Varieties of Religious Invention - Patrick Gray
Varieties of Religious Invention - Patrick Gray
Varieties of Religious Invention - Patrick Gray
Edited by
PATRICK GRAY
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Varieties of religious invention : founders and their functions in history / edited by Patrick Gray.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 978–0–19–935974–5 (ebook) — ISBN 978–0–19–935971–4 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Religions—
History.
2. Religious leaders—History. I. Gray, Patrick, 1970–
BL430.V37 2016
206’.3—dc23
2015003223
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Contributors
Abbreviations
Introduction—PATRICK GRAY
1. Finding Judaism’s Founders—MARK LEUCHTER
2. The Buddha: Historicizing Myth, Mythologizing History—NATHAN
MCGOVERN
Author Index
Subject Index
Biblical Texts:
Gen. Genesis
Exod. Exodus
Deut. Deuteronomy
1–2 Sam. 1–2 Samuel
1–2 Kgs. 1–2 Kings
1–2 Chron. 1–2 Chronicles
Jer. Jeremiah
Ezek. Ezekiel
Hos. Hosea
Matt. Matthew
Rom. Romans
1–2 Cor. 1–2 Corinthians
Gal. Galatians
Phil. Philippians
Heb. Hebrews
1 Pet. 1 Peter
As one can tell from the reaction to the “Hagarism” theory—that what
has been called Islam for over a millennium is actually a corruption of a
quasi-Jewish messianic movement—these are not simply arcane squabbles
between scholars who spend all their time in the library.13 To whom is it
more pressing to determine how early Muhammad’s sunnah was invested
This text telescopes different social institutions and their role in the
development and transmission of legal teaching (torah). Jurisprudence, at
some level, was certainly cultivated by clan or village elders, preserved and
promoted by the prophets, and eventually entrusted to the scribes associated
with the Jerusalem temple of the Second Temple period (the “men of the
Great Assembly”). What the passage omits, however, is the role of priests in
the formation, transmission, and teaching of law. This omission probably
indicates that the passage was written by proponents of a rabbinic culture
that strove to supersede the priesthood that dissolved, as an institution,
following the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. Yet in most other
parts of the Mishnah, the priesthood is the subject of much emphasis, and
the earlier role of priests in the teaching of law is readily emphasized. This
is not a rabbinic invention by any means but follows on well-established
ancient conventions: in virtually all ancient Near Eastern civilizations, legal
and intellectual authority rested first and foremost with priestly figures. It
was the priesthood that was entrusted with the sacred texts of temple
libraries, and it was priests who were charged with juridical initiative based
on their expertise with these texts and their numinous contents.
Two biblical passages make abundantly clear that legal instruction and
sacred text were matters of priestly jurisdiction:
Both prophets know and preserve close variants of an oral tradition that
must have been current in their time (the early sixth century BCE) and which
reflects the conventional role of established religious and political figures,
including priests. Despite the very minor differences, Jeremiah and Ezekiel
engage a slogan that affirms that legal instruction rests with the priesthood.
If literacy was primarily limited to priests in ancient Israel, and if priests
indeed held sway over legal instruction, it stands to reason that the legal
collections in the Pentateuch were significantly shaped by Israel’s priestly
groups and survive due to the influence of these groups on the shaping of
the Pentateuch more generally. While these laws are thus presented as being
given all at once to Moses at Sinai, they reveal much about the history of
the priesthoods that wrote and collected them.
There was a time when commentators looked at the laws of the
Pentateuch as rooted in the reality of daily life in ancient Israel. But the
discovery of law collections from the ancient Near East changed the way
scholars understood the function of written law in antiquity. Contemporary
scholars now view written law as an elite, learned pursuit, a platform for
ideology and symbolic of the power of the temple institutions where the
written collections were housed, taught, and preserved.24 Rather than
function as a basis for public policy, the study of law cultivated esoteric
knowledge among the priesthood. These collections were understood as
holy writs that evidenced the favor of the transcendent gods that was
bestowed on the priesthood as their earthly representatives. The fact that
these legal collections engaged seemingly practical matters of personal
injury, property, inheritance, and the like simply demonstrated that all
aspects of life were to fall under the jurisdiction of the priests with access to
the law. The governance of the land would falter and fray without the
integrity of the secret, holy knowledge these priests preserved.25 Within this
paradigm, the Sinai tradition was subject to reconception as diverse legal
traditions were brought into conversation with each other by different
priestly circles. The end result of this process was that the priesthood
tracing its descent from Aaron—a priestly group that became increasingly
Here the prophet Samuel has called Israel together to give his valedictory
address as power is transferred to Saul, Israel’s first king. Although the text
itself may date from the late eighth or seventh century BCE, the narrative is
set in the late eleventh century and authentically summarizes prophetic
sentiments regarding the rise of kingship at that time. In this address,
Samuel proclaims the terms under which monarchy may commence. Israel
must remain true to the founding principles of Israelite society which
sustained the relationship with their God, even with the shift to a
dramatically new form of government that had by no means inspired
confidence among Samuel and his supporters. Even at the moment when
Israel demands kingship, Samuel responds with an oracle proclaiming the
pitfalls of this office, and at Saul’s coronation he delineates the rules and
limitations of kingship (1 Sam. 8:11–18; 10:25). In 1 Samuel 12, we
encounter the oracular definition of these terms as they relate to the entire
nation and not just to the king himself. During this period of uncertainty,
then, Samuel’s oracle establishes ethical parameters to ensure that new and
important social institutions correspond to the values that had maintained
order and cultural continuity in earlier periods. If the nation were to falter in
this ethical charge, they, and their king, would be “swept away” (12:25).
