A Theory of Everything

Three Testaments: Torah, Gospel and Quran By Brian Arthur Brown
This book brings together the first five books of the Hebrew scriptures (called the Torah), the New Testament and the Quran. These Abrahamic scriptures are presented in a modern translation, with introductory essays by various writers.

There are also 12 chapters in the book written by Brian Arthur Brown, a retired minister of the United Church of Canada. He seeks to show the “inter-dependence” of Jewish, Christian and Muslim scriptures and make the case for an interesting thesis, which I’ll discuss in a moment. It is a handsome hardcover volume illustrated by black and white woodcuts and several maps, charts and works of calligraphy.

The idea of this project was proposed at an interfaith conference held in 2009. Brown tells us that it took him nearly three years of non-stop work, collaborating with scholars and “monitors,” and incorporating input from an online community of several hundred people.

Those acquainted with the Torah and the New Testament would enjoy reading these in a 21st-century translation. Those not acquainted with the Quran would benefit from reading an English “interpretation.” (Muslims believe that only the Arabic text is the revelation of God). However, the more serious student should use the best annotated translations produced within each of the three traditions.
Brown has an intense interest in enhancing conversation, respect and understanding among peoples of all faiths, especially Jews, Christians and Muslims. This, of course, is very commendable. His formal training and experience is in Christian ministry, in pastoral psychology and organizational behaviour. It is evident he has worked hard at educating himself and goes to great lengths to present his thesis. But one wonders if the multitude of credible scholars consulted are not embedded to give credence to a tenuous theory.

His main idea is that Zoroastrianism, the ancient religion of Persia, has greatly influenced Jewish concepts of the creation, the Messiah/Saviour of the world, social and personal justice, sacrifice, Satan, judgment, resurrection, paradise and most importantly the concept of God, crystallized in monotheism, a fundamental belief in Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

We’re told that as we seek to identify and appreciate the Zoroastrian “sub-text” of the Torah, New Testament and Quran, we then would be able to access the “universal vision” imprinted in the religion of others. We’re told that we can be greatly helped to navigate our way through these scriptures by observing the “linguistic markers” which reflect a common background, namely Zoroastrian, and with continued practice we may develop a “feel” for the ethos in sections, say, of the Quran, which might seem now indecipherable or ambiguous.

Drawing on liberal scholars (Marcus Borg, Elaine Pagels, Deepak Chopra, Elmar R. Gruber, Holger Kersten and others), Brown speculates that there is a definite connection between Jesus and Buddha, and that they share a common source, Zoroastrianism, hence the similarity in their teachings. This is the “Z” factor. He hopes to open a new academic discipline of trying to identify this subtext in Jewish, Christian and Muslim scriptures. On the religious level, he divines, this would be equivalent to discovering the Rosetta Stone used to crack the code of Egyptian hieroglyphics.

The second idea, which is of interest to us, is the claim that Zoroastrianism influenced Jesus’s own idea of being a Saviour and influenced the whole interpretation of the meaning of a Saviour in the New Testament and in Christian history. Brown obviously rejects connecting the death of Jesus with the judgment of God on human sin. Jesus’s prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane to “let this cup pass from me,” echoing the many passages in the Old Testament which speak of the cup of the wrath of God, doesn’t mean what the broader church throughout its history has taken the prayer to mean. Contrary views about this have always existed, but does not St. Paul caution us about “another gospel?” (See Galatians 1:9 and 2 Corinthians 11:4.) Brown regards the life, death and resurrection of Jesus as “the most powerfully sophisticated metaphor.”

Yet, we’re assured, Jesus did exist. The places where he lived and travelled were permeated by non-Jewish political and religious ideas. So when he met the Syrophoenician woman north of Palestine, for example, he was very much at home in Zoroastrian territory. And if Jesus had not travelled and acquired his ideas from Persia or India then he might have encountered them in his homeland where “perhaps India went to Judea in the guise of Buddhist missionaries.” Brown prefers to think that Jesus did actually go to India between his early youth and the beginning of his public ministry. However, after a lengthy discussion, he acknowledges, to his credit, that there is “plenty of speculation” but “no scriptural evidence that (Jesus) travelled east.”

The main problem with this book is its excessive speculation, though tantalizing at times, and its simplistic theory of everything. As Professor Scott Alexander, a noted Catholic scholar and an acknowledged authority on Islam and inter-religious dialogue, cautions, we need to be suspicious of theories of everything, especially when it comes to matters of religion.

Brown seems infatuated with his idea that he might have discovered a unifying theory that would bring Judaism, Christianity and Islam closer to each other and, one might add, perhaps in time, bring all faiths together. All we have to do is demonstrate substantial Zoroastrian influence on the Hebrew Bible, then on the New Testament, then on the Quran, then on the Book of Mormon, the writings of the Baha’i faith and so on. I am reminded of the father of the bride in My Big Fat Greek Wedding when he says, “Give me a word, any word, and I show you how the root of that word is Greek!”

This book glosses over major historical and theological issues, such as the controversial date of Zarathustra’s birth and the crucifixion of Jesus, and thus it deserves more thorough scrutiny. If there is any potential usefulness in its basic thesis it has been belaboured and overstated. Still, the author’s pleading for tolerance and understanding of “the other” is certainly a Christian duty.

The publishing of the Three Testaments will, no doubt, challenge many Christians to examine their faith identities, which is not a bad thing. It will raise questions and hopefully stimulate more rigorous study of what we believe and why. It presents a challenge to rethink our assumptions about other religious traditions, like Zoroastrianism, Judaism and Islam, and not to make hasty judgments without acquainting ourselves with the facts from a reliable source.