The Lost Sutras of Jesus: Unlocking the Ancient Wisdom of the Xian Monks [Hardcover]

Thomas Moore (Editor), Ray Riegert (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 2003

The Lost Sutras of Jesus is a fascinating historical journey and spiritual quest into the heart of Jesus’ teachings and the essence of Eastern religion. The story of the “Jesus Sutras” begins around A.D. 640, when a band of Christian missionaries entered China from the east. The message they brought was translated into a series of tales about Jesus, describing his teachings with a Taoist and Buddhist overlay. These sutras were eventually sealed in a cave around A.D. 1005, where they remained hidden until being unearthed by explorers in 1907. The Lost Sutras of Jesus combines the amazing story of the writing, disappearance, and rediscovery of the sutras with an exploration of their message. Photos and maps are included.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A fascinating story of an ancient Buddhist-Christian union, still filled with holy wisdom." -- Jack Kornfield, author of A Path with Heart

"As a Buddhist still deeply shaped by my Christian culture, I was stirred by the profound wisdom in this book." -- Franz Metcalf, author of What Would Buddha Do?

"This enlightening book tells of a time when Christianity, Buddhism and Taoism chanted in three-part harmony." -- John Dominic Crossan, author of Excavating Jesus

From the Inside Flap

In 635 C.E. a small band of Christian monks traveled along the Silk Road from Persia to the imperial capital of China. Welcomed by the Tang Dynasty emperor, the missionaries set about translating into Chinese the sacred texts they had carried for 3000 miles across the deserts and mountains of Asia.

Influenced by Buddhists and Taoists they encountered along the way, the Persians translated their manuscripts into a collection of unique teachings, part Christianity and part Eastern wisdom, that combined the teachings of Jesus with the principles of Eastern thought. Recorded on a set of delicate scrolls, these new scriptures became known as the Jesus Sutras.

During the next few centuries, the political climate in China turned menacing towards Christians and Buddhists alike and sometime around 1000 C.E., the Jesus Sutras, together with thousands of Buddhist manuscripts, were hidden in a desert cave.

They were not seen again until 1900, when a Taoist monk restoring cave paintings in western China accidentally discovered the sealed cavern housing these priceless religious documents. Within a few years, European archaeologists and private collectors had removed the sacred texts from China, relegating them to academic obscurity for the next hundred years. Now, the new translation presented in this book offers a unique opportunity to delve into their unparalleled wisdom and tells the story of the discovery in 1998 of one of the monk's original monasteries.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 144 pages
• Publisher: Ulysses Press, Seastone (April 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1569753601
• ISBN-13: 978-1569753606
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.3 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #986,815 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Thomas Moore is the author of the bestselling book Care of the Soul and fifteen other books on deepening spirituality and cultivating soul in every aspect of life. He has been a monk, a musician, a university professor, and a psychotherapist, and today he lectures widely on holistic medicine, spirituality, psychotherapy, and ecology. He lectures frequently in Ireland and has a special love of Irish culture. He has Ph. D. in religion from Syracuse University and has won several awards for his work, including an honorary doctorate from Lesley University and the Humanitarian Award from Einstein Medical School of Yeshiva University. He also writes fiction and music and often works with his wife, artist and yoga instructor, Hari Kirin. He writes regular columns for Resurgence and Spirituality & Health and has recently published A Life at Work and Writing in the Sand. He is a patron of Re-Vision, a London center of spirituality and counseling, and on the board of Turning Point, a bereavement counselors training program in Dublin, Ireland.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Nice Intro; little depth, February 25, 2005

By 

Phylos (Bay Area) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Lost Sutras of Jesus: Unlocking the Ancient Wisdom of the Xian Monks (Hardcover)

As a grad student at Univ. Chicago in the early 80s, i played around with the translation of the Jesus Sutras from the Japanese explorer Sakao's transcription -- the only available Chinese text at my disposal back then. It has been an area of study that has continued to intrique me ever since, and i frequently follow the research.

My initial sense from the Riegert's rendition is that it is a quick popularization following on the heels of other more rigorous and better introduced books. Even the title is misleading... it is not like these texts have been "lost" for all these centuries and recently found! Nor does the book really "unlock" any wisdom per se. It is that sort of language and introduction that lends itself to my criticism of a popularization. While it is a fine introduction, the reader interested in early Chinese Christianity, the fascinating story of monks from the Church of the East finding emperial accomodation in Tang China, and the unique syncretic nature of the Jesus Sutras with Taoist and Buddhist ideas would do better with Martin Palmer's Jesus Sutras. Martin was also the individual who deciphered the old spy maps and clues from classical texts to eventually locate the ruins of the primary Christian monastery at Da Qin.