The second passage is found in the famous “Temple Sermon” offered by
the prophet Jeremiah in 609 BCE:
Thus say YHWH of hosts, the God of Israel: Amend your ways and your doings, and I will
cause you to dwell in this place. Trust not in lying words, saying: “The temple of YHWH,
the temple of YHWH, the temple of YHWH, are these.” Nay, but if you thoroughly amend
your ways and your doings; if you thoroughly execute justice between a man and his
neighbour; if you oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and shed not
innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your hurt; then will I cause you
to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, forever and ever. (Jer. 7:3–7)
Behold, you trust in lying words that cannot profit. Will you steal, murder, and commit
adultery, and swear falsely, and offer unto Baal, and walk after other gods whom you have
not known, and come and stand before Me in this house, whereupon My name is called, and
say: “We are delivered,” that you may do all these abominations? Is this house, whereupon
My name is called, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I, even I, have seen it,
saith YHWH. (Jer. 7:8–11)
The Buddha
HISTORICIZING MYTH, MYTHOLOGIZING HISTORY
Nathan McGovern
After Oldenberg’s book was translated into English in 1882, the scholarly
literature records repeated references to his work as having conclusively
proven that the Buddha was not a social or political reformer. Almond
argues that this rather dramatic change in scholarly opinion was “the result
of an attempt to protect the Victorian Buddha from being perceived as an
early proponent of those forms of socialism that were perceived by many as
threatening the structure of English society from the beginning of the 1880s
especially.”26 Regardless of the specific reasons that Oldenberg’s argument
became so widely accepted, the overall effect of his work was to solidify, in
both the scholarly and popular imaginations of the West, the idea of the
Buddha as a unique and historical figure. And although Oldenberg shot
down the most common analogy to a Western religious “founder” in the
nineteenth century, this at the same time freed the newly created historical
Buddha to serve as the unique founder of his own religion, Buddhism.27
Conclusion
The development of the concept of the Buddha in the Buddhist tradition has
been motivated by very different concerns from those that led to the
construction of the historical Buddha by nineteenth-century Western
scholars. On the one hand, the tradition used the Buddha as a literary
1. Bhikkhu Bodhi, trans., The Connected Discourses of the Buddha: A Translation of the Saṃyutta
Nikāya, 2nd ed. (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2005), 551.
2. Tomoko Masuzawa, The Invention of World Religions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
2005), 23–24.
3. Måns Broo, “Hinduism and the Question of Founders,” this volume.
4. Cf. Patrick Gray’s chapter on Christianity in this volume (“Jesus, Paul, and the Birth of
Christianity”).
5. J. W. de Jong, “A Brief History of Buddhist Studies in Europe and America,” Eastern Buddhist 7.1
(1974): 59. De Jong also discusses some scattered references to the worship of the Buddha from
antiquity. This remains the most comprehensive history of Buddhist Studies yet written, and I rely
heavily on it for my survey of scholarly treatments of the Buddha up to the 1970s. De Jong wrote this
article just four years before the publication of Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978), and his description
of the field betrays no hint of the changes that were to come to Buddhist Studies in its wake.
6. De Jong, “A Brief History of Buddhist Studies in Europe and America,” 61.
Liang Cai
Confucius and Ru 儒
It is customary to call the followers of Mozi 墨子 (ca. 468–376 BCE) “the
school of Mo” (Mojia 墨家) and the thought of Mozi “the teachings of Mo”
Mozi also questions the ru’s emphasis on the study of the Songs (shi 詩),
pointing out that a man who spends all of his time in study has no energy
left for farming, trading, and the like.9 Interestingly, this attachment to the
Songs, Ritual, and Music—the corrupt qualities of the ru in Mozi’s eyes—
were the very merits Xunzi attributes to this group. Xunzi argues that “the
ru model themselves after the Ancient Kings; they exalt Ritual and moral
principles.” Furthermore, he continues, “Were ru to reside in this court, the
government would become refined; were they to occupy subordinate
positions, popular customs would be refined.”10 Xunzi also contends that a
worthy man is not good at farming and trading but is capable of knowing
people and placing them in their proper positions in a society. Clearly,
although Mozi and Xunzi have diametrically opposed views, they are
relatively consistent in their understandings of what the ru were, namely, a
Ru is thus a tradition that not only existed long before Confucius but also
was widely carried on by a large number of people. In the Zhuangzi 莊子, a
third-century BCE text important in the formation of the Daoist tradition, it
is said that Duke Ai of Lu 魯哀公 claimed that nearly all men in Lu dressed
in ru costume.19 While the descriptions of ru costume vary in different
sources, they generally characterize this type of dress as an ancient style
featuring a big-sleeved garment with a wide sash, a black hat called
Zhangfu, and a pair of shoes with decoration in the front; the wearer is
depicted holding a wooden tablet as a notebook. Confucius and his disciples
were likely to dress themselves in the ru costume that appears to have
distinguished them from their contemporaries, but Confucius denied that
this particular style of dress had any special significance for him.20
Because of the heterogeneous nature of ru as a group, Xunzi took pains
to differentiate Confucius from the petty ru. He celebrated Confucius as the
great ru who, if he were successful in obtaining office, would unify the
world; if unsuccessful, he would establish only a noble reputation. By
contrast, Xunzi sharply criticized the petty ru, who in his view only invoked
the ancient kings “to cheat the stupid and seek a living from them.”21
Although many rivals of Confucius—such as Mozi, Zhuangzi, and Han
Feizi—openly challenged his teaching, they were all immersed in the ru
tradition. This is not surprising since ru learning, which involves study of
both the Songs, the Documents, and the ancient ritual and music system,
were the common heritage of the elite in the Zhou dynasty. Mozi and
Confucius, though holding different political philosophies, are thought to
have specialized in the same ru learning. A Han dynasty text praises them
on the same grounds: “Confucius and Mo Di [Mozi] cultivate the methods
of the previous sages, and penetrate the teaching of the Six Arts.”22
These two views—that ru tradition existed long before Confucius and
that Confucius was the founder of ru learning—coexist in the ancient
sources without any chronological gap. Modern scholars have puzzled over
this paradox and have put forward fanciful theories to account for it. Hu Shi
胡 适 , a leading Chinese scholar in the first half of the twentieth century,
argues that ru tradition was the cultural heritage of the defeated Shang 商
The learning of contemporaries is mostly shallow. They only recite the Daode and do not
know about the Perfect Scriptures, so they say Daoism arose from Zhuang Zhou and
began with [Laozi].1
Definitions of Daoism
At the core of Daoism is the ancient notion of dao 道, the Way. On the one
hand, this term referred to a path to follow and a method for practice. In
Daoism, however, dao has a far more complex significance, as it comes to
refer to the fundamental process of existence. These two meanings can be
glimpsed by contrasting passages from Confucius’s Analects and the Daode
jing attributed to Laozi.
In a famous passage, Confucius tells his disciple Master Zeng 曾子, “My
way has a single thread through it.” Master Zeng concurs. After Confucius
leaves the room, the other disciples inquire of Master Zeng what Confucius
meant. Master Zeng replies, “The Master’s way is simply dutifulness and
empathic understanding.”4 The word “way” is used here to refer to the
totality of Confucius’s teaching, and more precisely to correct ways of
behavior. Although the precise connotation of these may be difficult, the
point is that Confucius’s way can be summarized in words.
This use of dao can be contrasted with the opening of the received
version of the Daode jing:
The way that can be spoken of is not the constant way;
These lines seem to critique precisely the use of “way” seen in Confucius.
