Does Christian Apologist Ravi Zacharias and/or Multnomah Books Know the Difference Between Krishna and Shiva? Or Between The Mahabharata and the Ramayana
In 2016, I ran across a reference to Ravi Zacharias's book New Birth or Rebirth: Jesus Talks With Krishna (2008) on a Hindu discussion page. I was vaguely familiar with the title as one of a number of books in a series Ravi did representing imagined dialogues between historic figures. Others in the series include, for example, dialogues between Jesus and the Buddha and Jesus and Oscar Wilde. So I decided to download a sample onto my Kindle. However, reading the sample I very quickly came across what seemed a rather serious case of cultural illiteracy on Ravi's part concerning the two major Indian Epics, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana:
While it is certainly true that the Bhagavad Gita at least shares the setting of the Mahabharata, namely the battlefield of the Kurukshetra war, the Ramayana is not a part of the Mahabharata at all. Rather, it is a separate epic on its own. My concern was that readers who encountered this significant error, might simply lay the book aside on the suspicion that an author who apparently knew so little about Indian literature, would be unlikely to have anything intelligent to say in the rest of the book.
A second and even more serious blunder, was that the god pictured on the cover of the book is not Krishna at all, but the familiar representation of Shiva Nataraja (Lord of the Dance).
The same image appears on the title page, the prologue, and the introduction of the book as well.
The same mistake appears in the cover of the Spanish edition.
The kind of error we are dealing with here would be like having a picture of Moses on the cover of a book about Jesus.
This raises the question whether Multnomah Press rather than Ravi himself was responsible for one or both of these errors. If so, we can only say shame on them for the inept editing and design that contributed to Ravi's work being taken less seriously than it might have been otherwise.
On the other hand the correspondence I had with Ravi's organization has been less than satisfying. I include below the record of the email correspondence relating this, commenting in between emails:
First Communication: On October 7, 2016, I wrote the following:
Dear Ravi:
Years ago I bought your imaginative dialogue between Christ and the Buddha. So just recently someone mentioned your other volume of a Jesus/Krishna dialogue, and I downloaded the first chapter online to look at it. Couple of things struck me that I just thought I'd mention. In the first place, why was an image of Shiva as Lord of the Dance chosen for the cover and title page instead of a picture of Krishna? Might this not potentially cause some reader to wonder whether the author of the book knows the difference between the iconography of the two gods. And then secondly, on page sixteen, you speak of the two great epics of India in these terms: "The principal one is the Mahabharata, which contains the famed Ramayana, and the Gita." While that is certainly true of the Gita, at least in terms of its setting on the battlefield just before the commencement of the Kurukshetra war, the Ramayana is not a part of the Mahabharata but a separate epic on its own.
All best,
Ron Huggins
Comment: In my email I did not mentioned my academic credentials, my doctorate, academic positions and so on. I did this because I didn't want to be answered because I was an academic. I wanted to see what kind of attention would be given to the an average person raising a point of concern.
"The
principal one [Epic] is the Mahabharata,
which contains the famed Ramayana,
and the Gita." (p. 16)
While it is certainly true that the Bhagavad Gita at least shares the setting of the Mahabharata, namely the battlefield of the Kurukshetra war, the Ramayana is not a part of the Mahabharata at all. Rather, it is a separate epic on its own. My concern was that readers who encountered this significant error, might simply lay the book aside on the suspicion that an author who apparently knew so little about Indian literature, would be unlikely to have anything intelligent to say in the rest of the book.
A second and even more serious blunder, was that the god pictured on the cover of the book is not Krishna at all, but the familiar representation of Shiva Nataraja (Lord of the Dance).
 |
Shiva Nataraja |
Since the book features Krishna, it only makes sense that it should show a picture of Krishna rather than Shiva. The ideal choice would have been one of him playing the flute.
 |
Krishna |
In the book, Ravi reveals that he has some familiarity with this way of depicting Krishna when he speaks of him as "the youthful prince with his ever-present flute." (p. 22).
The kind of error we are dealing with here would be like having a picture of Moses on the cover of a book about Jesus.
