Four start for the following: 1. Good introduction to and synthesis of interesting ideas like primary vs secondary religions, the Axial Age, mnemohistory, and others. These are not the author's original ideas, but he does incorporate them in a way that is very informative. 2. Honest good-will attempts throughout the book to engage with critics of his ideas and address their concerns 3. Development and correction of some of his previous ideas or conclusions. It's seems rare among scholars of religion to admit to making a wrong conclusion and correct themselves. It was a pleasure to see this evolution and refinement of ideas in action.

But just because I though it was a pleasure to read doesn't mean I agree with most of this book's main points. They seem solid on the surface, but disintegrate if you examine them too closely. Which is probably inevitable for any book that tries to over-generalize all of world religions ever into a neat series of dichotomies. The pattern mostly holds... except for those two-thirds of cases where it doesn't, which are either brushed off or conveniently omitted.

In the end, I came away with new knowledge of the religious history of Egypt, more knowledge of Maimonides, and a clearer understanding of some of Freud's, Jaspers's, and others' ideas about religion. So I count this reading experience as a win. But I would not recommend this book to anyone who is not at least familiar with "pagan" religions or Christian theology. This book is very vague and imprecise on those topics, to the point that it might even be misleading. It definitely should be taken with a grain of salt.