kirsch, who has contributed book review to the Los Angeles Times since 1968, is a Contributing Writer to the Los Angeles Times Book Review, where his “West Words” column appears every other Sunday. He also contributes reviews of books on the subject of religion and spirituality. His book reviews also appear in the Washington Post and the Toronto Globe and Mail, among other publications.

Kirsch serves as legal counsel on a pro bono basis for the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, Center for Media Literacy, California Lawyers for the Arts, and Publishers Marketing Association, which presented him with its Benjamin Franklin Award for Special Achievement in Publishing in 1994. Kirsch is a member of California Lawyers for the Arts, the Los Angeles Copyright Society, the Los Angeles Intellectual Property Law Association, and the Intellectual Property Sections of the California State Bar and the Los Angeles County Bar Association.

Kirsch, 53, was born in Los Angeles, attended high school in Culver City, and completed a Bachelor of Arts degree with honors in Russian and Jewish history and Adlai E. Stevenson College honors at the Santa Cruz campus of the University of California. A member of the California State Bar since 1976, he earned a Juris Doctor degree cum laude at Loyola University School of Law.

Before embarking on the practice of law, Kirsch was senior editor of California Magazine (formerly New West Magazine), where he specialized in a coverage of law, government and politics. Previously, he worked as West Coast correspondent for Newsweek, an editor for West and Home magazines at the Los Angeles Times, and a reporter for the Santa Cruz Sentinel. As a freelance writer, he has contributed to California Lawyer, Los Angeles Lawyer, New West, Los Angeles Magazine, New Republic, Publishers Weekly, Performing Arts, Human Behavior, L.A. Architect and other publications. He is also the author of two novels, Bad Moon Rising (1977) and Lovers in a Winter Circle (1978).

Kirsch is married to Ann Benjamin Kirsch, Psy.D., a psychotherapist in private practice in Beverly Hills.