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Killing the Buddha: A Heretic's Bible by [Manseau, Peter, Sharlet, Jeff]

Killing the Buddha: A Heretic's Bible Kindle Edition

by Peter Manseau (Author), Jeff Sharlet (Author)

17 customer reviews

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"If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him."
The ninth-century sage Lin Chi gave this advice to one of his monks, admonishing him that this Buddha would only be a reflection of his unexamined beliefs and desires. Peter Manseau and Jeff Sharlet took Lin Chi's advice to heart and set out on a car trip around America, looking for Buddhas along the road and the people who meet them: prophets in G-strings dancing to pay the rent, storm chasers hunting for meaning in devastating tornados, gangbangers inking God on their bodies as protection from bullets, cross-dressing terrorist angels looking for a place to sing.
Along the way Manseau and Sharlet began to wonder what the traditional scripture they encountered everywhere -- in motels, on billboards, up and down the radio dial -- would look like remade for today's world. To find out, they called upon some of today's most intriguing writers to recast books of the Bible by taking them apart, blowing them up with ink and paper.
Rick Moody recasts Jonah as a modern-day gay Jewish man living in Queens. A.L. Kennedy meditates on the absurdity of Genesis. In Samuel, April Reynolds visits a man of tremendous vision in Harlem. Peter Trachtenberg unravels the Gordian logic of Job by way of the Borscht Belt. Haven Kimmel dives into Revelation and comes out in a swoon. Woven through these divine books are Manseau and Sharlet's dispatches from the road, their Psalms of the people.
What emerges from this work of calling is not an attack on any religion, but a many-colored, positively riveting look at the facets of true belief. Together these curious minds tell the strange, funny, sad, and true story of religion in America for the spiritual seeker in all of us: A Heretic's Bible.

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Length: 304 pages	Word Wise: Enabled	Enhanced Typesetting: Enabled
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File Size: 809 KB
Print Length: 304 pages
Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0743232763
Publisher: Free Press (January 13, 2004)
Publication Date: January 13, 2004
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC
Language: English
ASIN: B000FC0YVI
Text-to-Speech: Enabled

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Word Wise: Enabled
Lending: Not Enabled
Screen Reader: Supported

Enhanced Typesetting: Enabled

Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,382,622 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #1287 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Religion & Spirituality > Religious Studies & Reference > Comparative Religion
- #1366 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Religion & Spirituality > Religious Studies & Reference > Philosophy
- #3137 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Religion & Spirituality > Christian Books & Bibles > Bible Study & Reference > Criticism & Interpretation

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R. Stuart

Journey to the Heartland

January 4, 2004

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

Upon finishing this book, the first word to mind was "Fantastic" -- both for its conception and the way Manseau and Sharlet brought it off. Using the Bible as structure, they've written of eccentric spiritual quests far from mainstream American religion, the "psalms," as well as having given license to a host of distinguished writers to spin their own versions of various "books" of the Bible. The result, a "Heretic's Bible," a veritable feast for the open mind and literary appetite.
Traveling up and down the land, the authors' stops included a Buddhist monastery in the Appalachians, a cowboy church in West Texas, and a witches' gathering in Heartland, Kansas. With keen eye, uncanny ear, humor and respect, their narratives of this exotic spiritual journey was the most liberating literary experience I've had since first reading Michael Herr's "Dispatches," arguably the classic account of how Vietnam GI's felt and talked about life in the combat zone. Among the biblical books alternating with the psalms, several of the most notable include Rick Moody's astonishing, modern re-interpretation of Jonah, Peter Tractenberg's brilliant rendition of Job, a very gritty Exodus by Francine Prose, and Melvin Jules Bukiet's recasting of Ezekiel as an irreverent carousel operator in New York's Central Park.
The characters inhabiting Manseau and Sharlet's stories are mostly ordinary people -- the wife of a Walmart manager, a prison chaplain, a Colorado trooper, waitresses, L.A. street kids, Army lifers, and Kinko clerks. Some I found quite unforgettable -- George the rodeo riding preacher, the Calvinist stripper who calls herself Kennedy "because I wish I could've slept with Marilyn," and Elowen Graywolf the witch. Together, all of them have sought unusual paths to spiritual self-fulfillment. But I detected something else as well -- beneath their sacred dramas, they seem to be individuals simply seeking community in places without bookstores, inventing their own scriptures, fashioning alternate realities to set themselves apart from the atomized, homogenized society of their everyday world. Terrific book.

8 people found this helpful

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tbs

Funny and thought provoking

January 25, 2016

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

Loved this book, had to write a paper on it and it was one of my favorite assignments!

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J. Christensen

Finger-licking-good!

January 11, 2004

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

"Mortal, eat this scroll" is how the book begins, and whether you mean to or not, you will. Perhaps figuratively, perhaps literally (I haven't yet decided what to make for dinner tonight). Guided by skepticiscm and spiritual wanderlust, Sharlet and Manseau lead a chorus of talented writers in creating a work that is beautiful, dangerous, and above all - nourishing.
By no means a feel-good fuzzy of new-age spirituality, each book of scripture asks those questions that make any good religious skeptic sleep with the night light on. In response, each book of psalms brings forward a look at the funny, strange, sad, and sincere quest that is America in search of the divine. Together the voices that emerge - those of the authors, their subjects, and the reader - create a sound that is new and truly original, authentic and unapologetic.
For myself, a life-long skeptic of all religions, this is the only bible I've ever felt inclined to call my own.

33 people found this helpful

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gr8fuldean

Killing the Buddha: A Heretic's Bible

October 27, 2011

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Killing the Buddha: A Heretic's Bible was what i expected. a good read for me. wouldn't be for everybody, perhaps seekers.

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Dave Kinnear

In celebration of heretics

July 18, 2004

Format: Hardcover

This often times hilarious but always serious journal of a spiritual journey across America in search of Buddha is worth reading. The book is a collection of experiences, impressions, and encounters with reality as the authors travel across the American continent looking for the various incarnations of Buddha along the way.
The religious community has nothing to fear from the work of Manseau and Sharlet. They do not attack any religion, but rather they celebrate the spiritual venture many of us seem to be working toward. At the same time, they have an incredible collection of stories to keep us open minded about where we might encounter our own Buddha. If you don't have time to travel America, grab this book, sit back, and kill the Buddha vicariously.

14 people found this helpful

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Charlotte Jezebowski

Signs of Wonder

February 13, 2004

Format: Hardcover

I saw the authors of this read last night in Portland. I liked them as readers, and they seemed like good folks, so I went home started reading, and except for some sleep, I haven't been able to put it down since. Manseau and Sharlet set out like pilgrims without a destination and returned with this tale of amazing sights (a Buddhist food fight, "prophets in pasties," a gathering of military pagans) and profound insights about the nature of belief they manage to relay without preaching. This ought be enough, but interspersed with scenes from their journey, they have included 13 chapters of new "scripture," books of the bible re-written by novelists like A.L. Kennedy and Francine Prose. I was disappointed by a couple of them, but mostly they are are beautiful, worth a book themselves. And yet what makes this book something of a miracle is that this interweaving of voices seems so seamless. Manseau & Sharlet say in the introduction their aim was "cacophony," but in that they failed -- there's a wonderful harmony to the way all the pieces of this story of what Americans believe flow together. I have two more chapters to go, but "the spirit moved me" to recommend this book now to "heretics" and true believers and the rest of you who are like me, book lovers who belong to the church of great writing and terrific stories..

15 people found this helpful

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