Seven Testaments of World Religion and the Zoroastrian Older Testament

By (author) Brian Arthur Brown

Publication date:

15 November 2019

Length of book:

362 pages

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

ISBN-13: 9781538127865

This essential comparative religious studies resource presents primary scriptures of seven world religions and reveals their shared heritage in Zoroastrian tradition. Completing the authoritative trilogy alongside Three Testaments: Torah Gospel and Quran and Four Testaments: Tao Te Ching, Analects, Dhammapada, Bhagavad Gita, Seven Testaments of World Religion lays the groundwork for all studies of religious history.

Special Features

Concise descriptions of each testament

Maps, timelines, and study guide questions

Appendices connecting historical events across testaments

Foreword, Karen Hamilton

Prologue: Twenty Years in the Making

Preface: What's New in This Book?

Introduction, David Bruce

Disclaimers: What If? and Other Questions

Part I: Indo-European Connections in All Seven Testaments on World Religion

1. Breakthroughs in the Study of World Religions

2. From the Z Factor to Zoroaster, including a historic exordium by Friedrich Geldner

3. From the Foundations of the Earth: Vedic and Semitic Prehistories East and West

4. Commissioned at the River: A Priest Becomes a Prophet

5. The Silk Route: The Axis of the Axial Age

6. The Extant Avesta: Pieces of a Jigsaw Puzzle

7. The Fraternal Twins of World Religions

8. Monism and Monotheism in Actual Practice

Part II: Creation and Apocalypse in World Religions: Avestan Models in Torah, Tao Te Ching, Analects, Dhammapada, Bhagavad Gita, Gospel, and Quran

9. The Dead Zee Scrolls: Zoroastrian Concepts Buried in the Scriptures of World Religions

10. An Essence of the Torah

11. An Essence of the Tao

12. An Essence of the Analects

13. An Essence of the Dhammapada

14. An Essence of the Bagavad Gita

15. An Essence of the Gospel

16. An Essence of the Quran

Part III: Appendices

A. Twelve Session Study Guides for Three Testaments and Four Testaments, David Bruce

B. Three Testaments: Shalom, Peace, Salam

C. Where the Bodies are Buried

D. Older Testaments: Encounters on the Way, a one-act play, William Thomas

E. Identifying the Tomb of Zoroaster

F. The Sogdians: Prime Movers between Boundaries, Jenny Rose

G. Sogdians in China: A Short History and Some New Discoveries, Étienne de la Vaissière

H. Plot Summary for a Movie about a Zoroastrian Tragedy

Epilogue: An Agenda for Another Twenty Years: Finding and Identifying the Dead Zee Scrolls

Afterword: Continuing the Magi Journey, including article by Mark Rose

Bibliography

Brian Arthur Brown’s Seven Testaments of World Religion and the Zoroastrian Older Testament (hereafter, “7+Z”) gives Zoroastrians the opportunity to note how their histories may have influenced another seven global religious traditions and their creation/apocalyptic stories. . . . What 7+Z does irrefutably, is illustrate that interfaith dialogue and collaborative thinking regarding ways of being and ways of knowing (religious formation), occurred.