I’ve nothing to contribute here, but I just had pop in and say that this is a fascinating debate, and I’m looking forward to seeing it’s conclusion, if indeed it reaches one at all!
You do at least recognize that the Greeks invaded, conquered and ruled Northern India for at least two centuries prior to Christ. You are also aware of the fact that Alexander the Great was there even earlier. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_the_Great
Ptolemy the 1st, One of Alexander’s chief generals was a key figure in the conquering of Persia and India. Ptolemy’s wife was a Princess from there and was more than likely buddhist.
In 323BC when Alex the Great died Ptolemy was sent back to Egypt and was made satrap (governor) of Alexandria. He later invaded Palestine after the battle of Ipsus and eventually became the patron of the great library at Alexandria. He was a avid collector of everything written that he could get his hands on and it is estimated that he had accumulated over 700,000 books/scrolls and even more several million pieces of literature in various styles, texts, and languages.
There is NO doubt that he would have some Eastern Philosophy in that library.
You of course know that Cleopatra was a Ptolemy?
The Great Library at Nineveh which predated the Library at Alexandria was at Ptolemy’s disposal before it was robbed and destroyed it held the original cuneiform tablets relating the Epic of Gilgamesh. The Assyrian library at Dilmun robbed and destroyed. In these cunieform tablets found at the ruins of Ninevah the land of far away is described. It is a direct link to trade that flourished between the middle east and the Indus valley. Many centuries before even Alexander arrived. The Upanishads and Harrapa in the Punjab is mentioned and so much more a blind man could see the connections.
There were other libraries that Ptolemy robbed besides everybody and every ship that he came in contact with. It was HIS law that anyone coming into the country had to surrender their literature.
Yeah, I think it is obvious that there was probably a hell of a lot of Eastern Philosophy available at the time.
It’s getting real late and I will continue this later. I’ll find a cite on the 1400 scrolls that were excavated from the ruins at Alexandria. In them is an order made by Ptolemy for copies of all Vedic texts. It’ll keep til then. g~night
And you are aware aren’t you that during the time of Ptolemy I there was no such thing as Buddhists books/scrolls, Buddhism being then still an oral tradition?
As I was the one who started this thread, note that I just mentioned “Was Jesus influenced by Eastern Religions?” Thus any Eastern religion counts. Early Hindu texts at the library at Alexandria would qualify.
Also, while it is possible Jesus went to the library at Alexandria, I tend to be doubtful. In fact, I’m skeptical Jesus was even literate. The reasons being:
#1) Jesus was raised in the household of a mason/carpetenter. A mere artisan. Literacy was all kinds of uncommon in Judea 2,000 years ago. Joseph likely couldn’t have afforded to educate Jesus.
#2) If Jesus was literate, he didn’t seem to have written anything himself. Surely early followers when he was alive would have treasured anything Jesus wrote himself with his own hand. And copied it for other followers to read. No such texts, if they ever existed, survived.
#3) AFAIK, there isn’t even anything in the Biblical texts that even states he was known to be able to read and write. Had Jesus ever mentioned serious study at the library of Alexandria, to early followers it seems like this would have been worth mentioning by the early Xtians. Why should he want to hide this?
Did I say anything about Ptolemy having Buddhist texts of any kind? I said he odered copies of Vedic texts (Eastern Philosophy)
When he and Alexander conquered the city of Taxila. They found the oldest library in that part of the world. It had flourished for a thousand years. they also found a university with a level of education and science that exceeded anything in Greece at the time. When they went back to Egypt the library was plundered. As were all of the great libraries in every place they went.
It didn’t stop with Ptolemy I either. He and Alexander were the beginning of the Alexandria Library. Ptolemy’s son helped finish off the rest. But at least he was less ruthless about it. The grandson didn’t do much better. The Ptolemy’s either stole bought or copied every piece of literature in the known world. If you’ll look at the dates on all of the ancient libraries in the old world you’ll see that most of them were sacked and destroyed during the years that Alexandria was being filled. And they were occupied by Alexander’s military at the time.
How do you think Alexander and Ptolemy managed to acquire over a half a million scrolls while waging a war on the whole of civilization?
Just because Ptolemy didn’t say…“I stole all these books” or "I murdered somebody and made myself king of Egypt… he did claim to kill a Prince while in India. Which most historians believe to be a lie. The man was a damned soldier who fell in love with the power that knowledge lends to it’s owner. he came back to the "civilized world with a wealth of knowledge that the ignorant western world had only begun to realize. The Ptolemeic Dynasty was one that was taken through deceit and murder. He used this new information to start the enlightenment in the Mediterranean region. He set up the greatest library that ever existed and had scribes and scholars from all over the world working in it.
Ptolemy 1st, wasn’t where the introduction of Buddhism started in the west but it set the path. He definitely had Vedic literature brought in and everything else he came across.
