Martin Palmer


Martin Giles Palmer is the translator of several popular books on Sinology, including Zhuangzi and I Ching. His 2001 book The Jesus Sutras, a translation of the Jingjiao Documents, gives a popular and controversial interpretation of early Chinese Christianity as ‘syncretistic’. He is the Director of the International Consultancy on Religion, Education and Culture and secretary general of the Alliance of Religions and Conservation. In 2018, Palmer's abridged translation of Romance of the Three Kingdoms was published by Penguin Classics.
An Anglican Christian, Palmer studied theology and religious studies at Cambridge University. He is a regular contributor to the BBC on religious, ethical and historical issues. He appears regularly on BBC Radio 3 and 4, BBC World Service and BBC TV as a presenter, and is also a contributor to programmes such as In Our Time, Thought for the Day, Nightwaves, Beyond Belief and Songs of Praise. He appeared on BBC World Service for a week-long China series in October 2007.
Palmer is Co-Chair of a joint ARC-UNDP programme on the faiths, climate change and the environment, which launched a series of major faith commitments on the environment at Windsor Castle in November 2009 and is now working with a further 30 plus new long term faith commitments which will be launched year in association with UNDP.

Criticism

Speaking of Palmer's work The Jesus Sutras, scholar David Wilmshurst criticized the work as a "...New age fantasy..." and stated that Palmer's reading of Tang era Nestorian texts and his claim of syncretism of Nestorianism with Eastern religions is inaccurate and misleading. Wilmshurst also states that "As the Sian Tablet inscription demonstrates, they were orthodox Christians who pointedly distinguished themselves from both the Taoists and the Buddhists." Wilmshurst described Palmer's book as being part of a long conflict between what he termed romantic and realist researchers who have studied Chinese Nestorianism since the discovery of the Xi'an Stele in 1625.

Selected publications