Chapter 6, Understanding the Symbols of Judeo-Christian Spirituality Summary and Analysis

With the older Buddhism and younger Islam, Christianity is a "world religion," marked by having a creed. "Ethnic" religions such as Hinduism, Judaism, and Shinto are based on birth. Christianity believes in the Virgin Birth in the magnetic way that all great figures (e.g., Abraham Lincoln) attract legends. Historical accuracy is unimportant. The motifs of Jesus' life closely resemble Buddha's and the saviors of the Jains. Virgin births figure in Buddhist, Greek, Celtic, and American Indian cultures. In India, Vyasa is born of a virgin, herself born of a fish when her father is too busy to perform his husbandly duties and ejaculates into a leaf that a bird carries to the River Ganges. A fisherman finds a baby girl inside the fish that ingests the leaf. "Fishy-Smell...