Could Jesus have been taken to India as a child and taught Buddhism? Hmmm? Hmmm? Here's something that apparently showed on the BBC at some point:
OK, some silly speculation here (and more amusingly told in Christoper Moore's Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal),
I question the scholarship here; it's my understanding that it was Paul and the interpretation of the early Christians that came up with the idea of trying to teach Jesus to the heathens; as far as Jesus was concerned, he was talking to Jews. (Feel free to correct me, all you Biblical scholars reading this.)
However, it is worth noting that the influence, if there is an influence, goes both ways. In later (than Nagarjuna) Mahayana Buddhism, there's a doctrine of "three Buddha bodies" that sounds a lot like the trinity: there's the human Buddha who was on hearth, but then the Buddha is apparently also his own teachings, "a body of bliss or clear light manifestation," and in the third place, the Buddha has a body "which embodies the very principle of enlightenment and knows no limits or boundaries."
Of course, it could just be coincidence, or because both traditions are independently arriving at the truth, or because patterns of myth are common among cultures because just because there are only so many ways to tell a story and, as noted on the podcast, everything revered gets deified eventually.
As far as our Big Self/No Self distinction is affected by the three-Buddha body doctrine, on Big Self view, when you become Enlightened, you're moving in the same pattern as the Buddha and actually become the Buddha in his Totality. This expansion of the ego to become the universe, from what I understand, not an uncommon description as far as Eastern mysticism goes ("I am God, you are God, we are all God"), whereas for Western mystics (yes, this is an oversimplification), actually becoming God is a no-no, though you can through mystical experience witness the omnipresence of God, from which, as pointed out in our Spinoza episode, should imply that you are some part of God at the very least.
And for folks who've been reading this blog for the past few days, it should be obvious that this type of mystical experience is pretty foreign to Nagarjuna's claim that there is no ultimate truth. As an Enlightened being (insofar as that's even possible without the whole of creation also being Enlightened), you'd recognize the emptiness of phenomenal experience, and there is a recognition of oneness with all beings under samsara (i.e. within the experienced world), but not an identification with the totality of creation as an ultimate, underlying substance, because there is no ultimate underlying substance for Nagarjuna. The article I posted on the Ecological Self provides one route to understanding how there can be this unity, i.e. practical identification with the whole of creation that can lead to ethical action, without positing an underlying, ultimate metaphysical unity as many mystics are apt to do (just so I'm not obviously poking at a straw horse, here's a yack-a-riffic video I found searching the string "you are God.")
Also and irrelevantly, Christopher Moore
-Mark Linsenmayer
Daniel Horne says
October 28, 2010 at 7:33 pmI feel embarrassed to dignify this particular program with a response, but I sensed an implicit slam on Judaism at one point in the narration, and felt compelled to chime in.
At 1:38, the presenter says “Loving your enemies and the idea that the meek will inherit the earth have absolutely no tradition or precedent in Judaism . . . .”
That’s demonstrably false. Some Old Testament quotes from the King James Version:
Exodus 23:4-5 “If thou meet thine enemy’s ox or his ass going astray, thou shalt surely bring it back to him again. If thou see the ass of him that hateth thee lying under his burden, and wouldest forbear to help him, thou shalt surely help with him.”
Psalms 37:11 “But the meek shall inherit the earth; and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace.”
C.E. says
October 28, 2010 at 11:56 pmThere’s actually a neat little movie that deals with this line of reasoning – it’s called The Man From Earth (2007), written by famed sci-fi writer Jerome Bixby.
I don’t want to spoil the movie, should any of you decide to watch it; I’ll just say that it presents a coherent narrative that manages to tie together Scientific Skepticism, Jesus, Buddha, and a 14,000 year-old Cro-Magnon named John.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0756683/
Mark Linsenmayer says
October 29, 2010 at 9:47 amWell, hell, if it’s got William Katt in it, I’m in! 🙂
Praxeologue says
October 30, 2010 at 8:55 amMark you say ‘it’s my understanding that it was Paul and the interpretation of the early Christians that came up with the idea of trying to teach Jesus to the heathens; as far as Jesus was concerned, he was talking to Jews.’