If one can define and talk about a particular way, then it is not the ultimate
way. As the second line hints, moreover, the word “way” is only a
provisional label for the ultimate entity, which is ineffable, formless, and
beyond all linguistic and logical distinctions. The text goes on to discuss the
dao as prior to heaven and earth, the mother of all things. All natural
processes emanated from the dao, which is therefore the primordial impetus
and continuing process by which the cosmos operates. Daoists seek to align
themselves, as individuals and as communities, with the basic cosmic
patterns of transformation. By uniting with the process of change, a person
may not only gain health but may indeed rise beyond the limits of time and
space and ascend to the heavens and live as an immortal within the limitless
way. While this perception of dao may suffice for understanding the
philosophical basis of the Daoist tradition, it is far too vague to serve as a
social category and offers little help in determining the contours of the
religion.
Most important, in recent years as several manuscript versions of the
Daode jing have been discovered, there is growing scholarly agreement that
(1) the Daode jing as we know it is a product of a century of compilation,
editing, and redaction, and that (2) there is no single author responsible for
the text.5 That is, there was no individual author named Laozi who
produced it. This developing understanding of the history of the Daode jing
is of course contrary to the traditional understanding of the text, at least
since the Han era.
While early texts such as the Daode jing and Zhuangzi, dating to the fifth
and fourth centuries BCE, were obviously important for the development of
Daoism, they are by no means the only sources for the religious tradition
that now bears the name Daoism. Several other traditions current during the
Warring States and Han, including qi cultivation techniques, royal and
imperial ritual, Buddhist discourse and practices, local cultic and shamanic
practices, and a variety of healing and divinatory traditions, were all
incorporated in various ways into the emerging religious tradition we call
Daoism.
The social history of the religion begins with the appearance of several
new religious movements and communities in the mid-second century CE.
Among the best known of these are the Way of Great Peace (Taiping dao 太
Sima Qian then links Laozi to various ancient figures and mentions that he
may have lived to be two hundred years old. Careful historian that he is,
Sima Qian concludes by stating that “in this generation, no one knows
whether this is true or not. Laozi was a mysterious gentleman.”7
This biography reveals that by the early Han, Laozi was already
perceived as a mythical figure, with a growing set of legends accruing
around his name. Indeed, as there are no extant contemporary records that
refer to him, there are grave doubts about the historical existence of Laozi.
Nevertheless, the two passages mentioned above served as a basis for much
later elaboration and development of mythology about Laozi. The label
“like a dragon” was borrowed for a large hagiography of Laozi compiled in
the early eleventh century.8 The narrative about the “urging” of Laozi to
write the Daode jing became the standard story, and Yin Xi, the Pass
Keeper, was also accepted as a Daoist sage, and texts attributed to him soon
began to circulate.9
The Annals of the Historian also includes the earliest reference to a
collective tradition using the term daojia 道家 which one may translate as
Daoism, although it is better understood as “traditions of the dao.” This
term appears in the essay “Essential Points” (Yaozhi), composed by Sima
Tan 司 馬 談 (d. 110 BCE), Sima Qian’s father, and included in the final
chapter of the Annals of the Historian. Sima Qian’s decision to incorporate
his father’s essay into this chapter probably reveals not only his filiality but
also his own identification with its intellectual premises. In the essay, Sima
The term daojia was later adopted as a bibliographic category in Ban Gu’s
班固 (32–92 CE) bibliographic treatise, used as a collective term for thirty-
seven different texts.11 We may therefore credit Sima Tan and his son Sima
Qian, the great historians of the early Han, with the creation of the category
Daoism, as well as with the construction of the figure of Laozi.12
Sima Tan and Sima Qian, however, were not the only agents involved in
crafting the figure of Laozi during the early Han. Their efforts may in fact
be due to the development of a tradition named Huang-Lao, named for
Huangdi, the Yellow Emperor, and Laozi. This tradition, which was very
influential in the late third and early second century BCE, remains somewhat
mysterious. This term shows up in several late Warring States and Early
Han texts. It seems to refer to intellectual trends that combined esoteric
mantic and healing practices, labeled Yellow Emperor teachings, with the
political thought of the Daode jing. This synthesis seems to have produced
several quite different, and seemingly contradictory, offshoots. For
example, the legalist treatise Hanfeizi includes the earliest commentaries on
the Daode jing, and its author, Han Feizi (c. 280–233 BCE), is said to have
been influenced by Huang-Lao teachings.13 Alongside the emphasis on law
as a cosmic principle, however, other aspects of this tradition emphasize
healing and longevity practices. Harold Roth summarizes the basic
concerns of this tradition under three headings: (1) cosmology—based upon
dao as the dominant unifying power in the cosmos; (2) self-cultivation—the
attainment of dao through a process of emptying out the usual contents of
Huacun soon bore her husband two sons, thus fulfilling her social function.
When they reached maturity, she was free to turn to her solitary cultivation
practice. After three months she was visited by five Perfected persons who
began a program of teaching and transmission of practices and texts. These
Perfected visited her daily, and yet her husband never saw or heard a thing.
After moving south, her experiences intensified, until finally when she was
eighty-three, one of the Perfected presented her with two elixirs. Having
taken these elixirs, “after seven days a whirlwind chariot descended to carry
her up. She transformed her body by ‘borrowing’ a sword and departed.”
Having died in the mortal realm, Wei Huacun now embarked on an even
more profound course of teachings under the tutelage of the Perfected,
including Zhang Daoling, who transmitted to her various instructions. After
sixteen additional years of training and study she ascended to the highest
court of the supreme purity heaven where she received the title Original
Creator of the Purple Void and appointed as superior perfected Director of
Destinies.39 It is from this lofty post that she descended to Yang Xi, to
present him with the Shangqing teachings.
This biography shows that the Shangqing revelations placed the ancient
texts of Laozi and Zhuangzi at the lowest level of teachings. In this case
they mark Wei Huacun’s precocious interest in seeking transcendence.
While many of the various Perfected encountered by Wei Huacun, as well
as Hua Qiao, are adopted from earlier mythologies and narratives, they do
not include Laozi or Zhuangzi. On the other hand, among the eschatological
scriptures of the Shangqing revelations we find the Annals of the Lord of
Conclusion
Our survey of the early history of Daoism shows that the category Daoism
is extremely problematic. Whether we refer to the early texts of the Daode
jing and Zhuangzi from the third century BCE or to the religion that emerged
in a complex process beginning in the second century CE, we are faced with
difficult questions of defining the terms of the category. Moreover, we find
that Laozi, while a critical figure in all the various permutations of the
category Daoism, cannot be considered a founder of the tradition.
Permutations of the image of Laozi and changes in the category of Daoism
are related but do not necessarily form a single historical process.
