SHARPE, ERIC J. Eric John Sharpe (1933–2000) was born in Lancashire, England, into a family of straitened circumstances during the Great Depression. The first in his family to undertake tertiary studies, he was fortunate to secure a studentship at the University of Manchester. Sharpe seemed destined for the Methodist ministry, yet, when choosing between two eminent supervisors for his masters thesis, evangelical New Testament specialist F. F. Bruce and the more adventurous liberal scholar of comparative religion S. G. F. Brandon, he chose the latter, researching "the Doctrine of Man" in New Testament and early Vedic thought. Thereafter Sharpe's primary attention was on the business of analyzing and comparing different religions. In 1958 a World Council of Churches award took him to Uppsala, Sweden, where he began doctoral studies within the Faculty of Theology. Interestingly, he did not opt to study under Geo Widengren, a continental...