Having not gotten to TFA just yet, the author could easily follow up with "...and before Christ himself, we have the Hindus of India, Confuscians of China, and

Having not gotten to TFA just yet, the author could easily follow up with "...and before Christ himself, we have the Hindus of India, Confuscians of China, and so on. Regardless, dreaming of a better, more just world is hardly a modern invention." The author simply chose to use but one example. Nothing to get lathered about, I suspect. EDIT: having now RTFA, meh, you could be on to something. OTOH, it's a book review of a book about Christianity and (from what I gather) its influence on Western thought. Given that someone capable of writing such a book is not that naive, I'm willing to give an out-of-context quote the benefit of the doubt.