Dharma

I was wondering how the merger of a small cult called Christianity with the Jesus cult called the Nazarenes happened.
We have two known cults at the time of the Caesar.

1) Jesus cult called the Nazarenes, who were more Jewish.
2) Christian sun cult who celebrated solar holidays (Christmas, Easter, Sunday worship), the cross, the goddess virgin Mary, human sacrifice of Jesus(akin to the Aztecs sacrifice to the sun God one of their warriors).

One wonders whether the Christians merged with the Nazarenes or the other way around. But it is probably the Christians trying to swallow up the Nazarenes. You might ask how could the Christians lie? Well as an example that is more well known and recent in history, we have one more false tale, the CHRISTIANIZED tale of the Buddha -- Barlaam and Joshaphat. In this tale, Buddha(who was in fact an atheist) is a prince who believes in the Christian God and is a supposed Indian King. THIS ENTIRE TALE IS MADE UP. There was NO Indian King called Abener. This entire story is a retelling of the Indian story of the Buddha as a Christian. Barlaam and Josaphat found their way into the Roman Martyrology (27 November), and into the Greek calendar (26 August).

Now if they can do this to a known ancient religious figure from India, the question remains, what did they do to Judaism?

John A. Broussard

This is a fascinating bit of information.

I agree with you that much of the early Christian anlaysis, redaction, reinterpretation of Judaic materials is patently false, but I would ascribe very little of it to outright lying.

When people have strong beliefs, they can reshape the world to suit their beliefs without even realizing they are doing so.

In addition, since the only Christian writings which have survive--are from the 4th Century, and are copies of copies of copies--earlier marginal commentaries were undoubtedly incorporated, pieces were put together wrong, and oral traditions added with no check on their veracity.

It happens today, even with printing. Imagine what it must have been like in societies where few were literate, and where everything was copied by hand.

andrewcriddle

The process by which the Buddha becomes a Christian Saint was apparently gradually through several intermediate stages.

Syncretistic Manichaean groups in Central Asia around the middle of the 1st millenium CE develop stories about the Buddha (known as the Bodhisattva or Bodhisat prince) as one of several enlightened Spiritual guides. (Christ is seen as another such guide).

These stories are mostly based on the Indian traditions about Gautama Buddha but attribute to the Bodhisat prince a large amount of sayings of Jesus from the Gospels.

These stories are in the late 1st millenium CE translated into Georgian (possibly via a Muslim Arabic version, the Kitab Bilawhar wa-Yudasaf )and from there spread throughout the Christian world the Bodhisat prince having become Josaphat.

Given that by the time of translation into Georgian the original context of Manichaean syncretism has long been forgotten, this ascetic figure, many of whose sayings closely resemble Jesus in the Gospels, is perceived as a Christian Saint and the story is rewritten to emphasise this.

Andrew Criddle

judge

While this is certainly true and quite obvious from every day experience can't this same argument be turned back on you?


Isn't this really a "religious belief" also. I maen you do nopt really know what happened.


But we do have quite good evidence that some groups at least were very good at keeping the integrity of texts for long periods, particularly in this time.

The DSS can be used for this argument, they may not agree exactly with other versions but they are pretty close.

Dharma

Indeed, many ancient traditions have been able to keep the integrity of their religious texts despite invasions and marauders, including Buddhism. It is clear that Christianity seems to be the only living mystery religion, as noone knows how it came about. It is the ONLY religion where people don't know who or what they are worshipping...Christians ask whether they are worshipping Jesus, Christ or Yahweh, Mary? How Jesus got the title "Christ" and why Virgin Mary is worshipped, why if it is related to Judaism, why they have holidays of pre-christian religions.

John A. Broussard

"Pretty close" counts only with horsehoes and nuclear bombs. It most certainly doesn't work when we're dealing with divinely inspired texts.

Chris Weimer

Actually the DSS offer a wide and varied range of texts. Anyone claiming the MT is divine cannot just point to the one Isaiah scroll and say "well, there are a couple (hundreds) of differences, but overall it's about the same." Uh-huh, doesn't work. Besides, the scroll closest to the MT 1QIsaiah-a is the lesser preserved scroll compared to 1QIsaiah-b, the scroll, by far one of the best preserved.

Clivedurdle

Andrew

I note you state mid millenium - i e 500 AD, but how accurate is that? Could these stories be evidence that the sayings of Jesus originated somewhere else or somewhen else?

John A. Broussard

From what I've heard from some current day Christians, this thread about whether or not the early Christians lied is misleading. They couldn't have lied, since they were divinely inspired. Any lies were by non-Christians writing spurious documents. Simple as that.

Dharma

this is an interesting question. Emperor Ashok of India did send Buddhist missionaries to the middle east...the question is, what happened to them? How could they have been less successful in the middle east than say, in China and other eastern nations?

http://www.jesusisbuddha.com/thundy.html
This paper is a presentation of the trial of Jesus in similarity to the Buddhist tale in Sanskrit of the "Clay Cart", it also gives dates of the earliest fragments of the Gospels to 125A.D.
The complete New Testament comes from the 4th century AD. Of course this paper has a long way to go before it can actually prove that there was some major Buddhist influence, but it's a start in the right direction.