Paradise and Paradigm

Key Symbols in Persian Christianity and the Baha’i Faith

Dr. Buck compares the key symbols and root metaphors found in the sacred writings of Bahá’u’lláh with their counterparts in the writings of St. Ephrem the Syrian and other writings of early Persian Christianity. The results are fascinating.

This academic treatise offers a systematic comparison of two Persian religions: early Syriac Christianity and the Baha’i Faith. It compares the hymns of the great poet of early Christianity, Saint Ephrem the Syrian, and the richly imagistic writings of Baha’u’llah. Buck skillfully demonstrates that formal similarities between any two religions are best comprehended in terms of paradigmatic difference, while also showing the communal reflexivity of paradise imagery in representing the ideal faith-community in both traditions.

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 Baha’i Faith and another religious tradition that has yet appeared, and may serve as a model for future such studies.

From a review published in The Baha’i Studies Review

The aim of Buck’s work, then, is to compare the world-views of two religions which may be thought to have some historical and cultural connections and to determine the extent to which the symbolic idioms in which the religious world is described by the two religions are similar and different. In doing so, the different perceptions of human life and salvation are uncovered; in Buck’s words, the aim is to see ‘how symbolic transformation may be a reflex of an underlying paradigm shift of religious ideals.’

To accomplish this, both religions are treated in their historical contexts so as to provide an understanding of the sources which are used for the analysis of the symbolic structures. Buck employs Ninian Smart’s conceptualization of the ‘six dimensions of religion’—doctrinal, ritual, ethical, experiential, mythic, and social—as a framework for the analysis of those symbolic structures. To each of these is attached a ‘key symbol’ composed of a ‘key scenario’ representing an action which serves to maintain social values (e.g., specific rituals) and a ‘root metaphor which serves to establish the view of the world.…

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, especially in relationship to the symbol systems which religions contain.

From a review by Andrew Rippin published in University of Toronto Quarterly in Winter 2001/2002

In a nutshell, the symbolic approach may be said to reveal ‘creeds beyond words’ (p. 315). To the author’s mind, in both early Christian and modern Baha’i texts one may observe a logic of higher agreement aiming at a synthetic unity of opposites. Soteriology is for the author the single most important heuristic key for comparing both religions (p. 315). But, while the Baha’i faith does not have a sacramental worldview, the paradigm of purity in Syriac Christianity presupposes a state of sanctification achieved through sacramental divinization (p. 317f).

In the past, comparative religion fell into disrepute because of its poaching on alien territory and drawing conclusions unwarranted by the facts.

On his own avowed methodological stance of not forcing identities but of explaining similarities by way of difference, Buck seems to have avoided the strictures against the old methods of comparison (see p. 320). Since the reviewer’s competence does not include the Baha’i religion, this review has purposely restricted itself to the presentation of East Syrian Christianity, which, besides providing much useful information, takes pains to avoid caricature.

From a review by Edward G. Farrugia published in Orientalia Christiana Periodica in 2000

Buck’s theoretically innovative analysis of ‘paradigmatic differences’ in East Syrian (or Nestorian) Christianity and the early Bahá’í faith is a fascinating and intellectually challenging book.… Buck’s analysis is both creative and convincing, especially his focus on the notion of paradise in the two traditions.…

In all, a forceful and clearly argued book which should be read by scholars interested in questions of religious symbolism and the comparative method.

From a review by Brannon Wheeler published in Religious Studies Review in 2002