J Duncan M Derrett

Biographic Data

ID245915
NAMEJ Duncan M Derrett
GIVEN NAMESJ Duncan M
FAMILY NAMEDerrett
SIGNATUREDERRETT J D M
AFFILIATIONSSOAS University of London
VERIFIEDNo
TOTAL WORKS126
TOTAL CITATIONS68
AUTHOR COUNT126
EDITOR COUNT0
FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR1950
LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR2007
H-INDEX4

  • More and how to choose a Wife

    Open AccessJ Duncan M DerrettARTICLEMoreana2007

  • Versatility, Angels and Space: The Meaning of Buddhist and Non-Buddhist Parallels

    Open AccessJ Duncan M DerrettARTICLEJournal of the Royal Asiatic…2006References: 2

    My purpose is twofold. We are to conjecture (a) how a preaching technique employed by St Paul comes to resonate with the Mahāyāna, and (b) that a conundrum in the solemn Mahānibbāna-sutta is Jewish, whence it reappears comically in Europe. Struck by these new oddities we ask at long last what can emerge from so many diverse parallels between Buddhist texts and their non-Buddhist counterparts. It is time those many threads were drawn together

  • The Picnic, The Buddha, and St Matthew

    Open AccessJ Duncan M DerrettARTICLEJournal of the Royal Asiatic…2004

    Once upon a time twenty nine upper middle-class friends and their wives entered a thicket where the Buddha happened to be and began to play. Another friend had no wife, so a prostitute was brought for him. While they were “disporting themselves” she took his things and ran away. The remainder joined in a search for her. Roaming in that thicket they found the Buddha seated at the root of a tree. They asked, “Lord, has the Blessed One seen a certai…

  • The Buddhist Dimension of John

    J Duncan M Derrett, J Duncan DerrettARTICLENumen2004

    Many features of the Fourth Gospel have hitherto found no source and commentators are confined to imagination. Meanwhile Buddhists' use of Greek, Roman and Jewish materials is established. It turns out, from a close examination of twelve instances, that Buddhist traditions, found in Hīnayāna and Mahāyāna sources, contemporary in essence with St John, offered the latter an opportunity to make his gospel attractive to contemporary targets of Buddhi…

  • Mishna ̄h, 'Avôt 5: 13 In early Buddhism

    Open AccessJ Duncan M DerrettARTICLEBulletin of the School of…2004

    Though early Buddhist texts are concerned with giving alms and all aspects of the merit to be gained by so doing, the sharp, perhaps witty, categorization of donors that we find in Mishna ̄h, 'Avôt 5:13 (one of the six groups of four) has no other counterpart in Pali sources despite the fact that numbered categories are very common in Buddhist texts. The parallel between the Mishna ̄h and its Buddhist counterparts is explicable. The two civilizat…

  • Primitive Christianity as an Ascetic Movement

    J Duncan M DerrettCHAPTERAsceticism2002

    How far was primitive Christianity ascetic? What input secured its supersubstantial promises? I approve the approach of Marsilius (c.1275-1342) and here contrast my own Ascetic Discourse (1989) with A. E. Harvey's well-wrought Strenuous Commands (1990) and with other "obstructive erudition" (so named by Albert Schweitzer).

  • Early Buddhist Use of Two Western Themes

    Open AccessJ Duncan M DerrettARTICLEJournal of the Royal Asiatic…2002Cited by: 1

    For about 150 years scholars of unusual temerity have asserted that themes found in Buddhist texts, many of them celebrated in surviving Buddhist sculpture, can be found in the New Testament in more or less recognizable forms. If this were true, as in the case of Japanese philosophy showing through the work of M. Heidegger, students of the New Testament, already overburdened with conspissated conjectures, would be obliged to enter into a field wh…

  • A Blemmya in India

    J Duncan M Derrett, J Duncan DerrettARTICLENumen2002

    It is an important maxim, in religion as in literature or art, that Whatever is received is received according to the manner and intention of the recipient. Yet Einflussforschung cherishes instances of exact equivalence between the allegedly text and its influencing source. While the controversy persists (now 150 years old), whether Buddhist scriptures influenced the gospels or vice versa,1 one treasures every scrap of information, literary, arch…

  • Consolation and a parable: Two contacts between Ancient Greece and Buddhists

    Open AccessJ Duncan M DerrettARTICLEBulletin of the School of…2002

    Ancient Greek and Roman conventional consolations of mourners are not reflected in Buddhist texts. Reason should modify grief, but the Buddha's 'consolation' of Visākhā by blaming her 'affection' is crude. Kisā Gotamī was consoled by the Buddha's asking her to get mustard seed from homes where no son, etc., had died, a technique employed by Democritus of Abderaj by Demonax, and in the Alexander Romance. The maxim of the Lame and the Blind figures…

  • Luke 2.7 Again

    Open AccessJ Duncan M DerrettARTICLENew Testament Studies1999

    In his study ‘Du kataluma à la crèche’, NTS 44 (1998) 618–22, J. Winandy argues that Luke 2.7, διoτι oυκ ην αυτoις τoπoς εν τω καταλυματι, does not imply that an innkeeper sent away (for want of room, τoπoς) one about to give birth, but rather that his convivial καταλυμα was inappropriate for the event. The argument attracts. But Winandy's seven examples of τo[pi]oς do not have this meaning. Each takes τo[pi]oς in the sense of ‘the place where on…

  • An Indian metaphor in St John's Gospel

    Open AccessJ Duncan M DerrettARTICLEJournal of the Royal Asiatic…1999References: 10

