adren@line

the fact is that if Jesus had lived in India, he would have blended in and would have simply been another "enlightened God-man", as such pacisifistic men claiming some divine attribute have existed in India for thousands of years.

Many aspects of Jesus is contrary to his native culture which was rather dogmatic and violent.

What I personally believe is that Jesus traveled to India, learned a few tricks from the Buddhist and Hindu sages/mystics, and then traveled back to his homeland to incorporate what he learned in India and blend it with his local religion (which is why made such ridiculous statements that he is the *only* way to God/Heaven/whatever and the *only* truth as opposed to Krishna simply stating he was "the way").

Of course, Christians will deny this till death, but it is a fact of history and culture that pacifistic God men were a staple of Indian culture and the antithesis of near-eastern Semitic culture.

Lets not also forget that the Jews ripped-off their monotheism from the Zoroastrians whos religion was a sister to Vedic Hinduism. The fact is that near-eastern religion has always been primitive in comparison to eastern thought, and many of the main concepts of Abrahamic religion were simply transmitted from either the Indians or Persians into the near-east, and then blended and mangled in with local religion.

premjan

I don't think either Jesus or St. Thomas ever travelled to India. There were a lot of similar cults and philosophies among the Jews (e.g. the Essenes), and Jesus was just another preacher, whose story has been either faked or substantially embroidered to make it saleable within the Greco-Roman world. As for borrowing, there is some speculation that the Kalki Avatar has been borrowed from the book of Apocalypse in the bible.

judge

How interesting. Can you point me in the direction of more info on this?

premjan

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of...ation#_note-22
Sorry unable to find a better link than that, but there is no inherent reason for eschatology in Hinduism (wherein time is cyclic), so the fact that Kalki appears at the end of the ten-avatara cycle plus the fact that he rides a white horse does make him a bit like a rider of the apocalypse.

Dogfish

Boy, he was busy1 Went to India and America? Maybe the connection between Indianns and Am. Indians is a divine one?

Pseudo-Deity

Don't forget his trip to Japan. So it is true, Jesus really is everywhere.

Clivedurdle

And did those feet...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_did...n_ancient_time

(A rough guide to where he went?)

youngalexander

It may not be true, yet tis magnificent!

till we have built Jerusalem
In England’s green and pleasant Land.

eta: just as I posted the stereo poured forth with the 'Hallelujah Chorus' - there is a god afterall!

mountainman

The relative ancient historical assessment between the
purported figures of Jesus and Apollonius of Tyana is stacked
in the favour of the latter figure. The best intro may be:
Apollonius of Tyana and His Historicity - Maria Dzielska.

The biography of Apollonius by Philostratus c.220 CE
describes Apollonius' journey to India, and return.

About the chronology of christianity and Philostratus
Maria Dzielska writes:


I of course would dispute this.
Philostratus never mentions christianity.
Because it had not yet been invented.

The presumption that "Philostratus must have ...
borrowed from the christian literature is ancient,
and has its precedent with Eusebius of Caesarea
who calumnified Apollonius in the fourth century.

The Eusebian treatise was followed by persecution
of temples and priests in the months before the
military supremacy council of Nicaea. Our thesis
implies that Philostratus and even Porphyryr, never
knew "christianity" because the new and strange
Roman religion was invented after they lived.

Should Indian references to the visit of a western
sage in the first century CE ever appear, the figure
who has the most likely historicity of fulfilling
such evidence, at the moment, with the evidence
the way it is, is not the HJ.


Best wishes,



Pete Brown

andrewcriddle

It is IMO unlikely that the historical Apollonius ever visited India.

Andrew Criddle