I am no scholar but happen to be reading Mark at the moment and Jesus clearly does ask for his word to be preached to all.. the most blatant quote I could find in this book was
Mark 16:15 And he said to them, ‘ Go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation. He who believes and is baptised will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned.’
I’m pretty sure you’ll find similar throughout the other Gospels.
Mark Linsenmayer says
October 30, 2010 at 9:56 amGreat, thanks, P. I will defer to you on this. With a couple seconds of web research, I found this more lengthy rebuttal: http://lavistachurchofchrist.org/LVarticles/JesusCameToIsraelOnlyArgument.htm.
However, the fact that the guy who wrote this considered it necessary suggests that it’s a point of contention. Searching “Jesus came to Israel only” (a key phrase in the first link above), I see this web argument about it: http://www.sermonindex.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=11696&forum=36&start=20&26, which focuses on Revelation, and it was a discussion of Revelation in Dawkins’s “The God Delusion” that made me think of this (just because I read that much more recently than the actual Gospels); I think it’s one of his theses that in Revelation in particular, a careful reading will reveal that all of the small number to survive the Apocalypse are almost certainly intended (by the text) to be Jews, and Dawkins brings this up of course to rip on Christians who feel smug about their salvation in the end of days. As you might expect, this is the kind of debate that I do not feel comfortable adjudicating and mostly makes me ill anyway. Suffice it to say that I do understand that it’s the position of mainstream Christianity that one of the great innovations of Christianity over Judaism was that you’re supposed to go out and preach to the world, but that at least the objection has been raised that this may have been an early church interpretation (which then, would make its way into the Gospels as they were finalized) rather than some major theme in the teachings of Jesus himself, insofar as we have any way of figuring out what these were.
Again, I will invite anyone who’s actually read “The Historical Jesus” or the 5000 other books out there on this to weigh in and correct my ignorance of the subtleties here.
Daniel Horne says
October 30, 2010 at 4:27 pmI think you are both right!
As P. points out, Mark 16:15 has Jesus commanding the gospel to be spread to all creation. But that’s the post-resurrection Jesus talking, not “historical” (or in any event “pre-death” Jesus). So query whether “Jesus” ever really preached to any gentiles during his lifetime.
In other words, Mark 16:15 doesn’t really address Jesus’ audience at the time he was alive and preaching.
On the other hand, there are numerous references to Jesus as “rabbi” throughout the New Testament. (See John 1:38). This gives a pretty good indication of Jesus’ audience when he was alive. Also, belief in the Apocalypse (as described by John) appears to have originated with the Essenes, who were a dissident monastic Jewish sect at the time.
In short, the bulk of Jesus’ teachings and prophecies are much more directly tied to existing Jewish belief (love for enemies, meek get Earth, Apocalypse, etc.) than any other set of beliefs. If there’s a case to be made for a Jesus-as-Buddhist, I think we need better evidence than was provided. And an explanation for the absence of even the most basic Buddhist concepts, like karma, four noble truths, eightfold path, etc.
The BBC documentary is largely based on Nicolas Notovitch’s book, “The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ” (1894). The book was controversial at the time, and has gained little serious scholarly attention since: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Notovitch
Looking at Acts 18:6 and Romans 15:16, it seems like Paul is the one making the decision to “go unto the Gentiles,” which makes no sense if Jesus had already been doing this. That doesn’t mean Jesus would have disapproved, of course — just see Mark 16:15! But as Mark L. says, it means that — as far as Jesus was concerned — he was talking to Jews at the time he was alive.
stable says
May 29, 2011 at 4:01 pmDid Plato fall under the spell of Buddhism, is a less outlandish and interesting question. Hubert Dreyfus thinks so..