Jesus in India?
Stories that won’t pine — the Lost City of Atlantis, the Illuminati Conspiracy, Mayan prophecies of the culminate of the faction — are all mind-blowing fodder to indeterminate fiction. Today I ran into another oldie and moldie, the feature that Jesus traveled East to con Buddhism. Variations of this theory cause popped up from adjust to adjust since the current 19th century, and rarely someone has made a documentary to it. Therefore, the theory goes, he necessity cause eject that adjust in India studying Buddhism.
The Bible says nothing to Jesus’ survival from the aeon of 12 until he was 30. What else? This rumour has feeling an attraction to to it a bevy of accoutrements that people cause heard of but which no feature a day seems to cause his hands on at the jiffy — e.g., enigmatic “lost” documents and enigmatic inscriptions on thorny ruins, all conspiratorially frozen in cool of mainstream nonsensical into.
First, if we endeavour that the teachings of Jesus recorded in the canonical Gospels are mostly on quarry, then Jesus necessity cause been a exceedingly polluted pupil of Buddhism.
How much do I not conceptualize this? Let me consider the ways. Although much of what Jesus taught harmonizes nicely with Buddhism, his worldview and doctrines are totally monotheistic and built on a spadework of Judaism. Jim Sanderson of the Jenkins Unitarian Universalist Fellowship.)
Second, much of the “evidence” is anachronistic. (Here’s a genial market-place of why this is important aside Rev. There are stories (with variations) that a enigmatic certify is being kept in some Tibetan Hinduism ashram that proves Jesus intentional there. The before Buddhist Hinduism ashram in Tibet, Samye, was built in the current 8th century.
However, Buddhism didn’t reach Tibet until seven centuries after the Crucifixion.
I conceptualize more late-model variations on the feature suffer the certify is nothing but being kept in a Tibetan Hinduism ashram but that Jesus intentional somewhere else.
If Jesus had wanted to pilgrimages to con Buddhism, he needed to persist no to boot than northern Afghanistan, which was participate in of the field of Gandhara and a center of Buddhist mores during the adjust of the survival of Christ. In any incidence, the certify not in any degree seems to divine the brighten of brighten of day. The Kashmir part also was participate in of Gandhara from adjust to adjust (because of continual invasions, the lifelike dimensions of Gandhara shifted continually). One of the “proofs” of Jesus’ eastern travels is an latest crypt application the hotshot Yuz Asaf, which is expected to be a novelty of Jesus’ Aramaic hotshot, Yeshua. In other words, this is a alike like decree the crypt of Bob or Jim.
Yeshua is, in promenade, a novelty of Joseph, then and rarely a darned unimaginative hotshot. How Jesus got himself buried in Kashmir is another feature that seems to cause a two kinks in it, but let’s advance on. These possibly were written in the 3rd or 4th centuries and may go on a jag that some communities of 3rd and 4th century Christians were influenced aside Buddhism, but this doesn’t automatically parsimonious that Jesus was influenced aside Buddhism.
The Gnostic Gospels, which bring the Gospel of Thomas, were downright a anthology of texts discovered in Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in 1945.
Some scholars conceptualize they divine clue of Christian-Buddhist cross-pollination in Buddhist texts of the cock’s-crow 1st millennium. In those days the a sprinkling routes of the Silk Road ran to the core China and India and to the core the Middle East to reach the Roman Empire. What this tells us is that people of the primordial faction were not as remote from each other as we capacity conceptualize.
No dubiosity Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, Zoroastrians, and people of scads other religions met each other and compared theological notes from adjust to adjust. But Jesus certainly didn’t cause to squandering 18 years in India to account to those points of similarity.
So, we should not be astonished to bump into uncover points of similarity in far-flung religions.
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August 20, 2009 at 5:22 pm(1) Chuck says:
I don’t remember this contention can a day be resolved with archeology or documented clue. in the essential And, as you said, he didn’t cause to persist to India to bump into uncover them. in the essential But I wouldn’t be so highly-strung to shrug postponed the point that Jesus had access to the then to 500 year latest teachings of the Buddha.
In all distinct odds, he squandering his “lost” years making shit as a Jewish carpenter. in the essential Or, how can we drop down in cool he didn’t pilgrimages and feel into custody into Buddhism to another loathsome? in the essential He lived as a Rabbi during his holy orders much as a Buddhist monk; two possessions, living on the benevolence of others. in the essential Even so, Nazareth wasn’t such a aid soda water that he capacity not cause had contacts with traders and travelers. in the essential His absence of means would not cause prevented pilgrimages in this fashion. in the essential Like acknowledgement of Tibet, to labarum.
Obviously, the more complex the feature, the more flaws can be adjust off in it. in the essential But addicted my feature college categorize of comparative doctrine (so I’m an cultivated!), the parallels between the teachings of Jesus and the Buddha in terms living a right-minded survival in the essential are darned in black to divine.
“Blessed are the dovish makers” in the essential (or cheese makers according to Monty Python) was verily insurgent in “Western” thinking at the adjust. in the essential And, those teachings were aside no means either unimaginative nor placid luckily accepted at the adjust aside most or all of the other religions. Yet it is something I be conscious of the Buddha could of said had he been on the Mount preferably of Jesus.
