What Has Jerusalem to Do with Beijing?

The rise of China as a superpower and of Chinese Christians as vital members of the global church mean that world Christianity would be a dynamic transformation and bountiful blessing to the world by engaging with Chinese biblical interpretations among global theologies. This book, a twentieth-anniversary revised and expanded edition, includes studies that range from exploration of the philosophical structure of Eastern culture to present-day sociopolitical realities in Malaysia and China--all in support of cross-cultural methods of reading the Bible culturally and reading the cultures biblically.''K.K. Yeo addresses culture with the same analytical acuity as he addresses the Bible, and the dialogue between these brings rich new insight to Christian theology. Yeo’s cross-cultural hermeneutic issued a provocative methodological challenge to ’mainstream’ theologians, while this twentieth anniversary re-issue celebrates Yeo’s scholarship as well as the great growth of Chinese theology in the intervening decades--growth brought about in no small part by Yeo’s contribution.''--Chloe Starr, Yale Divinity School''What Has Jerusalem to Do with Beijing is the best book I have read in recent years on cross-cultural hermeneutics of the Bible and Chinese Classics in view of their mutual enrichment . . . I strongly recommend it as a must read for scholars and graduate students . . . as well as for Chinese people themselves, especially those interested in understanding more deeply their inner desire for meaningfulness in reference to Chinese Classics and the Bible.''--Vincent Shen, University of Toronto''The author brings together for mutual dialogue and engagement, under the guiding principles of inclusivity and respect, Jerusalem (the Bible) and Beijing (Chinese culture). This he does by way of a sharp and fruitful combination of traditional themes from Chinese culture, Christian theology, and the biblical texts . . . The result is an excellent exercise in cross-cultural interpretation and a volume I would highly recommend to anyone interested in this unfolding global discussion.'' --Fernando F. Segovia, Vanderbilt University''K. K. Yeo is one of the very few Chinese biblical scholars who dares to take on the task of integrating and interpreting the Bible from a Chinese cultural perspective. His efforts constitute a valuable resource for the field of global biblical interpretation.'' --Philip Chia, Chinese University, Hong Kong''K. K. Yeo addresses the fundamental question of the relationship between Scripture (Jerusalem) and cultures--the Chinese and Western cultures that he splendidly embodies as a bicultural biblical scholar . . . Yeo illustrates how much we Western interpreters have to learn from Chinese interpreters; as one of them Yeo helps us recognize the community-centered perspectives of biblical texts that we had ignored by burying them under our individual-centered concerns. This book is full of urgently needed insights into Scripture and our ways of reading it.''--Daniel Patte, Vanderbilt UniversityK. K. Yeo is Harry R. Kendall Professor of New Testament at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary and affiliate professor at the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at Northwestern University in Evanston. He is a Lilly Scholar (1999) and Henry Luce III Scholar (2003), and the codirector, Center for Classical Greco-Roman Philosophy and Religious Studies at Tsinghua University in Beijing. He has authored or edited more than thirty-five Chinese- and English-language books on critical engagement between Bible and cultures.