Contents
Foreword by Francis X. Clooney, SJ, Director of the Harvard Center
for Study of World Religions
Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Prologue: Four Fingers and a Thumb - Tao Te Ching, Analects,
Dhammapada, Gita, and Avesta
Book One
From the Foundations of the Earth to Our Common Spiritual
Ancestors
Introduction: East and West Meeting at the Altar of Religion by
Cyril Glassé
Exordium: What We Once Knew, by Karl Friedrich Geldner
Preface: Why the Z Factor Matters
1.Through the Mists of Time: Vedic and Semitic Prehistories
Connecting East and West
2.A Priest Becomes a Prophet: Commissioned at the River
3.A Chance Meeting at the Crossroads of History: A Prelude to the
Babylonian Interface between Proto Vedic and Proto Semitic
Religions
4.The Silk Route: The Axis of the Axial Age
5.The Extant Avesta: A Few Pieces of the Jigsaw Puzzle
6.The Fraternal Twins of World Religion: Monism for Monotheists
Book Two
The Taoist Testament
Introduction: Magi in China and Intellectual Ferment in Eurasia at
the Middle of the First Millennium BCE by Professor Victor H. Mair,
Professor of Chinese, Philadelphia University
Preface: Magic and iMagination
7. Tao Te Ching: translated by Victor H. Mair
Book Three
The Confucian Testament
Introduction: Innovation vs. Tradition by Jacqueline Mates-Muchin,
Senior Rabbi, Temple Sinai, Oakland
Preface: Fireworks East and West
8.The Analects: translated by James Legge
Book Four
The Buddhist Testament
Introduction: The Indian Origins of Buddhism by Professor
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, Oxford
Preface: King Akbar’s Perfect Religion
9.Dhammapada: translated by S. Radhakrishnan
Book Five
The Hindu Testament
Introduction: Reciprocal Illumination by Professor Arvind Sharma,
Birks Professor in Comparative Religion, McGill University
Preface: With Notes from Mahatma Mohandas Gandhi
10.Bhagavad Gita: translated by Gandhi
Book Six
The Z Factor
Introduction: Eastern Influence in Western Texts by Dr. David
Bruce
Preface: New Frontiers in Scriptural Studies
11.Israel in Exile: God as Israel’s Only Redeemer
12.Up from the River Again, With a Promise of Paradise: Jesus as a
Zoroastrian Saoshyant, the Redeemer of the World
13.Chinvat Bridge – The Final Judgement: Zoroastrian Scriptures and
“Previous Revelations” Corrected in the Quran
Book Seven
The Dead Zee Scrolls
Introduction: Digging Through Time by Professor Richard Freund
Preface: A Model for the Twenty First Century
14.Among the Ruins: Tablets and Cylinders
15.From Aurel Stein to Mary Boyce and Beyond: Controversies in the
Twentieth Century
Epilogue: The Resurrection of Zoroaster: A Prophet for the Twenty
First Century
Dancing on the Edge of Tombs: More Treasure Than Anyone
Imagined
Appendix: Images of the Original Eastern Testaments
Preface to Images: The Edict of Cyrus and the Chinese Cuneiform
Bones by E. K. Eduljee
Bibliography
Index
About the Editor
About the Contributors
Brian Arthur Brown is an independent scholar and a United Church of Canada minister. He is the author or editor of several books, including the award-winning Three Testaments: Torah, Gospel, Quran and Noah’s Other Son.
Brown (Three Testaments: Torah, Gospel, Quran) makes a fascinating
case for Zoroastrianism as the connecting point between the Vedic
religions of the east (Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, Hinduism)
and the Hebraic religions of the West (Judaism, Christianity,
Islam). Asserting that Zoroastrianism spread in two directions
along the Silk Road, that Zoroaster lived the generation before
Cyrus the Great (a contested theory), and that the Axial Age lasted
only about a century in roughly the sixth century BCE, Brown
locates developments in major religions that he attributes to
Zoroaster’s influence. Some of Brown’s case is speculative but not
unreasonable, relying on the anticipated discovery of 'Dead Zee
scrolls' of lost Arvestas comparable to the Dead Sea Scrolls (or
the yet uncovered 'Q' document believed to have been a template for
the New Testament) in Silk Road caves. Along with tracing the
contours of a tantalizing mystery, Brown includes translations of
the Tao Te Ching, Dhammapada, Analects of Confucius, and Gandhi’s
translation of Bhagavad Gita, creating a rich compendium.
