The Jesus Sutras: Rediscovering the Lost Scrolls of Taoist Christianity Book + PRICE WATCH * Amazon pricing is not included in price watch

The Jesus Sutras: Rediscovering the Lost Scrolls of Taoist Christianity Book

It's no secret that there were Christians in China as far back as the seventh century. But exactly what they believed has been difficult to discern. In his book The Jesus Sutras, translator and interfaith pioneer Martin Palmer begins to shed light on what he has come to call Taoist Christianity, referring to ancient texts found only a century ago and drawing on his own sleuthing in China. In a book of ambitious scope, Palmer recounts Christianity's spread eastward from Jerusalem, where it encountered and adapted to local cultures. One of those cultures was the most powerful and advanced civilization in the world--Tang China--but which was also steeped in a retro-shamanic faith known as Taoism. Just as the Chinese assimilated Buddhism by interpreting it in Taoist terms, a similarly fascinating fusion of beliefs appears to have taken place in China's Christian monasteries. Palmer takes us to the site of one of these sanctuaries, which was once the Taoist equivalent of Canterbury Cathedral and which the Chinese government is now excavating and restoring in earnest. He also offers full English translations of what he calls the Jesus Sutras, Christian tracts translated into Chinese from an unknown Eastern language. While bearing clear resemblance to traditional Christianity, differences, and what one may call advances, are also apparent--for instance, original sin becomes the goodness of original nature. The Jesus Sutras is a powerful combination of research, translation, and interpretation that not only brings the past to light but lights the way for future interfaith dialogue. --Brian BruyaRead More

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    ?The Jesus Sutras tells a valuable history of the beautiful teachings of a faith built on living practices of brotherhood and peace. The Sutras show us the interbeing nature of Jesus, Buddha, Tao, peoples, cultures, transformation, salvation and unity through deep and mindful living.? --Thich Nhat Hanh, author of LIVING BUDDHA, LIVING CHRIST

    "In offering a tantalizing glimpse of a distant past when Christian, Taoist and Buddhist ideas achieved a brilliant fusion in China, *The Jesus Sutras*inspire hope for a future in which celebration of diversity may one day triumph over the sterile certainties of exclusivism." -- Stephen Batchelor, author of Buddhism Without Beliefs

    "The Jesus Sutras vividly brings to life the partnership teachings of Jesus and their application in a surprising setting. Palmer?s account of Chinese communities that honored both women and men and lived equitably and nonviolently is a fascinating story and a stunning contribution to religious history. Riane Eisler, author of The Chalice and The Blade, Sacred Pleasure, and Tomorrow?s Children

    "The Jesus Sutras is a spellbinding story of the rediscovery of the earliest traces of Christianity in China and an imaginative reconstruction of the subsequent development of this alien faith from the Far West in the Middle Kingdom. Martin Palmer's infectious enthusiasm for his subject is evident throughout and enables him to illuminate numerous facets of the Religion of Light that were hitherto unknown to modern scholars. The result is not only the moving account of the author's personal quest to comprehend a phenomenally important but strangely mysterious stele inscription, it is also one of the most fascinating chapters ever written in the history of world religions. --Victor H. Mair, Professor of Asian & Middle Eastern Studies, University of Pennsylvania, Translator Tao Te Ching

    ?Martin Palmer has written a book in the great tradition of English scholars and explorers. He has put together the evidence of the presence of early Christianity, in the first millennium, in China. He has reread and retranslated the Jesus Sutras to present a view of Christianity that was independent of the accepted definitions in the West. He has found in this Christianity, in ancient China, a liberating and healing expression for the whole of the human spirit. Men and women of all the faith traditions will be moved by this book.? Arthur Hertzberg, Bronfman Visiting Professor of the Humanities, New York University

  • 0345434242
  • 9780345434241
  • Martin Palmer
  • 1 August 2001
  • Wellspring/Ballantine
  • Hardcover (Book)
  • 288
  • 1
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