Description: As both a scholar of Buddhism and a Christian priest, John P. Keenan engages with the New Testament letter to the Ephesians, written by a member of the Pauline school likely near the end of the first century--a time when both the cultural world and the cosmos were much narrower than for us today. In pondering this scripture's significance for residents of the twenty-first century, Keenan looks to the work of scholars and thinkers both ancient and modern, Eastern and Western, scientists and philosophers. Particular attention is given to Chinese Buddhist master Zhiyi's explanation of a threefold truth, which resonates with an early trinitarian theme in Ephesians and suggests the riches to be discovered upon the global theological commons.
Brief description:
John P. Keenan is professor emeritus of religion at Middlebury College and a priest in the Episcopal Diocese of Vermont. His previous works include The Emptied Christ of Philippians: Mahāyāna Meditations; The Meaning of Christ: A Mahāyāna Theology; The Gospel of Mark: A Mahāyāna Reading; A Study of the Buddhabhūmyupadésa: The Doctrinal Development of the Notion of Wisdom in Yogācāra Thought; and Grounding Our Faith in a Pluralist World--With a Little Help from Nāgārjuna.