First, there is no community or specific social context that we can firmly
associate with the Daode jing. Recent manuscript discoveries of the Daode
jing have not only revealed a complex process of redaction for the text but
have also raised further doubts about the very existence of Laozi as a
historical figure. Second, from the earliest biographical notices of Laozi in
the early Han it is evident that he was already viewed as an extraordinary
figure, beyond the reach of ordinary men, and perhaps not actually a human
at all. The vision of Laozi as identical to the dao was central to several of
the Daoist movements that appear in the late Han, the Celestial Master
community in particular. Laozi was for them an early manifestation of the
dao, who bestowed the Daode jing on humanity. The revelations upon
which the Celestial Master based his communal organization and practice
were transmitted from a more recent manifestation—that of Lord Lao who,
although a development in the imagination of Laozi, was clearly perceived
as a distinct figure. Later Daoist lineages and groups held diverse views of
Laozi, Lord Lao, and various other reformulations of this elusive figure.
Third, the development of the Daoist tradition consisted of several
revelations—and probably many more of which we are no longer aware.
Should we label any of the revelators, creators, or originators of these
various lineages and groups the founder of Daoism?
Jesus plays many roles in this classic formulation of Christian belief. That
of “founder” is not among them, nor is it mentioned in other creedal
statements such as the Definition of Chalcedon (451), the Scots Confession
(1560), the Anglican Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion (1563), the Second
Helvetic Confession (1566), and the Westminster Confession of Faith
(1646). Yet most Christians of most times and places would likely see
nothing self-evidently problematic in regarding him as such.
The concept of a “founding” implies the beginning of something new and
distinctive. Working backward from the present, today it is perfectly
The “solution” to this problem typically takes one of two forms: (a)
Some highlight differences between Jesus and Paul to support the claim that
Paul started a new religion, something Jesus never intended: Paul was a
self-hating Jew who rejected Torah and presented a caricature of Judaism as
a legalistic religion quite unlike what was actually practiced in the first
century. (b) Rather than criticize Paul, others criticize traditional
understandings of Paul’s writings as Augustinian or Lutheran misreadings
of the apostle’s real message. When Paul is properly understood within the
context of his first-century milieu, in this reading, his teachings are well
Especially when read out of context, differences between Jesus and Paul
are easy to find. Did Paul make these putative changes as part of a master
plan to hijack the movement, or were any deviations from Jesus
Conclusion
Consensus on these questions will likely remain elusive because the
competing claims rely on ceteris paribus arguments. In other words, it is
impossible to know whether Christianity would have emerged and
developed as it did without Jesus or Paul, “all other things being equal,”
since “all other things” are never quite the same in the ebb and flow of
history. Economists study various factors and use regression analysis to
help differentiate between causation and correlation, but those who study
history and religion have no such instrument at their disposal. Historians
can do little more than speculate about the specifics of a world without
Jesus or Paul, not to mention other figures who rarely get the credit or the
blame for founding Christianity, such as Peter or John the Baptist. Was
Jesus unique? Is it conceivable that others could have arrived at similar
insights and achieved similar missionary results in Paul’s absence?
1. “Christ” was not Jesus’ family name. It is a title, from the Greek translation (christos) of the
Hebrew title messiah, “the anointed one.” Not long after his death, “Christ” begins to function as a
name, either in combination with “Jesus” or by itself (e.g., Matt. 1:17; Mark 9:41; Acts 2:38; 8:12; 1
Cor. 1:2; 6:11; 1 Pet. 4:14). Unless otherwise noted, quotations from the New Testament are taken
from the NRSV translation.
2. Robert Van Voorst, Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence
(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000), 6–16. The theory had its most prominent advocate in Bruno
Bauer (1809–1892), a student of Hegel and teacher of Marx; cf. Shirley Jackson Case, The
Historicity of Jesus (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1912), 35–40.
3. Although it remains a fringe phenomenon, familiarity with the Christ myth theory has become
much more widespread among the general public with the advent of the Internet.
4. A. von Harnack, What Is Christianity?, trans. T. B. Saunders, 2nd rev. ed. (New York: G. P.
Putnam’s Sons, 1908), 65. Harnack’s father took issue with his famous son’s presentation of the faith:
“To name only the all-decisive main issue: whoever regards the fact of the resurrection as you do is
in my eyes no longer a Christian theologian” (quoted in Agnes von Zahn-Harnack’s biography, Adolf
von Harnack [Berlin: de Gruyter, 1936], 143). A joke about the German-American theologian Paul
Tillich pokes fun at this tendency to deemphasize the singular importance of Jesus for the life of
faith. When archaeologists find the bones of Jesus in Jerusalem, a discovery that threatens to destroy
the foundational belief in the resurrection, the pope calls Tillich for advice on how to deal with the
inevitable crisis. After a long pause, Tillich responds, “So there really was a Jesus after all …” (cf.
Michael Goulder, “Jesus, the Man of Universal Destiny,” in The Myth of God Incarnate, ed. John
Hick [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1977], 48).
5. Only at a slightly later stage does “gospel” designate a literary genre with Jesus as its focus; see
David E. Aune, The New Testament in Its Literary Environment (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1987),
17–19.
6. The phrase “the proclaimer became the proclaimed” originates with Rudolf Bultmann, Theology of
the New Testament, trans. K. Grobel, 2 vols. (New York: Scribners, 1951–55), 1:33.
7. On this process in the first century, see Donald Juel, Messianic Exegesis: Christological
Interpretation of the Old Testament in Early Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988); and Margaret
M. Mitchell, Paul, the Corinthians and the Birth of Christian Hermeneutics (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2010); and on the patristic period, James L. Kugel and Rowan A. Greer, Early
Biblical Interpretation (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1986), 126–54; and John J. O’Keefe and R. R.
Reno, Sanctified Vision: An Introduction to Early Christian Interpretation of the Bible (Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005), 24–44.
8. For example, in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5:21–48) Jesus frequently quotes texts from
Torah and proceeds to offer an original and authoritative reinterpretation (“You have heard that it was
said … , but I say unto you”). Paul goes even further, suggesting that Jews who are not “in Christ”
are like Moses with the veil over his face upon his descent from Sinai, keeping them from
understanding it rightly (2 Cor. 3:12–16).
Setting the Table: The Story of Ibrāhīm as the Context for the
Mission of Muḥammad
In presenting his tale of the rise of “idolatry” among Muḥammad’s
ancestors, Ibn Isḥāq states that it began as the “ritual worship of stones”
(ʿibādat al-ḥijārah)7 following the original monotheist worship of God at
the Kaʿbah in Mecca. He says, however, that when Mecca became
overpopulated, and as individuals and clans drifted away, they took stones
(ḥijārah) from the ḥaram (the sacred space around the Kaʿbah that included
a significant part of the entire village of Mecca) for the “glorification of the
ḥaram.” Wherever they settled they would erect the stone and
circumambulate it as if it were the Kaʿbah. Over time, this led them to
ritually worship (ʿabada)
what they esteemed among the stones and which excited their wonder until eventually
corrupting and forgetting what they followed, and they exchanged the dīn of Ibrāhīm and
Ismāʿīl for another. So they ritually worshipped (ʿabada) idols (awthān) and they turned
toward following the errors of the peoples before them.8
As Ibn Isḥāq presents it here, the introduction of the ritual worship of stones
and awthān, however, was quickly followed by changes in the ḥajj ritual.