I’m gonna post this now before my PC freezes up on me…damned spyware crap.
Don’t hold your breath. 
Looks to me like the conclusion is: “We don’t know; but there isn’t any particuarly good evidence for the argument Jesus was influenced by Eastern religious thinking.” There just doesn’t seem to be anything in the Bible that jumps out such that one would say “now THAT’S Buddhist thinking” or such. Only possibility left at this point is possibility that some archaelogist will find some very early Christian “Dead Sea Scrolls” type of thing. And these scrolls can be positively identified to being very soon after the death of Jesus AND contain lots of details of Jesus saying that he had been very knowledgeable about Eastern faiths. This isn’t likely to happen. And besides, there still would be the possibility that some very early Christian was a Buddhist, etc. and purposely falsified the truth. Take a look at some of what did make it into the Bible, and how blatantly historically false that is. Such as the mass murder of many infants by Herod, or the Romans conducting a census in a silly way that would have resulted in mass migration to comply. Either of those, had they really happened, would have been mentioned by non-Christian historians.
On the contrary, they’re everywhere in the story, language, and references in the NT! They’re everywhere!
Read The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man, by Robert M Price
Read The Jesus Mysteries: Was the “Original Jesus” a Pagan God?, by Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy. (You don’t have to accept their thesis to see that Eastern language, stories, and references abound in great number within the NT).
Read The Jesus Puzzle. Did Christianity Begin with a Mythical Christ?,
by Earl Doherty
The NT is full to overflowing with Eastern ideas, but you need to read some or all of these books to help you spot them easily.
You’re still confusing the mythology with the teachings. By teachings, I mean the common sayings tradition. Show me something in the sayings in Q, Mark or Thomas that is distinctly Buddhist or Hindu. Show me something even in Paul that’s “Eastern,” (as opposed to merely Hellenistic).
NO, SIR, I am not! You are mistaken.
First, I was responding to rfgdxm, who stated his/her assertion, which was
[QUOTE=rfgdxm]
There just doesn’t seem to be anything in the Bible that jumps out such that one would say “now THAT’S Buddhist thinking” or such.
My response, to which you objected with the same off-base objection you’ve used before, is that the NT is full of examples of “Buddhist thinking”. Whether Jesus is mythical or not, much of the NT is full of examples of Eastern thinking and beliefs.
Again: That is true whether Jesus is mythical or not!!! How can I make you understand? Did you not read the examples I wrote of earlier that included the overtly Eastern birth stories, with their stellar announcements and Eastern Magi? Are you actually asserting these things are only present in the NT if you believe Jesus to have been mythical??
I missed that rfgdxm stipulated the “Bible.” I am referring only to the teachings attributed to Jesus.
Even so, the “Eastern” influence on the New Testament tends to be more Persian than anything else. I do not see anything distinctly Buddhist or Hindu other than a couple of suggestions of reincarnation.
Note the title of the thread here: “Was Jesus influenced by Eastern Religions?” Personally, I am not a Christian. Thus to me the Star of Bethlehem, the Magi, etc. are necessarily pure fiction. I am willing to grant the point that the Nativity story was borrowed from Buddhism, Hinduism or Persia. However, that the Christian writers after the death of Jesus tossed in an Eastern based Nativity scene has no bearing on whether Jesus himself was influenced by Eastern faiths. I did mean to focus on the teachings attributed to Jesus.
I see. Much of the surrounding material was written by Eastern (far and near) -influenced writers, but when it came to quoting Jesus, writing team “B” took over, only to relinguish control over to team “A” when they were finished.
That’s an interesting opinion.
Oh, and Team “A”, besides being influenced by the beliefs and philosophy of the near and far East (as well as pagan and Hellenistic Judaic beliefs), wrote entirely fiction, while Team “B”, who were totally influenced by nothing at all, wrote only fact.
Do you realize how absurd your thesis is?
For the purpose of this thread, it doesn’t even matter if the quotes are authentic. The question is not whether the sayings are necessarily authentic, but are they Buddhist/Hindu. They are not.
ambushed, your attitude that your theory is so transparent and obvious that anyone who considers the evidence open-mindedly must be convinced, while every other theory is simply absurd is quite annoying. Can you not accept that people of inteligence and good will may simply disagree on the issue?
There is plenty of evidence that the gospels have multiple sources, some of which are believed by almost every scholar of repute to have been (at least partially) authentic sayings collections, and the rest of which were independantly developed myths, many having close parallels in the surrounding culture. Many of those same myths (virgin birth, etc.) were applied to known historical figures from the same general millieu, and hardly require Far Eastern influence to explain, IMO, while the sayings are about as culturally unique as those ascribed to any historical figure, and require neither the supposition of pure fictional invention nor Far Eastern influence to explain.
Your theories are plausable, but they are very speculative and not obviously true by any means. We know very little for sure about the development of the Jesus story.