Earthing the Cosmic Christ of Ephesians—The Universe, Trinity, and Zhiyi’s Threefold Truth, Volume 3
Commentary on Ephesians 2:1–12
- Biblical Studies & Commentaries
- World Religions
- Publisher: Wipf and Stock
- Published: 2023
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Publisher's 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.
Endorsements (3)
“As contemporary astronomers use lenses to focus light that started its journey through the universe ages ago, John Keenan uses the lens of Buddhism to look at the faraway letter to the Ephesians, demonstrating that cosmology, first-century culture, and philosophy need not stand in the way of a practice ‘efficaciously incarnate in an everyday Jesus.’ Fascinating reading, even for those of us who aren’t theologically inclined.”
“Ephesians is a neglected text which John Keenan’s impassioned meditation brings back into the limelight, placing it in today’s pluralistic, interreligious, and scientific horizons just as boldly as its deutero-Pauline author brought Paul himself up to date. Drawing on the best exegetes and a host of daring thinkers, Keenan shows how Ephesians disrupts the social and cosmological horizons of its time and of ours.”
“In ‘earthing’ Ephesians in an interfaith dialogue, one between Mahayana Buddhist Master Zhiyi’s teaching of the threefold truth and the core Christian doctrine of the Trinity, John Keenan simultaneously grounds the text of Ephesians and sets it free to soar, freeing us, in turn, to embody not only a mature faith but, importantly, its practice—not in some otherworldly, cosmic life but this earthbound everyday one in common fellowship with one another. A boundary-breaking masterwork!”
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