Especially when compared with the numerous books repeating shopworn
notions, the wealth of new information in this volume is immense.
Readers outside of academia will hope Brown produces a shorter
version for a popular audience.
*Publishers Weekly*
Four Testaments is an excellent compendium of scriptures of the
Eastern religious traditions. Complementing Brown's Three
Testaments: Torah, Gospel, and Quran (2012), the present volume
introduces Taoism, Confucianism, Buddhism, and Hinduism through
religious texts. The collection boasts translations of these texts
by a variety of hands, including for example the Bhagavad Gita in
the words of Mahatma Gandhi. Readers are guided through these rich
and diverse texts in brief introductions by experts. The Gita, for
example, is framed by an explanation from Arvind Sharma. This rich
array of texts, interpreted by a wide range of scholars and
theologians, is one of the book's strengths. Brown's focus is the
meeting of East and West, and this is what gives the manuscript its
uniqueness as it strives to make previously unarticulated
connections between scriptures. This accessible volume should have
a wide readership.
Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through
faculty; general readers.
*CHOICE*
In a companion volume to ThreeTestaments: Torah, Gospel, and Quran,
Canadian pastor Brian Arthur Brown presents the sacred scriptures
of four Eastern faith traditions alongside critical essays about
the texts. Accessible to nonscholars, Brown’s underlying narrative
posits an ancient meeting between the textual traditions of East
and West in the Zoroastrian faith. The primary value of this book
for many readers, however, will be in the words of the scriptures
themselves. Locating scriptures of diverse traditions on adjacent
pages is not without risk—but it is valuable for those who seek to
be illuminated by the texts and moved to fruitful dialogue.
*The Christian Century*
Four Testaments is an excellent overview of the Eastern religious
traditions and an ideal complement to Three Testaments on the
Abrahamic religions. If Three Testaments is your text for an
Introduction to the Scriptures of the Western Monotheisms in the
autumn semester, Four Testaments should be your text for the
Scriptures of the Eastern Monisms in the spring.
*Jonathan Kearney, Saint Patrick’s College, Dublin University*
Four Testaments is certainly invaluable both worldwide and in the
Global South. People may be more open to inter-faith and
inter-religious dialogue—a lived reality—than is sometimes
realized. Four Testaments showcases this dialogue at its best.
*Rev. Joy Abdul-Mohan, St. Andrew’s Theological College, Trinidad &
Tobago*
Brian Brown has done it again with his usual mix of good
scholarship and good humour. Four Testaments is the companion
volume to Three Testaments, and covers the major Eastern religions.
It provides important primary texts, as well as material to help
non-specialists understand those texts. More importantly, it shows
us the connections between our religious traditions.
*Amir Hussain, Loyola Marymount University*
The religions of India and China, which were once seen by
Westerners as exotic but not very important personally, have now
become, due to modern communications, religious influences on
people all over the globe. This second volume of an important
set thus serves as an essential introduction to how traditionally
Eastern religions think about individuals, society, the
environment, and the transcendent so that we can come to know each
other and work together for the benefit of all of us.
*Elliot Dorff, American Jewish University*
This is an insightful inquiry into the connections between the
primary scriptures of the East, in the context of their cultures,
and the primary scriptures of the West. The volume expertly affirms
the interconnections between various textual traditions. It is a
welcome addition to the ever-growing field of intertextual
studies.
*Sharada and Rasiah Sugirtharajah, University of Birmingham*
From the Foreword
Four Testaments is an important work, suited to the times in which
we live. Of course, the reading is not so simple or arbitrary as to
end with just one volume. One needs to keep the Four Testaments on
one’s desk or nightstand alongside the Three Testaments, moving
back and forth between the two volumes and their several great
texts.
*Francis X. Clooney, SJ, director of the Center for the Study of
World Religions, Harvard University*
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