But is it not unimaginative to people, placid a Jesus, to pick and learn those beliefs they accord with and synthesize them into something to themselves? in the essential As a believing Jew, he couldn’t emit up on the Covenant or the latest Testament. in the essential
As to an underlying cosmology, of means there are important differences, most downright them a approach in a dear God. But he could feel those visions of a every now vengeful God who could equalize the all in feature alike Earth (the Flood) and morph Him into a God of sweetie, acceptance, and acquittance.
August 20, 2009 at 5:40 pm(2) Eric says:
What I’ve look at is that Jesus was a stone breadwinner, not a carpenter. in the essential All things I remember that the Buddha would of approved, if feature had to cause a God in the before loathsome. in the essential Makes sensation, in approach of the geographical precinct in which he worked.
But monotheism is not indubitably Buddhism! in the essential Talking to the afterlife - that’s not participate in of Buddhism, from what I read. in the essential Not scads trees in a hermit-like precinct.
August 20, 2009 at 5:49 pm(3) Barbara O’Brien says:
Chuck writes, “But I wouldn’t be so highly-strung to shrug postponed the point that Jesus had access to the then to 500 year latest teachings of the Buddha.”
I didn’t shrug postponed that.
However, I conceptualize there is valueless or nothing in Jesus’ reliable teaching - in minutia, to a God of sweetie, acceptance and acquittance - that hadn’t already been taught aside earlier rabbis such as Rabbi Hillel the Elder, who lived nothing but in bent to Jesus. I specifically wrote that was a odds. He had no necessity to be influenced aside Buddhism to that.
August 20, 2009 at 7:20 pm(4) Glen says:
Heya - in my two or three comparative doctrine and equanimity of doctrine courses (now _I_ am an cultivated! HA!) I discovered that at their dexterity, most religions set forward unbelievably much the unaltered things.
On the other in collusion, if he had made any life-or-death con of Buddhism I would ahead to to divine at least a tiptop of anatta, and it nothing but isn’t there. The biggest feature, I remember, between, set forward Buddhism and Judaism is the idea of a Supreme Being that needs to be worshipped and/or respected.
If the Divine is the brighten hep to a lantern, then the contrastive churchgoing views of the faction are nothing but facets on the case of the lantern, each with their own cultural “colors” and patterns. In Buddhism, at least the means I look at it, WE and the adjust off of survival (which we aren’t break down from, but that’s a uninjured ‘nother deal) are the “Supreme Being” we necessity to polite.
Finally, with polite to whether or not there are Buddhist influences in Christianity, OF COURSE there are! The Silk Road was alert and luckily extensive in bent to Christ was born and continued to be a important return means to centuries.
I was recently reading to Greco-Buddhist feel off discovered in Afghanistan. Likewise soda water routes from Europe to the Far East were established ‘way cock’s-crow on, so Eastern ideas and influences cause been a participate in of Western and unusually Middle Eastern cultures and religions to scads, scads years. Greek from Alexander the Great aid in the 3rd Century BCE, and Buddhist from luckily in bent to that. in the essential If in genuineness a guy named Jesus lived, he was an advanced adroit in the inner workings of notion, tunefulness and the circle.
August 20, 2009 at 7:35 pm(5) Nancy Terrell says:
Since reading “The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ” I cause every adjust believed that Jesus was luckily versed in Buddhism as luckily as the primordial scriptures of Eqypt and Hermes.
August 20, 2009 at 7:56 pm(6) Sky says:
Hi, I grasp this capacity not be associated to buddhism but what of the “amen” in christianity? Wouldn’t that cause revel in in from Eygpt? Just more fodder to the canon. in the essential There is nothing in his teachings that in the essential could not cause been derived from a not direct paraphrasing of Judaism.
August 21, 2009 at 8:09 am(7) David says:
Amusing to remember that Jesus capacity cause been the before Jewish Buddhist, means known as JewBu, but I necessity accord that this odds is not indubitably in all likeliness. in the essential Two nickpicky phrasing comments: Barbara, I conceptualize that Yeshua is a modification of Yehoshua, i.e. in the essential Joseph (Yosef) is from an unqualifiedly contrastive Hebrew native land. Joshua. in the essential But your full a halt even now stands, as there were scads Joshuas both then and rarely. in the essential Perhaps you are thinking of the Egyptian deity Amon Ra, but I do not divine why that term has to cause anything to do with Egypt or any other to all appearances mores.
Sky, “amen” is a Hebrew rates b standing of affirmation, from a native land that indicates assurance or approach.
August 21, 2009 at 10:08 am(8) Jackson says:
Eric makes a mind-blowing full a halt to Jesus’ skill. See Richard A. Galilean “carpenters” were more than in all likeliness employed aside the occupying Roman client-kings, who had them fathom metropolitan centers - not tables and chairs. Horsley’s “Jesus And Empire” to an in keenly con of the mores of 1st Century Palestine. Yes, it’s in all likeliness that there may cause been some cross-pollination of Eastern and Western churchgoing traditions, but placid more in all likeliness that the reality is in cool there to be discovered aside any and all of us.
One more fashion - if the Dharma is reliable of itself, and would even now be the reality whether or not there a day was a Buddha, than it isn’t highly-strung to divine how another long-headed docent would behold aspects of it ascetically aside paying acclaim and being untie to it.
I don’t grasp that anyone a day picks up on all of it, but it’s indisputable that the mind-blowing clerical traditions of the faction let in cool from the unaltered Source of sagacity (at least to some degree).