Preachers have always had a great fondness for the human body, and I don’t mean only the Jimmy Swaggarts among them. The body, they admonish us, is God’s temple, an object of wonder not to be defiled. Our bodies are our closest instance of a miracle; they show us, in our very flesh, the exquisite handiwork of the Creator. In the Psalms it says, “I give You thanks, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”

A medieval Muslim theologian once remarked, “Man is the most astonishing of creatures and yet, he is not seized with astonishment at himself.” By that he meant the actual living architecture of the human body. In his treatises he took almost voluptuous pleasure in enumerating the bones and veins, the organs and the limbs, the hair and eyes and lips, even the cunning placement of eyebrows and eyelashes as both protection and adornment for the eyes. All these tiny individual details of our anatomy, he argued, provide proof for the wisdom and the benevolence of the Creator.

The Renaissance picked up this theme but gave it a twist: The human creature is wondrous in essence and in form and rivals not only angels but God himself. The creature, rather than the creator, is now the cynosure. Hamlet ex claims, “What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! In form, in moving, how express and admirable! In action how like an angel! In apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world! The paragon of animals!” (Of course, melancholy Dane that he is, Hamlet goes on to sigh, “And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?”)

Whether you believe in a divine artificer or consider evolution to be the blind designer of our faculties, or even if you think yourself nothing more than a random concatenation of atoms fortuitously conjoined, the human body commands amazement. In truth, though I’m far from squeamish, I generally prefer not to be overly aware of what goes on under my own integument. But now, a new book has lifted the wilful veil from my ignorant eyes. I’m freshly amazed and more than a little daunted. The book, called “The Architecture and Design of Man and Woman: The Marvel of the Human Body, Revealed” (Doubleday, 251 pages, $50), is the creation of the New York artist and technologist Alexander Tsiaras, with text written by Barry Werth. Mr. Tsiaras is a pioneer in computer imaging, here employed to awe-inspiring effect. The images in this book are simply breathtaking, and the accompanying commentary by Mr. Werth is equally beautiful.

We begin with the “facade” or “integumentary system” (that’s “skin” to you and me) and proceed through brain, muscles, sensory apparatus, the skeleton, the endocrine and cardiovascular systems to the respiratory, digestive, urinary, and reproductive functions (yes, I too checked this first, and it’s spectacular: lovemaking will never be the same again!). Each image appears in lambent color; each could inspire an essay all its own. For example, one of the first is of a pregnant woman; the image is foreshortened so that her hands, cradling her belly, look huge. And we see her baby in the womb, head downward, eyes shut fast, while her elongated hands, at once ghostly and inexpressibly tender, form a protective basket around him. She is gazing to the side and the look in her eyes give us the sense, without the least sentimentality, of what motherhood means, while all the while preserving the scientific accuracy of the image.

As Mr. Werth notes, Mr. Tsiaras’s images restore “an erotic frisson” to our conception of the body, not by way of titillation but by explicitly showing the near-infinite stratifications of our fleshly envelope. The colors are almost garish, the various systems and organs utterly in-your-face; nothing is left to the imagination, yet the mystery of our corporeal identity only deepens in these images. Of the skin, Mr. Werth writes that it forms “a tough, semiporous laminate,” which in an adult has a surface area of some two square meters while weighing 10 to 12 pounds. He notes further that though it is the surface of our selves that attracts others – skin, hair, nails – there is an implicit irony in our desires, since those surfaces we glom onto so obsessively are themselves already formed of dead cells (so much, he remarks wryly, for racial differences: Beneath the laminate, we’re all identical).

An important aspect of this compelling book is its subtle emphasis on the anatomical differences between man and woman. That may sound obvious, but it isn’t. By dwelling on the body as an architectonic construct, the authors elucidate the compensating structures of both sexes. Thus, “women have narrower shoulders and their arms are usually shorter, meaning they have less leverage in throwing. Similarly, their hips are wider … which increases the angle between the pelvis and thighbone and makes it harder for them to raise their knees as high as men, or push on the ground with as much force, while running.” Nothing new there, but Mr. Werth goes on to note that “lower hips and narrower shoulders create a lower center of gravity, making women’s bodies more stable.” And the point is reinforced by the computer imagery, which – with its eerie golden tones – gives the female skeleton a kind of earthenware aura.

Whether discussing the “network of pipes” (our capillary system) or “slow burn” (respiratory functions) or “solid intake/waste removal” (digestion and its results), the authors are at once lucid and entertaining. Words and images, for once, complement one another to perfection. It’s unusual for medical imaging to be lyrical, as these images are; it’s even more uncommon for commentary and image to stand in such lovely equipoise.

Be warned: This isn’t a book for the queasy, beautiful as it is. I’ve never before quite thought of my intestines as tripes, but that’s what they indisputably are, and I’m getting used to the idea. We are pretty intricate mammals, whoever made us, and this magnificent work sets out all our awesome intricacy in vivid, and unforgettable, detail. I’m no preacher, but if I were, this would be my lectionary.