"Four Testaments brings together four foundational texts from world religions--the Tao Te Ching, Dhammapada, Analects of Confucius, and Bhagavad Gita--inviting readers to experience them in full, to explore possible points of connection and divergence, and to better understand people who practice these traditions"-- Provided by publisher

Includes bibliographical references.

Print version record and CIP data provided by publisher.

Prologue. Four fingers and a thumb : Tao Te Ching, Analects, Dhammapada, Gita, and Avesta -- Book one : from the foundations of the earth to our common spiritual ancestors. Introduction : East and West meeting at the altar of religion / by Cyril Glassé ; Exordium : what we once knew / by Karl Friedrich Geldner ; Preface : why the Z factor matters ; From the foundations of the earth : Vedic and Semitic prehistories connecting East and West ; A priest becomes a prophet : commissioned at the river ; A chance meeting at the crossroads of history : before the Vedic-Semitic Interface in Babylon ; The silk route : the axis of the Axial Age ; The extant Avesta : pieces of a jigsaw puzzle ; The fraternal twins of world religions : monism for monotheists -- Book two : the Taoist testament. Introduction : Magi in China and intellectual ferment in Eurasia at the middle of the first millennium BCE / by Victor H. Mair ; Preface : magic and iMagination ; Tao Te Ching / translated by Victor H. Mair -- Book three : the Confucian testament. Introduction : the Indian origins of Buddhism / by Sarvapelli Radhakrishnan ; Preface : the path of the teachings ; Dhammapada / translated by Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan -- Book five : the Hindu testament. Introduction : reciprocal illumination / by Arvind Sharma ; Preface / with notes from Mahatma Mohandas Ghandi ; Bhagavad Gita / translated by Mohandas Ghandi -- Book six : the Z factor. Introduction : the texts / by David Bruce ; Preface : new frontiers in scriptural studies ; Israel in exile : God as Israel's only redeemer ; Jesus as a Zoroastrian Saoshyant, the redeemer of the world ; Chinvat Bridge : the final judgment : Zoroastrian scriptures and "previous relations" corrected and confirmed in the Quran -- Book seven : the "Dead zee scrolls". Introduction : searching for the "Dead zee scrolls" / by Richard Freund ; Preface : a model for the twenty-first centry ; Among the ruins : tablets and cylinders ; From Aurel Stein to Mary Boyce and beyond : controversies in the twentieth century and resolution in the twenty-first ; Epilogue : the resurrection of Zoroaster : a prophet from the East for the twenty-first century -- Appendix. Images of the original Eastern testaments and tantalizing hints of things to come.