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Title: The Marriage of East and West by Bede Griffiths, Dalai Lama XIV Bstan-'dzin-rgya-mtsho ISBN: 0-9725627-1-0 Publisher: Canterbury Press Norwich Pub. Date: 01 September, 2003 Format: Paperback

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Average Customer Rating: 5 (1 review)

Rating: 5
Summary: Richly intellectual, profoundly spiritual
Comment: I am amazed that there are no other customer reviews about this fine and important work of spirituality and interreligious dialogue. It is certainly among Griffiths' best works. Most people who have done doctoral dissertations on the author are correct in considering this to be his second autobiography, and the subtitle tells us that this was more or less the author's intention as well.

First the author writes about fifty pages to show how life in India -- by the time he wrote this book he had been living there about thirty years -- has changed his heart and soul and expanded his mind.

The remainder of the book is devoted to outlining the Vedic, Judaic, and Christian Revelations and most of the subsections are so arranged as to show how myths have developed and grown in each of these three major religious traditions. I must confess that my background in Hindu religions is not sufficient for me to read that section critically, so I concentrated more on the Jewish and Christian sections. I have a whole lifetime to learn more about the Hindu traditions.

I have no problem with viewing most of the material in the Old Testament as radically involved with myth. Even the creation story. It is a beautiful myth, but still a myth. But there are a lot of Christians who can't get over a literal historical understanding of this material. This book was clearly not meant for them.

Even the story of the foundations of Christianity is tied up with the mythological. But since Christ is a historical figure, it is harder to sift out the strictly historical from the largely mythological elements in the tradition's founding events. Griffiths identifies the Christian revelation as the "rebirth of the myth." He centers his discussion on the myth of Christ and the myth of the Church. The myth, he says by way of validating his argument, appeals to the imagination, to the heart, and transforms the person.

It should be pointed out that large parts of Griffiths' discussion owe a heavy debt to the work of Mircea Eliade. The book can be recommended to anyone seeking religious or spiritual enrichment.