premjan

I think the Essenes also had some mystical beliefs didn't they? That might even have arisen from contact with Buddhist thought - and Jesus may have been the result (even if fictional) of an attempted 'new-age' amalgam of Hebraic and Buddhist-Essene thoughts.

Roger Pearse

Only as a subset of paganism, I suspect. Indian gymnosophists are recorded in pagan texts -- some came to the west.

The ports on the Red Sea conducted trade with India, once the pattern of the winds to and fro was understood. Indeed Cosmas Indicopleustes was a sailor on these ships in the mid-6th century AD, and has left an account of the island of Taprobane (Ceylon/Sri Lanka), as 'book 12' of his Christian Topography (which is online). Roman coins are routinely found in India. Christian missionaries arrive there during the Roman period.

After the death of Alexander, his generals divided his empire among themselves. Seleucus inherited Syria, Palestine, and all parts East, including part of India. So the two regions were at that time part of the same state. In Roman times the Parthian empire blocked access by land, but the sea route was open.

All through this the silk route to China was operating, but only vague information about the Far East reached the West.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

aa5874

The teachings of Jesus, according to the Bible, was not similar to any known religion at the time. Jesus was a radical, breaker of the Judaic laws, violent and constantly preached damnation to those who did not follow him.

The doctrine of Jesus was one of belief, a follower of Jesus could be anyone from a mass murderer to a vagrant, once that person believes in him.

Romans 10:9, 'That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God has raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

Now it appears to me that this doctrine appeals to criminals, or should I say 'sinners', and anyone can correct me if I they think I am wrong. I know of no religion or doctrine that parrallels this teaching on or before the advent of the so-called Christ.

Sauron

Wait. The presence of Roman coins proves nothing about missionaries.

There are hoards of Arab silver coins found all throughout Scandinavia, left over from Viking times. They have the Islamic year and the city where they were made stamped into the coin. But it's exceedingly unlikely that Arabs ever went to Scandinavia. The coins were brought back by Swedish (and Rus) Viking traders, then buried.

Finding Roman coins in India only proves that someone brought them there - but *who* carried them and *when* they did so, are both more difficult questions to answer.

But that was in the 4th century BCE - long before the time period in question; i.e., when Christ would have made a hypothetical trip to India. And by 141 BCE, the Seleucid Empire stopped far short of India. Britannica:

The Seleucid kingdom began losing control over large territories in the 3rd century BC. An inexorable decline followed the first defeat of the Seleucids by the Romans in 190. By that time the Aegean Greek cities had thrown off the Seleucid yoke, Cappadocia and Attalid Pergamum had achieved independence, and other territories had been lost to the Celts and to Pontus and Bythnia. By the middle of the 3rd century, Parthia, Bactria, and Sogdiana had gained their independence; the conquest of Coele Syria (Lebanon) and Palestine by Antiochus III (200) and a brief occupation of Armenia made up to some extent for the loss of much of Anatolia to the Romans. The decline accelerated after the death of Antiochus IV (164) with the loss of Commagene in Syria and of Judea in Palestine. By 141 all lands east of the Euphrates were gone, and attempts by Demetrius II (141) and Antiochus VII (130) could not halt the rapid disintegration of the kingdom. When it was finally conquered by the Romans in 64 BC, the formerly mighty Seleucid empire was confined to the provinces ofSyria and eastern Cilicia, and even those were under tenuous control.

mountainman

Also "Was Q Buddhist?" is an interesting conjecture.
Was some version of the Dharma sitting in the Alexandrian
library, right next to the Greek LXX, from the 3rd century BCE?

Either way, the Essenic philosophy and "wisdom sayings" known
to Philo of Alexandria very early in the first century, and which
he reports had been extant for centuries BCE are clearly
and irrefutably utilised by the compilers of the frabrication of
the Galilaeans.