Books in Brief

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A spate of recent books encourages Bible enthusiasts to read Scripture alongside the sacred texts of other world religions, to compare Jesus and Moses with eastern leaders, and to contrast the Judeo-Christian belief systems with, well, just about anything under the sun.—Ed.

The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions

Edited by John Bowker
(New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2000)
700 pp., $15.95 (paperback)
To order, contact the press at 800–451-7556 or www.oup.com.

Anyone who feels daunted by the broad field of religion will appreciate this handy reference book, newly published in paperback. From A (a symbol of emptiness in Zen Buddhism) to Zwingli (the 16th-century Swiss reformer), the 8,000-plus entries describe the world’s religions, movements, sects and cults, as well as the individuals, sacred sites, ethics, texts and beliefs associated with them. The variety and depth of the listings are immediately apparent: One page alone covers the Aqedah, Aqsa Mosque, Age of Aquarius, Aquila, Aquinas, Arabi, Aradhana, Arai Hakuseki and more. The listing on gardens mentions Eden, the Zen gardens of Kyoto and the symmetrically planned plots of Muslim Granada.

The Rivers of Paradise: Moses, Buddha, Confucius, Jesus, and Muhammad as Religious Founders

Edited by David Noel Freedman and Michael J. McClymond
(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001)
702 pp., $50.00 (hardback)
To order, contact the press at 800–253-7521 or www.eerdmans.com.

In this collection of essays, the five rivers of Eden, that is, the source river with its four branches, serve as a metaphor for five major world religions—Judaism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Christianity and Islam. Each chapter introduces readers to one religious founder and the cultural and religious worlds that produced him.

The dense but readable chapter on Muhammad, for example, lays out the social and political situation in Arabia in the seventh century; provides the history of the world up to the time of Muhammad, as retold in the Quran; recounts the prophet’s life story; and offers reflections on the texts, religious laws and political situation that followed the prophet’s death.

Jesus and Lao Tzu: The Parallel Sayings

Edited by Martin Aronson
(Berkeley, CA: Seastone/Ulysses Press, 2000) 214 pp., $19.00 (hardback)
To order, contact the press at 800–377-2542 or www.ulyssespress.com.

The neverending search for parallels between religions East and West continues in this volume, which pairs New Testament passages with sayings from Taoism’s central text. According to tradition, the Tao Te Ching—literally, “The Way and Its Power”—was composed about 2,500 years ago by Lao Tzu, a contemporary of Confucius, who served as an imperial official in western China.

The sparely designed book presents the parallel quotations on facing pages. Thus, “unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3) faces “being the stream of the universe, ever true and unswerving, become as a little child once more” (Tao Te Ching 28). Other quotations from Lao Tzu include “reveal your simple self, embrace your original nature” and “the sage does not accumulate things. He lives for other people and grows richer himself. He gives to other people and has greater abundance.”

The introduction lays out parallels between the two teachings, both of which encourage humility, gentleness and integrity while condemning materialism, injustice, hypocrisy and violence. Differences—historical and thematic—are also sketched out. For example, Taoism is thoroughly rooted in this world, rather than the next; the Taoist absolute is an impersonal force, unlike the Christian God.

God’s Breath: Sacred Scriptures of the World

Edited by John Miller and Aaron Kenedi
(New York: Marlowe & Co., 2000) 536 pp., $16.95 (paperback)
To order, contact the press at 800–788-3123.

“It would be worthy of the age to print together the collected Scriptures or Sacred Writings of the several nations, the Chinese, the Hindoos, the Persians, the Hebrews, and others, as the Scripture of mankind,” Henry David Thoreau wrote in 1849. “Such a juxtaposition and comparison might help to liberalize the faith of men.” One hundred fifty years later, Thoreau’s words have inspired this collection of English translations of the Book of Genesis, the Tao Te Ching, the Book of Rumi, the Gospel of John, the Bhagavad Gita, the Quran and the Tibetan Book of the Dead.

Introductory essays are culled from a variety of sources, including the writings 043of Herman Wouk, Joseph Campbell, Karen Armstrong, Marcus Borg, Reynolds Price, the Dalai Lama, Sirdar Ikbal ali Shah (a modern descendant of Muhammad) and Thoreau, who recommends the Bhagavad Gita as a “good book” that “deserves to be read with reverence even by Yankees.”

The book is not intended for scholarly study; to learn more about the dates, history and development of the texts and their authors, you will need to consult another source (see, for example, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions, above). Several of the texts appear only in excerpts: Genesis lacks its “repetitious family lineages”; and only the beginning and end of the Book of the Dead, the “most popular” books by the Persian Sufi poet Rumi, and the “most beloved and recited” sections of the Quran are included. Any possible historical or thematic connections—and disconnections—between the expurgated texts gathered together here are left for readers to piece together.

Paths of Faith: Conversations About Religion and Spirituality

Michael Thomas Ford
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000)259 pp., $17.00 (hardback)
To order, contact the press at 800–223-2348 or www.SimonSaysKids.com.

This series of interviews with 11 people from various religious backgrounds is aimed at teenagers, which may explain why the interviewees tend to speak on a very personal level about their religious upbringing as children and the transitions that led them to their adult beliefs. Although many of the interviewees are leaders of their faiths, they speak not simply as representatives of their religions, but as thinking, questioning participants.

The late John Jay O’Connor considered how three decades as a priest in the Navy and the Marine Corps prepared him for the very public life he led as the archbishop of New York City (“Even when you’re changing your socks, there could be a camera catching it all on film”). A witch explains how she sees Wicca as an extension of the Judaism in which she was raised. A Shaker admits that, despite popular belief, the greatest challenge of her communal life is not celibacy but the loss of independence. And a Reform rabbi discusses the family tensions he faced when he turned away from his Orthodox background.

Looking for God: A Seeker’s Guide to Religious and Spiritual Groups of the World

Steven Sadleir
(New York: Penguin Putnam, Perigee, 2000) 432 pp., $15.95 (paperback)
To order, contact the press at 800–788-6262 or www.penguinputnam.com.

Need the Web address for the modern Essenes or the Salvation Army? The location of the nearest transcendental meditation center? The precise words of the Hare Krishna’s mantra? Then this handbook is for you. The guide (which has been revised since its original 1992 edition) is intended to meet the needs of the most thorough modern “seekers,” who want to look into every possible religious option—from Channeling to Christianity—before settling on any one. The book includes brief histories of more than a hundred religious and spiritual groups, and bibliographic and on-line sources for further research.

A spate of recent books encourages Bible enthusiasts to read Scripture alongside the sacred texts of other world religions, to compare Jesus and Moses with eastern leaders, and to contrast the Judeo-Christian belief systems with, well, just about anything under the sun.—Ed.

The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions