Customer Reviews

Paradise and Paradigm: Key Symbols in Persian Christianity and the Baha'i Faith (Studies in the Babi and Baha'i Religions, V. 10)

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PARADISE AND PARADIGM Key Symbols in Persian Christianity and the Baha'i Faith Christopher Buck.

Comparing paradise imagery in two Persian religions, early Syriac Christianity and the Baha'i Faith, this work contributes to religious studies methodology by introducing "symbolic paradigm analysis."

"This is an extremely powerful contribution to an important part of comparative religions, and will establish its author as a major academic scholar. Its purpose is to compare the symbologies of early pre-Muslim Persian (Sasanian) Christianity, especially in the work of Ephrem the Syrian, with the late nineteenth century Persian religion of the Baha'is, post-Islamic, as centered in the writings of Baha'u'llah. The symbolic center of the comparison is the family of symbols having to do with paradise. Both in its methodology and its scholarly treatments of Persian Christianity and Baha'i Faith, the book is insightful. It gives its subjects allure." -- Robert Cummings Neville, author of The Truth of Broken Symbols

In a novel approach that the author terms "symbolic paradigm analysis," Paradise and Paradigm offers a "theoretically modular" systematic comparison foundation of the East Syrian "Church of the East" (the Nestorian Church of Persia) and the Baha'i Faith, a new world religion. The author compares the hymns of the greatest poet of early Christianity, Saint Ephrem the Syrian, and the richly imagistic writings of the founder of the Baha'i religion, Baha'u'llah. The book employs an original analytic technique in the creation of "symbolic profiles" constructed on Ninian Smart's dimensional model of religion. As Buck skillfully demonstrates, formal similarities between any two religions are best comprehended in terms of paradigmatic differences, which nuance all parallels through a process of symbolic transformation. Buck also shows the communal reflexivity of paradise imagery in representing the ideal faith-community in both traditions.

"This work is a model of comparison, an eye-opener regarding the interesting Syriac Christian traditions, and quite a useful and revealing account of the Baha'i." -- William Paden, University of Vermont

Christopher Buck is Assistant Professor in the Department of Qur'an Commentary in Baha'u'llah's Kitab-i Iqan, the 1996 Baha'i Book of the Year. Buck is also a two-time recipient of the Award for Excellence in Baha'i Studies, presented by the Association for Baha'i Studies.

402 pages April 1999 paperback ISBN 0-7914-4062-1 hardcover ISBN 0-7914-4061-3

State University of New York Press State University Plaza Albany, NY 12246-000

Paradise and Paradigm, by Dr. Christopher Buck, is possibly one of the most comprehensive and well documented academic works on religion available today. Dr. Buck's nearly exhaustive research on the subject, coupled with new insights and fascinating new ideas combine to present a must read for any serious student of religion. Even if your interests and studies don't involve Persian Christianity or the Baha'i Faith, Dr. Buck presents new Paradigms that provide conceptual tools that no academic student of religions can do without.

The only thing that keeps this work from earning five stars is that it is truly for the Academic. Lay readers will struggle through terms and ideas that will be unfamiliar to those not versed in the lexicon of academic studies of religion.

Paradise and Paradigm is the first academic comparison of the Bahá'í Faith and Christianity. Dr. Buck, a Pittsburgh attorney and former professor at Michigan State University (2000-2004), Quincy University (1999-2000), Millikin University (1997-1999), and Carleton University (1994-1996), compares the "key symbols" and "root metaphors" found in the sacred writings of Bahá'u'lláh with their counterparts in the hymns of St. Ephrem the Syrian (the greatest Christian poet of Late Antiquity) and other writings of early Persian Christianity. The approach is original and the results are fascinating.

*Highlights of published reviews*:

* If the Baha'i Faith has a specialist in comparative religion, it is Christopher Buck. ... This volume is certainly ... the best comparative work on the Bahá'í Faith and another religious tradition that has yet appeared, and may serve as a model for future such studies.
-- William Collins, Bahá'í Studies Review (2002).

* As a piece of Baha'i scholarship it remains unparalleled. In terms of academic comparative efforts involving the Baha'i Faith, Buck's book is a pioneering work."
-- Daniel Grolin, H-Net Reviews in the Humanities and Social Sciences (July 2000).

* This is a provocative and ground-breaking work. Its careful attention to methodology and its attempt to work through the project with the attitude of experimentation will provide a significant impulse to the study of religion."
-- Andrew Rippin, University of Toronto Quarterly (2002).

* Paradise and Paradigm is a goldmine of information about two relatively little studied but fascinating developments in Middle Eastern religious history.
-- John Renard, Middle East Studies Association Bulletin (2000).

* It opens new possibilities for comparison and suggests new methodological approaches.
-- Kathleen McVey, International Journal of Middle East Studies (2003).

* This book is a model of comparison, an eye-opener ... and quite a useful and revealing account of the Báhá'í [religion]."
-- William Paden, University of Vermont.

* It is a must for university libraries and for faculty/graduate student readers of the Christian, Islamic and Baha'i traditions. It is a model for careful comparative analysis between religions.
-- Harold Coward, University of Victoria.