Jesus and Eastern Influence?

B

Benauld

Does your dog bite?
Registered Senior Member
Following on from a post made by one raven in a thread a couple of months back, (which was subsequently closed):

http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=66804

Originally Posted by One Raven
Originally Posted by EmptyForceOfChi
jesus would convert to buddhism.

peace.
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He did.
He left home the age of 12 and travelled East on the Silk Road to meet the mystics he had heard about (like the monk who burned himself to death in Alexandria) and sometime between 12 and 30 he converted to Buddhism and at 30 came back to spread the Dhamma westward.
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I'd like to ask one raven whether this was just bull, or whether he has any info to elaborate upon his comment? Sorry my sarcasm detection might be a little poor with regards to the above, so if it is just piss taking ignore this whole post.

Anyway, the reason I ask is that having given a cursory glance at the, supposedly heretical, Gospel of Thomas I am struck by the style of thought which it implies on behalf of Jesus. It seems to me to be very similar to the messages of the Tao Te Ching, for example.

Obviously, the words and phrases used (and even style of writing) are very different, but if I'd been immersed in a foreign culture and wanted to spread the word about a concept I had learned there, it would need adapting for the "home crowd", so to speak.

A quick example of the sort of thing I mean:

Jesus (Gospel of Thomas [17]):"I shall give you what no eye has seen and what no ear has heard and what no hand has touched and what has never occurred to the human mind."

Tao Te Ching(14):"Look, and it can't be seen.
Listen, and it can't be heard.
Reach, and it can't be grasped."

This sort of thing intruiges me, can anybody suggest any further reading on the subject?
 
From what I have read, there was no connection between Buddhism and Jesus until many years after his death when a disciple founded a church in India.
 
Jesus (Gospel of Thomas [18]):"Have you discovered, then, the beginning, that you look for the end? For where the beginning is, there will the end be."

Tao Te Ching (14):"Approach it and there is no beginning;
follow it and there is no end."

Curioser and curioser...
 
spidergoat said:
From what I have read, there was no connection between Buddhism and Jesus until many years after his death when a disciple founded a church in India.
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M*W: Interesting. Wisdom_Seeker adamantly stated that there was a tremendous amount of legitimate connections between Jesus and Buddhism. As I recall, Buddhism started in China about 5,000 years before it got to India (or did that occur the other way around?). I've read about christianity in India, but it was christianity and not Buddhism. It makes no sense to me, but neither does christianity.
 
There's more similarities with Krishna than with Gautama Buddha by far, the reason there's so much similarity in the sayings is because they're talking about the same truth, so regardless of the connection the truth sounds the same...
 
Medicine*Woman said:
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M*W: Interesting. Wisdom_Seeker adamantly stated that there was a tremendous amount of legitimate connections between Jesus and Buddhism. As I recall, Buddhism started in China about 5,000 years before it got to India (or did that occur the other way around?). I've read about christianity in India, but it was christianity and not Buddhism. It makes no sense to me, but neither does christianity.
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Actually, Buddhism started in Northern India.
 
It was actually the comments about the Silk Road and mystics that interested me the most. Buddhism being secondary. The Silk Road has been in use for many Millennia, certainly before the time of Jesus. In addition the Tao Te Ching, which is obviously Taoist not Buddhist, is believed to have first been transcribed during the 6th Century BC.

I can see what VitalOne means about "the truth sound[ing] the same...", nontheless, it would be interesting to fill in the dots and see the connection! :)

I know that these phrases are merely segments, and often are not taken in their original context, but their similarities amuse me. This time from a less controvertial source:

Jesus (Luke [4:23]):"Physician, heal thyself."

Tao Te Ching (71):"The Master is his own physician."

It makes me wonder what was omitted from the biblical account of Jesus between the ages of 12 and 30...
 
Benauld,

Yes, I heard of that and my mother has a book about it. It's in Portuguese, though... :shrug:

Anyways... my question to you is: how long do you think it would take to do the trip? (I would say at least a couple of years- so 4 years in total?)

Also, in the Bible, it says Jesus spent all that time in the desert? Well, maybe someone saw him going to the desert but he went through the desert?

Who knows? :shrug:
 
The Silk Road is about 5000 miles long. So, assuming he got hold of a horse at some point, average travelling speed somewhere in the region of 15 - 20 miles/day... so, about a year each way, assuming no lengthly stop-overs etc.

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On the other hand, if he did walk, average walking speed being around 4 miles per hour, it would have taken approximately three and a half years each way.
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TruthSeeker said:
Also, in the Bible, it says Jesus spent all that time in the desert? Well, maybe someone saw him going to the desert but he went through the desert?