    “Influence-research” is not a field to itself. It boasts no experts. Where cultures are sources of national or professional prestige the Einflussforsche's task can be thankless. Cultures are admired as self-consistent, and if possible original. Where indebtedness is notorious – e.g. East Asian artefacts’ effects on European taste – research into it may be conducted without grief. But since unacknowledged indebtedness affronts the increasing speci…

  • ‘You Abominate False Gods; but Do You Rob Shrines?’ (ROM 2.22b)

    Open AccessJ Duncan M DerrettARTICLENew Testament Studies1994

    The words ⋯ βδελνσσóμενος τ⋯ εἴδωλα ἱεροσνλεῖς; have given constant trouble, as translations show. They appear in a subordinate passage but they deserve attention. The immediate context is clear. It appears that God will punish sinners of every race and culture, but those subject to the Law of Moses will be judged by that Law (Rom 2.12). It is not a nullity. Nevertheless the Judgment will apply a law of conscience to all, including them (Rom 2.15…

  • The Case of Korah Versus Moses Reviewed

    J Duncan M DerrettARTICLEJournal for the Study of Judaism1993

    THE CASE OF KORAH VERSUS MOSES REVIEWED BY J. DUNCAN M. DERRETT Blockley, Moreton in Marsh, England Many have been the studies') of the historical Korah (Num 16), and of his relation to the political rebels Dathan and Abiram (ibid.). How did their stories come to be blended? It has even been guessed how the earth swallowed the offenders up2). But how such a calamity, accompanied by a miraculous fire from the sanctuary3), placed Moses above his de…

  • Judgement and 1 Corinthians 6

    Open AccessJ Duncan M DerrettARTICLENew Testament Studies1991

    There are problems with the text and interpretation of 1 Cor 6. 1–11 which call for a reappraisal of Paul's injunctions regarding the maintenance of discipline at Corinth. Doubts as to the meaning of words, even the punctuation, can be solved if one undertakes the unexpected, and places the problem at 1 Cor 5 along with that at 6. 1–11 (not neglecting ch. 7), and takes seriously words hitherto glossed over in the interests of a much more familiar…

  • Der Wasserwandel in christlicher und buddhistischer Perspektive

    J Duncan M DerrettARTICLEZeitschrift für Religions- und…1989

  • O kYpioΣ EbaΣIΛEyΣEn aΠo tOy ΞY ΛOy

    J Duncan M DerrettARTICLEVigiliae Christianae1989

    The Lord's reign is acclaimed because of the tree. Which tree? The Tree of the Cross which the Messiah bore on his shoulder at the time when (i) his reign of peace commenced, and (ii) the wood of the yoke and the staff of the oppressors were taken, to their joy, from the shoulders of the people (Is 8:24-9:6). This tree is also the Tree of Life, whose fruit we were intended to eat, of which Adam and his descendants were unworthy (Gen 3:22-24). Bec…

  • O Kurios Ebasileusen Apo Tou Culou

    J Duncan M DerrettARTICLEVigiliae Christianae1989

  • Christ and Reproof (Matthew 7.1–5/Luke 6.37–42)

    Open AccessJ Duncan M DerrettARTICLENew Testament Studies1988

    The saying of the Mote and Beam (properly Chaff and Pole) has caused some difficulty; but alas an intricate and subtle saying, paradoxical (not absurd), has been domesticated by being seen as a trite commonplace. The obvious questions are why only one eye is involved: for only if both were affected could a foreign body not be extricated; and why does the seer of the Chaff have to have a Pole in his eye; why, again, does he take the initiative, of…

  • The Samaritan Woman in India c.A.D. 200

    J Duncan M DerrettARTICLEZeitschrift für Religions- und…1987

    On n'avait pas encore remarque que l'histoire de la Samaritaine, Jean 4, 1-42, avait ete utilisee dans le Divyavadana, compose pour l'essentiel au III s. de notre ere| c'est peut-etre le Diatessaron qui a penetre jusqu'en Inde. L'episode a pu servir pour critiquer le systeme des classes, en milieu bouddhiste, et est passe de la en Chine

  • The Samaritan Woman's Pitcher

    Open AccessJ Duncan M DerrettARTICLEThe Downside Review1984

  • Whatever Happened To the Land Flowing With Milk and Honey

    J Duncan M Derrett, M Derrett et al.ARTICLEVigiliae Christianae1984

  • Structuralist Interpretation of Biblical Myth

    J Duncan M Derrett, Edmund Leach et al.ARTICLEMan1984Cited by: 5

  • The Reason for the Cock-Crowings

    Open AccessJ Duncan M DerrettARTICLENew Testament Studies1983

    In NTS 25/4 (1979), pp. 523–525 John W. Wenham attempts to unravel the formerly obscure variants in Mark 14. 30, 68 and 72. With the use of common sense, and a detective skill with the traces of alternative readings, he finds that the shorter readings are right. At verse 30 one should understand ‘before the cock crows, thou shalt deny me thrice’; at verse 68 no reference to the cock should appear; and at verse 72 we read ‘and the cock crew’ and ‘…

  • Utopian Chamber-Pots

    Open AccessCharles Clay Doyle, J Duncan M DerrettARTICLEMoreana1982

  • Crime and Punishment in Early Modern Europe

    J Duncan M Derrett, Michael R Weisser et al.ARTICLEAmerican Journal of Legal History1981

    Journal Article Crime and Punishment in Early Modern Europe Get access Weisser Michael R., Crime and Punishment in Early Modern Europe. Hassocks, Sussex, The Harvester Press, 1979. xi, 193 pp.£10.50. J. Duncan M. Derrett J. Duncan M. Derrett Professor of Oriental Laws University of London Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar American Journal of Legal History, Volume 25, Issue 2, April 1981, Pages 169–170, https…