Dharma

unfortuneatly they only have incomplete coptic bibles online...so many references to double check so little time...

Dharma

well it depends.

1) it seems Christianity is undefinable in coherent practical terms, Buddhism isn't -- it is quite well defined. .. the thread would imply that Christianity itself is a branch of Buddhism, albeit one that lost the Eightfold path due to transmission and linguistic barriers.

For Buddhism to borrow from Christianity, you would have to find a complete deviation from early Buddhism. One might say, the blind faith aspect is quite uncharacteristic of the early philosophical Buddhism, but even this was coming into being with the Mahayana Buddhism, or the big vehicle supposedly created for the masses and the Greeks were in particular involved with it's evolution.

Clivedurdle

From Jesusisbudha

That looks an easy assertion to prove or disprove!

Dharma

actually there is so much propaganda going around, so many "lost and found" texts, it becomes more and more difficult to prove or disprove and more difficult to figure out what's real, I think the historical texts and quotes are easier to take as proof.

Toto

What word would the early Christians have used for Brahman?

andrewcriddle

Brahmans/Brahmins were referred to in Hellenistic Greek as Brachmanes from Megasthenes onwards.

Andrew Criddle

andrewcriddle

One general problem with several of the alleged parallels between the life of Buddha and the life of Christ is that they are part of the Mahayana tradition of Buddhism which although already in existence in the first century CE is unlikely to have had any influence in the West until substantially later.

IMO the first real influence of Mahayana Buddhism on Western religion comes with Mani in the 3rd century CE.

Andrew Criddle

Dharma

actually, ONLY THE DISTINCTION of a separate Mahayana tradition becomes apparent in 1 century ce. The story of the Buddha is before the two schools became distinct schools, and according to Buddhist texts the university at Alexandria was literally a haven for Buddhists or colonized by Buddhists, and there was ALWAYS contact between the west and either India or different empires within or near India who supported Buddhism.

This notion that the "west was too far" is not a reasonable argument as trade, Indian war elephants were received by the Antiochan Seleucid rulers, monks, and a whole lot of ideas were freely moving about between India and the Greek Generals and descendants of Seleucid who ruled that area.

Dharma

I believe this is not the caste of brahmins, but the philosophical concept of Brahman, which is actually an english rendition of "Brahma"...many of these texts were translated into Greek, however, I am not sure how this concept was translated.

andrewcriddle

My point is that the whole idea of Gautama Buddha as a Bodhisatva (as distinct from an Arhat) who has a supernatural birth and who works miracles is probably not part of the primitive Buddhist tradition.

(Even if these ideas occur occasionally in the current Theravada Pali canon.)

Andrew Criddle