chrishaney

I browsed through the most interesting book awhile back, 'The Lost Years of Jesus'. It was a summary of some Buddhist records that talked about a wise person from the Mediteranian that became a guru called 'Issa' in India (or somewhere) and then returned to his homeland around the age of 30. Many of Jesus' saying seem to be based on Buddhist thought as seen on pages like this. As Jesus taught around 500 years after Buddha, it makes you wonder at least. I know that Buddist thought is based on Hinduism, and so on, but still... interesting.

cgordon

Eh. Since I don't believe in a historical Jesus, I'd have to say no, he wasn't Buddhist. Hard for a non-corporeal mythological figure to be ...

There was a lot of traffic in the old days, tween East and West. We tend to forget and think of things back then as being really localized, but trade was going on between India and China and the Middle East.

Not hard to see that folks, when building the myths, constructing the religions, added in bits that made sense.

Toto

There are some intriguing parallels between gnosticism and early Christian beliefs and Buddhism, which are more likely to be derived from Buddhist missionaries to Greece.

The idea that Jesus spent some lost years in India, or that he survived the crucifixion and traveled to India or Japan, seems to be mythological. For one thing, none of these legends are early. They cannot be dated prior to the time that Nestorian Christian missionaries and Islamic missionaries spread the Jesus story to the east (remember that Jesus is a prophet in Islam.)

Eastern religions are syncretic, and take in any available god or wisdom teacher and add him to their pantheon, and that seems to be what happened here.

If the book you read is in fact by Elizabeth Clare Prophet (the link I added above), ECP is a well known cult leader who moved her followers from Los Angeles to rural Montana to wait out the Armageddon, which she had confidently reported to happened around 1990 . . .

Steven Avery

Yeah, I visited their headquarters once with a couple of friends when they were in the Santa Barbara area. Stayed for a few minutes and kadoodled out.

Shalom,
Steven