For Ibn Isḥāq this is a central crisis that necessitates the mission of
Unlike Moses in the Book of Exodus (4:1–17), who demurs when God tells
him to go to Pharaoh and free the children of Israel, Ibrāhīm exhibits
complete faith. When God reassures him, he immediately goes forth and
While one might read this statement as fatalism on ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib’s part,
it functions to demonstrate his Ibrāhīm-like trust in God and, when God
inevitably defends the Kaʿbah from destruction, this event is depicted as
evidence of the sacredness of the Kaʿbah in the eyes of the Arabs and at the
same time as buttressing the claims of the Quraysh as having a special link
to Ibrāhīm that they alone possess.
Abrahah returns the camels to ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib—whose insouciance in
the face of the looming destruction of the Kaʿbah shocks the Abyssinian—
but proceeds with the attack. The next day the Quraysh decide to leave
Mecca to God’s protection and flee into the mountains. Before abandoning
the village, ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib goes to the Kaʿbah along with a few of his
male kin and prays to God (Allāh) to protect His House, saying,
O God, indeed the slave (ʿabd) defends his saddle, so defend your people. Do not be
overcome by their strength tomorrow and [do not allow] their guile to be greater than your
guile.38
The prayer sets out the relationship between God and His people as being
analogous to the slave and his saddle. Just as a slave has nothing but his
saddle and would fight to the death to protect it, so to does ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib
implore God to hold nothing back to protect his people. After the prayer,
they then go up into the mountains that surround Mecca and take up
defensive positions. Abrahah begins his attack on Mecca the following day,
but the elephant he had brought with him refuses to attack and flees toward
Yemen. The Abyssinian forces follow suit as God intervenes to bring about
their destruction; even Abrahah dies a gruesome death in the retreat.
Ibn Isḥāq says that when God sent Muḥammad, “he used to recount to
the Quraysh how God preserved and put His blessing on them when the
power of the Abyssinians was turned away so that their authority [over the
Kaʿbah] would permanently endure.” In light of his repeated emphasis on
The ḥums
The restoration of Mecca as a major pilgrimage site after the rediscovery of
the Zamzam well and especially the miraculous defeat of the Abyssinians
elevated to new heights the Quraysh’s belief in their own special status. The
Quraysh “created” a group known as the Ḥums, a cult association tying
members of several western Arabian tribes to the Meccan shrine. Ibn Isḥāq
states that the founders of the Ḥums had said,
We are the sons of Ibrāhīm, the people of the ḥaram, the guardians of the House, and
inhabitants of Mecca. There is no one among the Arabs [who] have rights like ours and
nothing resembling our rank. The Arabs do not acknowledge [others] as they acknowledge
us. So we must not glorify a thing from the outside (ḥill) like we glorify the ḥaram.41
Here Ibn Isḥāq implies that just as Ibrāhīm’s people knew they worshipped
powerless images, the Quraysh know what they do is wrong and contrary to
the dīn of Ibrāhīm. Yet, because they arrogantly think that “there is no one
among the Arabs [who] have rights like ours and nothing resembling our
rank,” the Quraysh reject the dīn of Ibrāhīm and now “have no dīn at all.”47
In other words, they have completely abandoned all pretenses of worship-
service, not just to God, but even to the idols themselves. Instead, for the
Quraysh, it is their glorification that matters most.
For Ibn Isḥāq, therefore, the Ḥums represents the complete break with the
ritual practice of Ibrāhīm and the embodiment of jāhil. The jāhilīyah is
frequently referred to as the “time of ignorance.” Yet Ibn Isḥāq does not
portray the Quraysh as ignorant of what they are doing but as fully aware,
and thus culpable, for their wrong conduct. They may not know how the dīn
of Ibrāhīm is to be performed in all of its specific aspects since it had been
lost slowly over the generations and almost completely forgotten before the
rediscovery of the Zamzam well, but they are completely aware that they
are violating the fundamentals of the ḥajj ritual. In a sense, they have
abandoned the worship-service of God and begun worshipping themselves.
To demonstrate the need for Muḥammad’s mission, Ibn Isḥāq then
introduces four men who decide to break with their kin and seek the
ḥanīfīyah dīn Ibrāhīm that has now been completely lost, forgotten, or
arrogantly ignored. Three of the four, Waraqah b. Nayfal, Ubayd Allāh b.
Jaḥsh, and ʿUthmān b. al-Ḥuwayrith become Christians (tanaṣṣar).
Waraqah, the cousin of Muḥammad’s first wife Khadījah, is described as
studying the books of the Christians until “he was one of the most
knowledgeable among the People of the Book (ahl al-kitāb). Ubayd Allāh,
according to Ibn Isḥāq,
Ibn Isḥāq says that Zayd had decided to leave Mecca to search for the
ḥanīfīyah dīn Ibrāhīm but his wife held him back. He preached to the
people and proclaimed the dīn of Ibrāhīm whenever he entered the ḥaram.
But he began to be harassed by the Quraysh and was forced to flee up to
Mount Ḥirāʾ, where Muḥammad would receive his first revelation. He cried
to God in his despair that he was not a Ḥillah, but a Meccan whose house
was in the center of the ḥaram, yet he could no longer enter the ḥaram.50
Zayd finally decides to leave Mecca and seek the dīn of Ibrāhīm in other
parts of the Near East. After many travels he meets a monk in Syria who
tells him, “Indeed, you seek a dīn to which no one can take you today.” The
monk continues, “Already you are in the shadow of a time [when] a prophet
is being sent to your land which you just left. He is being sent with the dīn
of Ibrāhīm al-ḥanīfīyah, so follow him, for indeed he is being sent now, this
is the time.”51 Zayd sets out immediately for Mecca but is killed before he
returns. Muḥammad later says that on the Day of Judgment Zayd “will be
resurrected alone of the community.”52
For Ibn Isḥāq, the extremes of the Ḥums were so great that they
represented the final break with the dīn of Ibrāhīm and necessitated the
mission of Muḥammad. He makes this clear when he says that the practices
of the Ḥums lasted until God sent Muḥammad:
Conclusion
For Ibn Isḥāq the problem that necessitated the mission of Muḥammad was
the complete corruption of the ḥanīfīyah dīn Ibrāhīm that is represented as
the complete and abject submission to God as embodied in the proper
performance of the ḥajj after the manner of Ibrāhīm. Throughout the
sections of the text examined in this chapter, Ibn Isḥāq focuses on actions
that demonstrate abject submission to God and rarely mentions ideas or
“beliefs” about the nature of God, His unity (tawḥīd), or a multiplicity of
associates for God (shirk). While ʾibādat al-awthān implies shirk in some
sense, the fact that Ibn Isḥāq emphasizes changes in actions over changes in
ideas indicates that what mattered most to Ibn Isḥāq was the external
expression of belief through one’s actions as signifiers of one’s submission
or obedience to God.54
The focus on external actions—especially on the correct performance of
the ḥajj—as signifying true submission to God also says a great deal about
Ibn Isḥāq’s understanding of Muḥammad’s purpose and what it was that he
“founded,” if anything. On one level, it is clear that Ibn Isḥāq understood
Muḥammad to be reviving the lost ḥanīfīyah dīn of Ibrāhīm by returning to
the practices of the ḥajj as they were given to Ibrāhīm by Jabraʾīl.