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Weak introduction to fascinating subject., September 11, 2005

By 

David Marshall (Seattle area) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Lost Sutras of Jesus: Unlocking the Ancient Wisdom of the Xian Monks (Hardcover)

If the improbable, romantic history of Christianity in China doesn't convince you that "truth can be stranger than fiction," what can? Last year I visited the lovely stone pagoda outside of Xian, what remains of the oldest Christian complex in China, where an ancient stone telling the story of the first Christians was found four hundred years ago. Poetic Chinese Nestorian texts blending Buddhism and Christianity were later discovered in caves hundreds of miles towards Afghanistan along the Silk Road. After the long hike to China, the participants in this early meeting of East and West deserve two things: a thoughtful and informed introduction, and the chance to speak for themselves.

Riegert and Moore provide the latter, but not the former. The second half of this book consists mostly of exerpts from the various discovered texts. These are fascinating and often beautiful; sometimes leaning towards Gospel, sometimes towards dharma, at times agreeing with both, occasionally with neither. I have a copy of the Nestorian scroll; difficult Chinese, for me at least, but the translation here seems fairly plausible. While it might be too much to hope for a copy of the original in this popular treatment, I wish they had at least said where they obtained their tranlations. They are quite different from those in Palmer and another available on-line, but no explanation is given of where they came from.

The texts are fascinating, poetic, and often beautiful. By contrast, Riegert and Moore might have written the introductions in a couple afternoons, and drummed up the research for them in a few days. It is not clear that the authors knew a lot about China, or Nestorian Christianity(making them sound like members of the Jesus Seminar), though it is obvious they were fond of Buddhism.

One of the book's key errors appears culpable. The authors claim to be offering "1300 year old scrolls" from China. No hint is dropped that the texts they offer might differ in character. But in fact, the Nestorian stone is 1250 years old; the scrolls are more recent. (According to Palmer. The authors do not argue with him; they just fudge the distinction between the stone and the scrolls. As I recall, Samuel Moffett, whom the authors quote, also points out that the stone reveals a more orthodox Christianity than later scrolls.) The authors are either simplistic, or disingenuous, to confuse later syncretism with the first Chinese Christian text, which appear pretty orthodox.

While I think his enthusiasm for karma and other dubious ideas is naive (see my review in Books and Culture), Martin Palmer's The Jesus Sutras is a better and more interesting book. (Perhaps because it was written for love, while I rather suspect this short, artsy little volume of having been written for money.) There is room for more books on the subject, but I hope the next person who takes it on will approach the interchange of syncretism, dharma, and Gospel, with deeper and more critical thought.

author, True Son of Heaven: How Jesus fulfils the Chinese Culture

20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Rich Spiritual Blend of Christian, Tao & Confucian Thoughts, October 15, 2004

By 

Erika Borsos "pepper flower" (Gulf Coast of FL, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Lost Sutras of Jesus: Unlocking the Ancient Wisdom of the Xian Monks (Hardcover)

Fascinating religious scrolls were discovered in caves in Xian, China at the turn of the century. They were disseminated to museums in France, Britain (UK) and into private collections and not translated for many years. The political upheavals in China left the remaining texts safe ... until 1998 when the monastery where they were stored was discovered. This small volume is a gem that includes translations of the scrolls, although high-priced for only 138 pages, the information contained within is well worth reading. Part I describes the historical background of how Christian monks from Persia in 635 C.E. traveled 3,000 miles over the Silk Road to China. They were honored by the enlightened Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty, who recognized the wisdom of the Christian teachings which he called "The Luminous Religion". He had the monks write down their teaching and included it in the Imperial library that contained 200,000 volumes of scrolls, one of the most substantial places of knowledge in the world. Close to a 1,000 years later the Chinese found the scrolls and built a monument, which at the top had a cross rising from the center of a lotus blossum. On the stele was carved the teachings of Christianity, Taoism, and Confucianism. In the early 1900s, a Taoist priest/monk discovered the caves where the original manuscripts were laid ... he devoted his life to preserving the caves and their contents.

Amazingly it was a Hungarian Jew, Sir Aurel Stein, who grew up in Britain, obtained his Ph.D. at age 21, was raised as a Christian, who brought these texts to the world's attention. Later he received a knighthood and honorary degrees from Oxford and Cambridge. A French archeologist, Paul Pelliot, also deserves credit for his outstanding translations of the numerous scrolls that he took back to the Bilbiotheque Nationale in France and for which he received honors later in life. The book does indeed fall short in providing enough of the translated scrolls themselves, there are only just over 40 pages devoted to this alone, but the overall research and information contained within had my undivided and full attention. This is a most highly recommended book. Erika Borsos (erikab93)