This raises the question whether Multnomah Press rather than Ravi himself was responsible for one or both of these errors. If so, we can only say shame on them for the inept editing and design that contributed to Ravi's work being taken less seriously than it might have been otherwise.
On the other hand the correspondence I had with Ravi's organization has been less than satisfying. I include below the record of the email correspondence relating this, commenting in between emails:
First Communication: On October 7, 2016, I wrote the following:
Dear Ravi:
Years ago I bought your imaginative dialogue between Christ and the Buddha. So just recently someone mentioned your other volume of a Jesus/Krishna dialogue, and I downloaded the first chapter online to look at it. Couple of things struck me that I just thought I'd mention. In the first place, why was an image of Shiva as Lord of the Dance chosen for the cover and title page instead of a picture of Krishna? Might this not potentially cause some reader to wonder whether the author of the book knows the difference between the iconography of the two gods. And then secondly, on page sixteen, you speak of the two great epics of India in these terms: "The principal one is the Mahabharata, which contains the famed Ramayana, and the Gita." While that is certainly true of the Gita, at least in terms of its setting on the battlefield just before the commencement of the Kurukshetra war, the Ramayana is not a part of the Mahabharata but a separate epic on its own.
All best,
Ron Huggins
Comment: In my email I did not mentioned my academic credentials, my doctorate, academic positions and so on. I did this because I didn't want to be answered because I was an academic. I wanted to see what kind of attention would be given to the an average person raising a point of concern.
Second Communication: On Aug 23, 2016, I received the following answer from Danielle DuRant:
Dear Mr. Huggins,
Thank you for your feedback to Ravi Zacharias’s book New Birth or Rebirth. Unfortunately, he did not see the cover or inside artwork until after the book was released, and you are correct, Krishna would’ve been a better selection. Also, I know that he is aware that of the two great Indian epics (and the Ramayana being separate from the Mahabharata) but in the process of editing this conflation wasn’t caught. At the time, Mr. Zacharias had four books due in a short span of time and with his heavy speaking schedule, he found that much writing to be quite unfeasible. Thankfully he has since scaled back to one book every year or two!
Thank you again for taking time to email us and for your careful reading of New Birth or Rebirth.
Danielle DuRant
Director of Research & Writing, Research Assistant to Ravi Zacharias
Comment: Simply informing me that the cover design wasn't Ravi's fault and that he did know that the Mahabharata and the Ramayana were two separate epics after all, was really irrelevant to the point of my writing. I was not merely trying to assign blame, but also and mainly to point out two significant errors so that they might be rectified. I made my point in the following third communication.
Third communication: On Aug 26, 2016 I wrote the following:
Thank you so much for your response. Here is my issue. This is one of the few books where Vaishnava readers might be presented with a case for Christ spelled out in contrast to their understanding of things. This is a point where Ravi stands almost alone as having a great potential to speak for Christ. Is there no way to rectify these and any other problems that might be there, in a new edition (am I right in thinking that the hard back gave way to the paper back without the corrections being made?), or perhaps in the kindle edition? Such small things can discredit the whole in the eyes of critical Hindu readers.
All best wishes in Christ,
Ron
Comment: The above email was never answered. So I decided to wait one year to see whether any action would be taken to correct the two mistakes I had brought to the attention of Ravi's organization. In October of 2017 I purchased the kindle version of Ravi's New Birth or Rebirth to see if corrections had been made or any notice of them had been given. Nothing had been done.
Fourth Communication: Since writing to Ravi's organization had apparently had no effect, I produced the first version of this blog post, and sent the link to Ravi as a heads up. This was accompanied by the following email dated Oct 8, 2017.
Dear Ravi:
Thanks so much for your wonderful ministry. There is an issue with your Jesus/Krishna book I have pursued with your staff over the last year. Since a satisfactory answer was not received, I put together the following little blog post. Here is what I wrote when I posted it on my personal Facebook page, to give you an idea where I am coming from:
"I really like Really like Ravi Zacharias. He's one of the best. So I really didn't like writing this post. But it needed to be done because there is a tendency for Christian apologists and--which I suspect is the case in this instance--of Christian publishers to be careless about factual details when describing other peoples' religions."
In any case, in fairness I just wanted to give you a heads-up that I was posting this.