But what about “Islam?” Ibn Isḥāq refers to Muḥammad’s followers as
muslimūn (sing., muslim) and what they participate in as islām. What,
exactly, does he mean? Wilfred Cantwell Smith maintains that Islam came
into the world as a “self-aware” religion, meaning that Muslims understood
Islam to be a religion distinct from, and somehow better than, other
religions. Yet the term dīn, commonly taken to mean “religion,” usually
means “to obediently follow a path or method of ritual practice,” of which
there are many. Ibn Isḥāq does not present a single dīn as preferable to all
others, as is evident in the stories of Salmān the Persian, ʿAbd Allāh b.
Thāmir, and even in references to Waraqah b. Nawfal, who after breaking
with the Ḥums and becoming a Christian, later becomes an advisor to
1. ʿAbd al-Mālik b. Hishām, al-Sīrah al-nabawīyah, 4 vols., ed. Muṣṭafā al-Shaqqā, Ibrāhīm al-
Ibyārī, and ʿAbd al-ḥafīẓ al-Shalabī (Cairo: Muṣṭafā al-Bābī al-ḥalabī, 1936) Unless otherwise
indicated, the translations provided in this chapter are mine.
2. See Gordon Newby’s introduction to his The Making of the Last Prophet: A Reconstruction of the
Earliest Biography of Muhammad (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1989).
3. Alfred Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad: A Translation of Isḥāq’s Sīrat Rasūl Allāh (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1955). When quoting from passages in Ibn Isḥāq’s “original” text I provide
the page numbers for Guillaume’s translation as well as the Arabic source for the text. For instance, if
a passage occurs in the translation on p. 68 and in Ibn Hishām’s text on vol. 1, p. 164, I cite it as “G
68/IH 1:164.” Passages included by Guillaume but not found in Ibn Hishām, such as al-Azraqī’s
Akhbar al-Makkah (= “Az”) or al-Ṭabarī’s Tārīkh al- rusul wa’l-mulūk (= “Ṭ”) are cited in similar
fashion.
4. In sections dealing with the reconstructed al-Mubtadaʾ I provide citations for the Arabic source as
well as the English translation provided by Newby (= “N”).
5. On the historical value of Ibn Isḥāq and his Sīrah, see Josef Horovitz, The Earliest Biographies of
the Prophet and Their Authors, ed. Lawrence I. Conrad (Princeton, NJ: Darwin, 2002), 74–75.
6. Sabine Dorpmueller, “Introduction: History and Fiction in Arabic Popular Epic,” in Fictionalizing
the Past: Historical Characters in Arabic Popular Epic, ed. Sabine Dorpmueller (Leuven: Uitgeverij
Peeters en Department Oossterse Studies, 2012), 1–2.
7. The terms “idolatry” and “idol” are used in this chapter to indicate the worship of various images
by the pre-Muslim Arabs, but they are highly problematic as there appears to be no term denoting
“idolatry” in classical Arabic. The term approximating “idolatry,” wathanīyah, does not arise until
the eighteenth century, most likely under the influence of European discussions of idol worship.
8. G 35–36/IH 1:79–80.
9. G 36/IH 1:80. Ibn Isḥāq often refers to the Kaʾbah as “The House.” The ihlāl consists of the
pilgrim shouting “labbayka Allāhumma labayka” (At your service, O God, at your service).
10. Newby, The Making of the Last Prophet, 65, quoting Qurʾān 3:56–68.
11. N 67/ṭ 1:254.
12. G 36/IH 1:80–81.
13. N 68–70/ṭ 255–61.
14. N 73/T 270–71, 277.
THE CONCEPT OF “World Religions” is a contested one today, and for several
compelling reasons.1 Many scholars believe that this category fails to do
justice to the complicated reality of human religious experience. Hinduism
is arguably the one religion most difficult to fit into this mold—indeed,
there are scholars who deny the very existence of any one definable
Hinduism, arguing that the whole concept is all too essentializing to
meaningfully capture the varieties of lived religion in South Asia and
beyond.2 After all, what we call Hinduism, as Gavin Flood points out, has
no unified doctrine or system of belief set down in a creed or declaration of
faith, no single system of soteriology, and no centralized authority or
bureaucracy.3 One explanation for this variety is that Hinduism has no
recognized founder.
This basic fact would seem to make a chapter on Hinduism a poor fit for
the present volume, with its focus on debates about the founders of major
religious traditions. Nevertheless, I argue in this chapter that not having a
founder emphatically matters in Hinduism and that this “absence” can also
perform a positive function. Furthermore, much of lived Hinduism occurs
within sects or, more accurately, sampradāyas, “[groups] with special
concepts, forms of worship, and adherence to exclusive leadership
exercised by an outstanding religious personality or his physical or spiritual
descendant.”4 The sampradāyas have their own founders, and whether they
are living beings, mythological characters, or something in between, these
founders matter very much to their followers. In both of these senses—that
is, the lack of a founder of Hinduism per se and the ubiquity of founding
figures in the sampradāyas—the question of founders is thus a critical and
complex one in Hinduism as well.
The qualities here represent a curious mix of the perfect teacher, the saint,
and the debonair gentleman: not only should the guru be learned, wise, and
well spoken; he should also be affectionate to his disciples and undisturbed
in the face of either praise or slander, as well as young, well dressed, and
handsome! Such lists should obviously not be taken too literally. They are
relevant for discerning the ideals of guruhood entertained by Hindu authors
(and also, perhaps, in discovering the kinds of excellences devoted
followers will assign to their gurus), but they say little about what qualities
are required of a person who wishes to become a guru. In practical terms,
the guru is defined by having disciples who consider him or her a guru.20 In
more general terms, it may be useful to consider why some persons attract
followers in the first place.
