Gods, Heroes, and Ancestors: An Interreligious Encounter in Eighteenth-Century Vietnam
Associate Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology, Anh Tran, S.J., recently published Gods, Heroes, and Ancestors: An Interreligious Encounter in Eighteenth-Century Vietnam (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017).
The core of this study is a thoroughly annotated translation of a never-before-published document discovered by Professor Tran in the archives of Mission Etrangeres de Paris. The document, “Errors of the Three Teachings,” is designed as a missionary’s dialogue with representatives of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism.
Professor Tran’s book has been well received, being reviewed in Reading Religion, a publication of the American Academy of Religion, as well as in the Asian-American Theological Forum by Judith Berling, Professor Emerita of Chinese and Comparative Religions at the Graduate Theological Union. Berling notes that “Tran’s volume is particularly helpful in providing a detailed and well-researched description of the historical and religious context, and what is known about beliefs and practices of the Three Religions, before he turns to the text. His book provides one of the fullest accounts of Vietnamese religions available in English, which is a boon for the religious studies scholar.”[1]
Professor Tran's book can be purchased from the Oxford University Press here.
[1] Judith Berling, Graduate Theological Union, in Asian American Theological Forum