Who knows? :shrug:
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M*W: That whole physical area is desert, but still this doesn't have a literal meaning. Going to, through, or being in the desert, is a metaphor for being lost, wandering about, contemplating, trying to figure things out, etc..

Astro-theologically speaking, being in the 'desert' refers to a wandering star, meteor, or some other 'heavenly' body or bodies that move away from it's natural orbit.
 
Gospel of Thomas: 41. Jesus said, "Whoever has something in hand will be given more, and whoever has nothing will be deprived of even the little they have."

Zen koan: Master Basho said, "If you have a stick, I will give you one.
If you do not have a stick I will take it away."
 
Medicine*Woman said:
That whole physical area is desert, but still this doesn't have a literal meaning. Going to, through, or being in the desert, is a metaphor for being lost, wandering about, contemplating, trying to figure things out, etc..
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I understand what you are saying. However, if there is even the slightest possibility that it has a dual meaning and refers to both a metaphorical and a real desert, I would suppose that the Silk Road would have been actively managed nontheless, with trading posts, watering holes etc. If there is any possibilty that Jesus may have actually physically crossed a desert and come into contact with Taoist or other Eastern doctorines, I'd call that pretty astounding.
 
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Medicine*Woman said:
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M*W: Interesting. Wisdom_Seeker adamantly stated that there was a tremendous amount of legitimate connections between Jesus and Buddhism. As I recall, Buddhism started in China about 5,000 years before it got to India (or did that occur the other way around?). I've read about christianity in India, but it was christianity and not Buddhism. It makes no sense to me, but neither does christianity.
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Hi M*W, I just want to clarify that I don´t believe that Jesus was a Buddhist, but that Jesus was a Buddha himself, and Buddha was a Christ.

I´m with VitalOne on this one, the reason why there are similarities, is because they spoke about the same truth.
 
Christos Maitreya?

One point of interest here is the Jewish exile to Egypt. This pertains largely to the notion of the salvation myth, which may be the actual eastern import. Essentially, with Egypt being a trade center, it is more than likely that the empire saw traders from the east. These traders would likely have imported some of their folklore and mythology, including tales of the Maitreya, the "future Buddha" of the world. According to the quasi-Christian website AllAboutReligion.org, the concept of the Maitreya are stolen from the Bible and twisted out of context. Wikipedia asserts the origin of the word to come from a Sanskrit or Pali word derived from the noun "mitra". (We should also note the Persian "Mithra", whose record extends at least as far back as 1400 BCE; the word, like the Sanskrit and Pali, includes a definition pertaining to "friend".)

I will look back through my references, specifically Armstrong's A History of God; it is my impression that All About Religion has it wrong, and attemtps to flip history in order to enhance the standing of the Bible. However, this point is certainly up for argument for now.

The Egyptian exile of the Jews, then, may well provide two foundation stones for eastern influence on the Jesus myth:

(1) The myth of a savior--e.g. Jesus--could well have originated with the Maitreya.
(2) Prior contact with the east might have compelled Jesus' travels to those lands.​
 
Wisdom_Seeker said:
Hi M*W, I just want to clarify that I don´t believe that Jesus was a Buddhist, but that Jesus was a Buddha himself, and Buddha was a Christ.

I´m with VitalOne on this one, the reason why there are similarities, is because they spoke about the same truth.
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M*W: I'm not challenging this. Like I've said, I don't have enough knowledge about Buddha or Krishna to make anykind of assumptions. The Myth of Christianity is my chosen field of study.
 
Wisdom_Seeker said:
Hi M*W, I just want to clarify that I don´t believe that Jesus was a Buddhist, but that Jesus was a Buddha himself, and Buddha was a Christ.

I´m with VitalOne on this one, the reason why there are similarities, is because they spoke about the same truth.
Click to expand...

Exactly.
 
Medicine*Woman said:
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M*W: That whole physical area is desert, but still this doesn't have a literal meaning. Going to, through, or being in the desert, is a metaphor for being lost, wandering about, contemplating, trying to figure things out, etc..
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I'm aware of that. It could be literal and metaphorical, though.
 
Wisdom_Seeker said:
Hi M*W, I just want to clarify that I don´t believe that Jesus was a Buddhist, but that Jesus was a Buddha himself, and Buddha was a Christ.

I´m with VitalOne on this one, the reason why there are similarities, is because they spoke about the same truth.
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Yup!
 
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