This approach opens the way for all manner of reinterpretation of tradition
yet it is couched in the most traditional of forms: in a commentary on the
Bhagavad-gītā, but in the course of arguing for the need of guru paramparā
as well.
The authority of tradition can be taken much further. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
(b. 1956) is an internationally famous Indian guru who very consciously
strives to present a message suited to contemporary sensibilities. This is
how he is described as a “spiritual teacher” on his official webpage:
As a spiritual teacher, Sri Sri has rekindled the traditions of yoga and meditation and offered
them in a form that is relevant to the 21st century. Beyond reviving ancient wisdom, Sri Sri
has created new techniques for personal and social transformation. These include the
Sudarshan Kriya® [sic] which has helped millions of people to find relief from stress and
discover inner reservoirs of energy and peace in daily life. In a mere 29 years, his programs
have raised the quality of life for participants in 152 countries.46
Even here, where the main point is the efficacy of the Sudarshan Kriya
breathing technique that was “created” (and duly registered with the
trademark office) by the guru himself, it is emphasized that he has also
“rekindled” traditions of yoga and meditation and offered them in a
contemporary form. He is also said to have recited the Bhagavad-gītā as a
four-year-old, without ever hearing it before, and to have completed both
his traditional Vedic studies and a degree in modern science by the age of
seventeen. In fact, even Shankar’s creation of the Sudarshan Kriya is
1. Jacqueline Suthren Hirst and John Zavos, Religious Traditions in Modern South Asia (London:
Routledge, 2011), 16–21.
2. Robert Frykenberg, “The Emergence of Modern ‘Hinduism’ as a Concept and as an Institution: A
Reappraisal with Special Reference to South India,” in Hinduism Reconsidered, ed. G. D. Sontheimer
and H. Kulke (New Delhi: Manohar, 1989), 26.
3. Gavin Flood, An Introduction to Hinduism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 6.
4. Joachim Wach, Sociology of Religion (Chicago: Phoenix Books, 1967), 128.
5. David Lorenzen, Who Invented Hinduism? Essays on Religion in History (New Delhi: Yoda Press,
2006), 3–36; Brian K. Pennington, Was Hinduism Invented? Britons, Indians, and the Colonial
Construction of Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 3–7.
6. See, e.g., Surendranath Dasgupta, A History of Indian Philosophy, vol. 1 (Delhi: Motilal
Banarsidass, 2006 [1922]), 373–75; and Mysore Hiriyanna, An Outline of Indian Philosophy (Delhi:
Motilal Banarsidass, 2007 [1932]), 308–10.
Crossing Boundaries
WHEN FOUNDERS OF FAITH APPEAR IN OTHER TRADITIONS
Mark W. Muesse
Jesus
Because Jesus of Nazareth is associated with three major religious
traditions, it is not surprising that he is a prime example of a “founder” who
crosses the lines separating religions. Patrick Gray’s chapter lays out the
issues surrounding Jesus’s status within Christianity, a religion he may or
may not have founded, depending on what one means by “found.” There is,
however, little controversy concerning his centrality to the Christian
tradition according to Christians and non-Christians alike. For Christians,
Jesus is significant because he is inextricably connected to their ultimate
salvation; Jews and Muslims, however, envision his significance in quite
different ways; and the perception of many Asians concerning Jesus’s role
is very dissimilar from his place in Western monotheisms.
Muhammad
Such is not the case with Muhammad, especially in the Christian West,
almost from the beginning of Islam in the seventh century. The main motifs
of this negative representation are still familiar today: Muhammad was an
opportunist who distorted the religion of the Christians for self-
aggrandizement; he was a fanatic inspired by the devil who was not averse
to using violence to promote his cause; and he was a sexual deviant, who
violated every conceivable code of ethics governing sexuality.
Buddha
Like Jesus, and unlike Muhammad, the Buddha enjoys an overwhelmingly
affirmative image in non-Buddhist religions. Most of these traditions are
Asian, since, as Nathan McGovern notes in his chapter in this volume, the
Buddha was not well known in the West until the modern period. To the
degree that the Buddha was represented in the West, he was generally
regarded as just another Hindu sage or deity. Still today among less
informed Westerners, he is often considered a divine incarnation of a god or
a jolly fat man whose statue is used by Buddhists as a lucky charm or
talisman. Of course, early Buddhists did not regard the Buddha as a god or
a jolly fat man. The latter image derives from a popular East Asian folk
saint named Budai (in China) and Hotei (in Japan). Over the years, he has
come to be associated with the Maitreya Buddha, the Buddha of the next
world-system, but he is most definitely not Gotama Buddha, the individual
who brought the Dhamma to this world-system. Although these images of
the Buddha are popular and misleading, they nonetheless present a rather
benign view of the ostensible founder of Buddhism. One would be hard-
pressed to find a portrayal of the Buddha anywhere that even approaches
the negative image of Muhammad outside the Islamic world.
McGovern makes brief mention of the way the story of Gotama Buddha
made its way into Christian hagiography, although the dynamics of this
incorporation were not made evident until the modern period. The narrative
Moses
Mark Leuchter’s chapter indicates that there is no dearth of credible
candidates for the “founder” of Judaism, if we find it necessary to choose
one. Many of the potential contenders—Abraham, Moses, David, and Ezra
—have been appropriated in numerous ways by the two major religious
traditions that claim to maintain some continuity with ancient Israel,
namely, Christianity and Judaism. Other than Jesus and perhaps Paul,
Moses may be the most prominent Jewish figure in Christianity. In the
Hinduism
As Måns Broo’s chapter makes abundantly clear, Hinduism has no founder.
But in closing, it is instructive to look briefly at someone who serves as a
figurehead of one of the many sects that comprise what goes under the
umbrella term “Hinduism” for the similarities and differences one sees
when he is placed among the founders of the major traditions. Whether or
not the Kabir Panth (“the path of Kabir”) can be exclusively called a
“Hindu” community may be debatable, but the overwhelming majority of
its practitioners are Hindu (although a small number would consider
themselves Buddhist and Jain). Nonetheless, the devotees of this
sampradaya would have no difficulty naming the founder of their spiritual
path: the mystic poet Kabir (1398–1448). What makes Kabir’s status as the
inaugurator of this community so interesting for our purposes is his own
spiritual identity, philosophy, and practice, so much at odds with the notion
of a religion in his name.
