Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: Fetishes and the Spirit of Religious Studies -- A Brief History of the Term Fetish -- Fetishizing Tradition -- 1. Methodology and a World of Commentary -- Fetishizing Tradition as Art for the Masses -- The Doubly Present Past -- The Law of Desire and Truth-Fathers -- Eyes Wide Open -- Chapter and Verse -- Pierre Bourdieu's Account of Religious Rhetoric -- 2. Paul's Letters, or How God Became a Jewish Priest -- Introduction -- Situating a Critical Reading of Paul and the Gospel of Mark -- Paul's Theory of Salvation: A Moveable Feast of Paternal Presence -- How God Became a Jewish Priest -- How Does He Do It? Paul's Six Techniques for Rewriting Tradition -- Tradition on the Inside -- Choosing One's Parents -- A Death in the Family That Remakes the World -- Fetishizing the World -- Conclusions -- Conclusions, Part II: An Outsider's Reflections on Recent Pauline Studies -- 3. The Gospel of Mark, or Narrative as Floating Patriarchy -- Introduction -- Mark and the Cult of Narrative -- A Flair for Drama -- Two Principal Themes -- An End Run -- The First Theme: Establishing Jesus as the Son of God -- The Public Nature of Personal Identity -- Society at Large -- Ask Anyone -- Did You See What I Saw? -- Halfhearted Disciples -- Innocence in Denial -- Living outside the Law -- A Motherless Child -- Who Do They Say I Am? -- The Transfiguration, or Tradition in Three Huts -- A Clean Getaway -- Legal Problems -- The Parables: Do You Know What Am I Talking About? -- The Guilt of (Old) Tradition -- Where's the Love? -- Conclusions: An Empty Double, or Religion as Narrative -- 4. The Sutra on the Land of Bliss, or That Place between Tongues and Texts -- Introduction: Buddhism, Off in the Distance -- An Introduction to Literary Reinventions of the Buddhist Tradition.

Part I: Faith and the Power of Submission -- But Where Is Amitayus? -- The Birds -- The Winds -- A Word about Names -- Here, There, and the Enormous Tongues of Truth -- Part II: The Textual Genesis of the Land of Bliss -- City of Narrative, City of Love -- Conclusions -- 5. The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch, or Paternal Truth for the Masses -- Introduction -- A Real Find -- The Early Bodhidharma Lineages -- The Earliest Account of Huineng -- Overview of the Narrative -- Setting the Scene -- The Action -- The Poetry Contest -- Some Time Later -- Sonship 2.0 -- Overwriting the Past -- The Death and Rebirth of Sonship -- Truth and Violence -- Resetting the Diamond Sutra, or Refetishizing a Fetish -- The Teachings -- Learning to Say "No" in a Positive Way -- Conclusions: Being There -- Conclusions: The Limits of Fetishizing Tradition -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index.