Dear Mr. Huggins,
Thank you for your feedback to Ravi Zacharias’s book New Birth or Rebirth. Unfortunately, he did not see the cover or inside artwork until after the book was released, and you are correct, Krishna would’ve been a better selection. Also, I know that he is aware that of the two great Indian epics (and the Ramayana being separate from the Mahabharata) but in the process of editing this conflation wasn’t caught. At the time, Mr. Zacharias had four books due in a short span of time and with his heavy speaking schedule, he found that much writing to be quite unfeasible. Thankfully he has since scaled back to one book every year or two!
Thank you again for taking time to email us and for your careful reading of New Birth or Rebirth.
Peace of Christ to you.
Sincerely,
Danielle DuRant
Director of Research & Writing, Research Assistant to Ravi Zacharias
Comment: Simply informing me that the cover design wasn't Ravi's fault and that he did know that the Mahabharata and the Ramayana were two separate epics after all, was really irrelevant to the point of my writing. I was not merely trying to assign blame, but also and mainly to point out two significant errors so that they might be rectified. I made my point in the following third communication.
Third communication: On Aug 26, 2016 I wrote the following:
Thank you so much for your response. Here is my issue. This is one of the few books where Vaishnava readers might be presented with a case for Christ spelled out in contrast to their understanding of things. This is a point where Ravi stands almost alone as having a great potential to speak for Christ. Is there no way to rectify these and any other problems that might be there, in a new edition (am I right in thinking that the hard back gave way to the paper back without the corrections being made?), or perhaps in the kindle edition? Such small things can discredit the whole in the eyes of critical Hindu readers.
All best wishes in Christ,
Ron
Comment: The above email was never answered. So I decided to wait one year to see whether any action would be taken to correct the two mistakes I had brought to the attention of Ravi's organization. In October of 2017 I purchased the kindle version of Ravi's New Birth or Rebirth to see if corrections had been made or any notice of them had been given. Nothing had been done.
Fourth Communication: Since writing to Ravi's organization had apparently had no effect, I produced the first version of this blog post, and sent the link to Ravi as a heads up. This was accompanied by the following email dated Oct 8, 2017.
Dear Ravi:
Thanks so much for your wonderful ministry. There is an issue with your Jesus/Krishna book I have pursued with your staff over the last year. Since a satisfactory answer was not received, I put together the following little blog post. Here is what I wrote when I posted it on my personal Facebook page, to give you an idea where I am coming from:
"I really like Really like Ravi Zacharias. He's one of the best. So I really didn't like writing this post. But it needed to be done because there is a tendency for Christian apologists and--which I suspect is the case in this instance--of Christian publishers to be careless about factual details when describing other peoples' religions."
In any case, in fairness I just wanted to give you a heads-up that I was posting this.
In the Lamb, and again thank you for your wonderful ministry.
Ronald V. Huggins
Comment: As of this writing this letter was sent three months ago and like all the others except the first was not answered.
On Related Topics: Jesus & Krishna: Two Different Versions of the Same Archetypal Myth?, and Krishna, Not a Virgin Born, Crucified Savior, and Krishna, Not Virgin Born, Not Born on December 25. If the subject of other alleged "crucified saviors" is of interest I would invite my readers to read my posts on Was Prometheus a Crucified Saviour on the Pattern of Many Other Gods Including Jesus. Then further The Buddha: Virgin Born? Dying & Rising God? On the late Christopher Hitchens's plagiarism in his own discussion of "crucified saviours" see An Example of Christopher Hitchens’s Plagiarism .
On Related Topics: Jesus & Krishna: Two Different Versions of the Same Archetypal Myth?, and Krishna, Not a Virgin Born, Crucified Savior, and Krishna, Not Virgin Born, Not Born on December 25. If the subject of other alleged "crucified saviors" is of interest I would invite my readers to read my posts on Was Prometheus a Crucified Saviour on the Pattern of Many Other Gods Including Jesus. Then further The Buddha: Virgin Born? Dying & Rising God? On the late Christopher Hitchens's plagiarism in his own discussion of "crucified saviours" see An Example of Christopher Hitchens’s Plagiarism .
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