The identity of Kabir has long been the subject of debate. Both Muslims
and Hindus now claim him as one of their own, although during his lifetime
both Muslims and Hindus tried to silence him, sometimes violently. His
legacy is also affirmed by the Sikhs, who include many of his poems in
their scripture, the Adi Granth. Kabir’s name is Muslim, one of the ninety-
nine “beautiful names” of Allah. His poetry, however, seems to suggest a
Conclusion
Our broad examination amply attests that the idea of a religious “founder”
is significant to outsiders even if the concept is problematic or even
meaningless to those within the tradition primarily associated with these
“founders.” Confucius, the Buddha, Mahavira, and Muhammad all insisted
that they taught nothing more than an ancient truth, yet to those who are not
their followers, at least not in a primary sense, these religious figureheads
are indeed the creators or inspirations of “their” traditions.
1. Joseph Jacobs, “Jesus of Nazareth—in History,” in The Jewish Encyclopedia, ed. I. Jacobs, vol. 7
(New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1906), 160.
2. Mark W. Muesse, Confucius, Buddha, Jesus, and Muhammad (Chantilly, VA: Great Courses,
2010).
3. Morris Goldstein, Jesus in the Jewish Tradition (New York: Macmillan, 1950), 148–54.
4. Geza Vermes, Jesus the Jew: A Historian’s Reading of the Gospels (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1973).
Fang, S., 80
Fantalkin, A., 20
Feiler, B., 6
Feng, Y., 75
Fitzgerald, J. T., 125, 126
Fitzgerald, T., 9
Lafargue, M., 89
Lagerwey, J., 98, 105, 107, 110, 111
Lamotte, E., 42, 49
Lantero, E. H., 119
Lau, D. C., 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 69, 70, 72, 74, 77, 79, 80
Leuchter, M., 16, 35, 38
Levenson, J. D., 6, 37
Levinson, B. M., 29
Levy, H., 93
Lewis, M. E., 78, 101
Lidz, F., 179
Lieu, S. N. C., 4, 187
Li, L., 68, 77
Lindholm, C., 163
Littledale, R. F., 47
Liu, S., 77
Liu, X., 63
Lopez, D. S., Jr, 6, 43, 44, 45, 60, 61
Lorenzen, D., 3, 156, 174
Lüdemann, G., 123
Lü, P., 98, 107, 111
Luther, M., 188
Queen, S. A., 91
Sade, M. de, 10
Said, E. W., 42, 50, 180
Samuel, G., 166, 174
Sangharakshita, U., 184
Śāstrī, H., 162
Saunders, T. B., 114
Schaberg, J., 125
Schafer, E., 104
Scheper, G. L., 164
Tal, O., 20
Tang, J., 76
Tang, Z., 63, 72
Tillich, P., 114
Tindal, M., 114
Tottoli, R., 154
Tripurari, B. V., 171, 174
Tu, W., 77
Twain, M., 6
Xu, F., 76
Xu, S., 63
Xu, Z., 63, 80
Yang, M., 81
Yao, X., 186
Young, I. M., 20
Yule, H., 42
Yu, Y., 71
Aaron, 27, 30
Abbasid Revolution, 13
ʿAbd Allāh b. Thāmir, 140, 152
ʿAbd al-Mālik b. Hishām, 132
ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib (Shaybah), 143, 144, 145, 146
Abenner (King), 183
Abhidharma tradition, 57
Abrahah, 145, 146
Abraham, 10, 15, 16, 24, 36, 187. See also Ibrāhīm
Abu al-Muzaffar al-Isfarayini, 128
Abyssinians, 145, 146
Ācārya, 165
Acts of the Apostles, 112
Adi Granth, 190
Ahab, 20n10
Ahijah, 32
Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, 178, 184–185, 191
Ai of Lu, Duke, 67
Aisha, 181
Akivah, Rabbi, 7, 37n40
Akṣobhya, 58
al-Ḥārith, 144
al-Mabʿath, 132, 139
al-Maghāzī, 132
Almond, Philip, 45, 46, 48
al-Mubtadaʾ, 132, 139
Ambedkar, B. R., 184n16
Amitābha, 58
Habbakuk, 19
Hadith, 121, 189
Hagaddah, 37n39
Hagarism theory, 5–6
Hājar (Hagar), 137
Ḥajj, 133, 135, 137, 138–141, 143, 147, 149, 152
Hammurabi Code, 28
Han Dynasty
Confucianism during, 11, 66, 67, 69, 70, 73, 81
Daoism during, 84, 88, 94
deification of Laozi during, 93–97
Han Feizi, 65, 65n15, 67, 69, 91
Hanfeizi, 91
Ḥanīf, 141
Ḥanīfīyah dīn Ibrāhīm, 13, 133, 144, 148–150, 151
Harnack, Adolf von, 114, 114n4, 126
Hāshim, 143
Hasmonean rulers, 22n18
Hebrew Bible, 19, 22n18, 23, 117, 138n16. See also specific books
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 76, 125
Helü (King), 108
Henotheism, 19
Jabraʾīl, 137
Jacob, 15, 36
Jagad-guru, 166
Jāhilīyah, 142, 149, 152
Jainism, 156, 184
Jambudvīpa, 57
James, Letter of, 126
Japan
Buddhism in, 49
Jesus appearing in faiths of, 179
Jefferson, Thomas, 123
Jensen, Lionel, 11, 62, 68, 72n36, 78n59
Jeremiah, 10, 27, 32, 33–34, 35
Jeremias, Joachim, 120
Jesuits, 11, 62, 72n36, 186
Jesus
appearances in other faith traditions, 5, 119, 175–179, 192
as Christianity’s founder, 12–13, 113–117, 122–129
extra-scriptural sources on, 121
historicity of, 113–114, 118
Jewishness of, 176
Sermon on the Mount, 117n8, 188
as teacher of morality, 115
Jesus the Jew (Vermes), 176
Jin Dynasty, 101
Jixia academy, 92
Jñāna-tradition, 166
John of Damascus, 180
John the Baptist, 125, 129, 150
Paccaya Sutta, 39
Paganism, 59
Paine, Thomas, 123
Palestinian Judaism, 176
Pali Canon, 45, 47, 48, 53, 54, 55
Pāṭimokkha, 53
Patriarchs, 22
Paul
as Christianity’s founder, 6, 13, 122–129
letters of, 116
Pennington, Brian K., 3
Pentateuch, 17, 19–20, 19n9, 27, 30
Perfections (pāramitā), 57
Perfect Scriptures of the Numinous Treasure, 85, 86, 101–109
Qi cultivation techniques, 88
Qin Dynasty, 11, 72–73
Qing Dynasty, 76
Questions of Duke Transcendent, 106
Qur’an, 5, 121, 126, 135, 138n16, 140, 142, 146, 177, 188
Quraysh, 141, 143, 144, 146, 147, 149
Quṣayy b. Kilāb, 143, 144