Buddhist influence on early Xian church

[Dan Rowden]

Interesting point of view:

http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/buddha.html

[keenobserver]

I was trying to respond to Shardrol (excuse if misspelt!) without much luck on another thread, Buddhism stuff she said got me thinking.
If you're watching, I had some difficulty with the idea of unenlightened Buddhas or Dalai Lama's (again forgive spelling) and diplomatic function. As I understood the Dalai Lama he is supposed to be descended each time from a previous enlightened person, Buddha replacing Buddha essentially. I mean, the first Buddha selects someone to carry the flag as it were, keep his teaching going, and he selects the most capable person available. If at some point along the line some Dalai has no wise follower to choose from, well then that may have been when the tradition to choose a younger person began, a bright child perhaps. Somewhere along the line the wisdom diluted out (in my opinion) and now we have what we have.
But the work is spiritual always, and the one doing it is supposed to be the most enlightened, wisest person available.
What do you say about this view of things, Shardrol.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Interesting point of view:

http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/buddha.html

It is interesting and quite reasonable assumption to boot.

What I suspect happened is that the original gospels were attempts to create an original blend of several traditions. There's this strong Hindu/Buddha theme but as well amazing similarities with sections of Homer's epics and Pythagoras and of course some classic more local Judean themes (traditions of Pharisees, Essenes, etc). The Greeks had much of their inspiration from other traditions as well, like the Egyptian culture.

Also, in many cultures in ancient times (for example the Hellenistic but not the contemporary Jewish one) they had not much concept of 'plagiarism'. On the contrary: rewriting a classic or referring to them in direct or indirect ways was quite common and accepted to take credit for it. It was only in early medieval times that people started to think more in lines of 'original' work and authenticity, the clergy at least.

Early Christianity becomes then a bit like the movie 'The Matrix'. Borrowing from all over the place lots of familiar philosophical and literary themes, experimentation with styles, trying to put a slight new twist to things and then push it back into the mainstream. And score a huge success with lots of copy cats in its wake trying to do the same. Battle of the memes.

One can wonder who then exactly created this blend because most NT theologians, even the atheist ones, do not doubt that whoever wrote the words of Jesus was a extraordinary sharp and original thinker who could provide some stunning puns and cynical cultural references to his audience. Not just a badly translated copy-cat or Chinese whisper game.