Contents -- Foreword by Francis X. Clooney, SJ, Director of the Harvard Center for Study of World Religions -- Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Prologue: Four Fingers and a Thumb - Tao Te Ching, Analects, Dhammapada, Gita, and Avesta -- Book One From the Foundations of the Earth to Our Common Spiritual Ancestors -- Introduction: East and West Meeting at the Altar of Religion by Cyril Glasse -- Exordium: What We Once Knew, by Karl Friedrich Geldner -- Preface: Why the Z Factor Matters -- Through the Mists of Time: Vedic and Semitic Prehistories Connecting East and West -- A Priest Becomes a Prophet: Commissioned at the River -- A Chance Meeting at the Crossroads of History: A Prelude to the Babylonian Interface between Proto Vedic and Proto Semitic Religions -- The Silk Route: The Axis of the Axial Age -- The Extant Avesta: A Few Pieces of the Jigsaw Puzzle -- The Fraternal Twins of World Religion: Monism for Monotheists -- Book Two The Taoist Testament -- Introduction: Magi in China and Intellectual Ferment in Eurasia at the Middle of the First MillenniumBCE by Professor Victor H. Mair, Professor of Chinese, Philadelphia University -- Preface: Magic and iMagination -- Tao Te Ching: translated by Victor H. Mair -- Book Three The Confucian Testament -- Introduction: Innovation vs.Tradition by Jacqueline Mates-Muchin, Senior Rabbi, Temple Sinai, Oakland -- Preface: Fireworks East and West -- The Analects: translated by James Legge -- Book Four The Buddhist Testament -- Introduction: The Indian Origins of Buddhism by Professor Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, Oxford -- Preface: King Akbars Perfect Religion -- Dhammapada: translated by S. Radhakrishnan -- Book Five The Hindu Testament --

Introduction: Reciprocal Illumination by Professor Arvind Sharma, Birks Professor in Comparative Religion, McGill University

Preface: With Notes from Mahatma Mohandas Gandhi

Bhagavad Gita: translated by Gandhi

Book Six The Z Factor

Introduction: Eastern Influence in Western Texts by Dr. David Bruce

Preface: New Frontiers in Scriptural Studies

Israel in Exile: God as Israels Only Redeemer

Up from the River Again, With a Promise of Paradise: Jesus as a Zoroastrian Saoshyant, the Redeemer of the World

Chinvat Bridge The Final Judgement: Zoroastrian Scriptures and (S2(BPrevious Revelations(S3 (BCorrected in the Quran

Book Seven The Dead Zee Scrolls

Introduction: Digging Through Time by Professor Richard Freund

Preface: A Model for the Twenty First Century

Among the Ruins: Tablets and Cylinders

From Aurel Stein to Mary Boyce and Beyond: Controversies in the Twentieth Century

Epilogue: The Resurrection of Zoroaster: A Prophet for the Twenty First Century

Dancing on the Edge of Tombs: More Treasure Than Anyone Imagined

Appendix: Images of the Original Eastern Testaments

Preface to Images: The Edict of Cyrus and the Chinese Cuneiform Bones by E. K. Eduljee