Parallels between Buddha and Jesus
Encyclopedia
Numerous scholars have made parallels between Buddha
and Jesus
. According to Jerry Bentley, they "have often considered the possibility that Buddhism influenced the early development of Christianity. They have drawn attention to many parallels concerning the births, lives, doctrines, and deaths of the Buddha and Jesus" .
It has been asserted that the story of the birth of the Buddha BC 623 was well known in the West, and possibly influenced the story of the birth of Jesus. Epiphanius
and Socrates Scholasticus
(5th century CE) mention a Terebinthus who called himself Buddas who claimed to be born of a Virgin. The Buddhist and Christian narative both begin with a dream, here some have suggested a loose parallel with Brahma's dream.
Saint Jerome
(4th century CE) mentions the birth of the Buddha, who he says "was born from the side of a virgin" (the Buddha was, according to Buddhist tradition, born from the hip of his mother). The story of the birth of the Buddha
was also known: a fragment of Archelaos of Carrha (278 CE) mentions the Buddha's virgin-birth.
In the 1893 book, Influence of Buddhism on Primitive Christianity, Arthur Lillie argues that the birth accounts of the Buddha were copied into the gospels listing the following infancy parallels:
Of course some of these traditions derive from Mahayana Buddhism which developed at the same time as the Gospels and by this some have suggested Christian influence. Note that none of the above accounts are recorded in the Biblical canon that was established as early as 130 C.E. That is, they fall outside of the mainstream literature that historically informed Christian belief.
Queen Maya
came to bear the Buddha after receiving a prophetic dream in which she saw the descent of the Bodhisattva (Buddha-to-be) from the heaven into her womb, in the shape of a small white elephant. This story has some parallels with the story of Jesus being conceived in connection with the visitation of the Holy Spirit
to the Virgin Mary.
The classical scene of the Virgin Mary being supported by two attendants at her side, may have been influenced by earlier iconography, such as the rather similar Buddhist theme of Queen Maya giving birth.
The iconography of Mary breastfeeding the child Jesus, unknown in the West until the 5-6th century (probable date of a frieze excavated in Saqqara
), has also been connected to the much more ancient iconography of the goddess Hariti
, also breastfeeding her child, and wearing Hellenistic clothes in the Greco-Buddhist art
of Gandhara
.
Ernest De Bunsen states,
"With the remarkable exception of the death of Jesus on the cross, and of the doctrine of atonement by vicarious suffering, which is absolutely excluded by Buddhism, the most ancient of the Buddhistic records known to us contain statements about the life and the doctrines of Gautama Buddha which correspond in a remarkable manner, and impossibly by mere chance, with the traditions recorded in the Gospels about the life and doctrines of Jesus Christ...."
Although other scholars, like Zacharias P. Thundy and Dr. Christian Lindtner claim that the ancient Buddhist play Mrrcchakatika was the Buddhist source for the Christian passion narative because of the numerous parallels.
T.W. Rhys Davids, son of a Congregationalist minister who was affectionately referred to as "the Bishop of Essex", was the earliest most energetic promoter of the Theravada tradition in the West. In 1878, he wrote of its northern counterpart quoting the earliest missionaries to Tibet he points out that similarities have been seen since the first known contact: "Lamaism with its shaven priests
, its bells and rosaries, its images and holy water
, its popes and bishops, its abbots and monks of many grades, its processions and feast days, its confessional
and purgatory
, and its worship of the double Virgin, so strongly resembles Romanism that the first Catholic missionaries thought it must be an imitation by the devil
of the religion of Christ."
The Buddhist symbol of the eight-spoked wheel is also found in Saint Peter's Plaza in Vatican.
It is believed use of rosaries
spread from India to Western Europe during the Crusades via its Muslim version, the tasbih. Some, however, suggest an alternative route. A form of prayer rope appears to have been used in Eastern Christendom much earlier; so, it is argued, the Muslim tasbih may in fact originate at a Christian source. Both, it is pointed out, have 33 beads, corresponding to the years of Christ's life. In Buddhist tradition, rosaries commonly have 108 beads, corresponding to the number of the virtues of the Buddha, or the number of sins one has to overcome in order to attain enlightenment. (See Buddhist prayer beads
.)
Prayer with the palms touching one another, the Añjali Mudrā
, is a common form of greeting and prayer gesture in all Indian spiritual traditions, including the Buddhist. It is absent in Jewish traditions, whose scriptures specify raised or clasped hands. Prayer with the palms touching one another is, however, depicted in Christian art from the Middle Ages onwards.
In 1921, Sir Charles Eliot
, writing of apparent similarities between Christian practices and their counterparts in Buddhist tradition, expressed the view that: " When all allowance is made for similar causes and coincidences, it is hard to believe that a collection of such practices as clerical celibacy, confession, the veneration of relics, the use of the rosary and bells can have originated independently in both religions."
During one of the modern-day interfaith dialogues, the great Theravada thinker Buddhadasa Bhikkhu, recalling the Buddhist core principle of anatta
, or Non-self, used to note that he personally liked the sign of the Cross, as he reinterpreted the Cross as the letter "I" (i.e. the first-person pronoun in English
) being crossed out, meaning "no ego, or no self".
who dedicated his life to the welfare of human beings. Both Jesus and Buddha advocated radical alterations in the common religious practices of the day. There are occasional similarities in language, such as the use of the common metaphor of a line of blind men to refer to religious authorities with whom they disagreed (DN
13.15, Matthew
15:14). Some believe there is a particularly close affinity between Buddhism (or Eastern spiritual thought generally) and the doctrine of Gnostic texts such as The Gospel of Thomas
The 14th century Zen master Gasan Joseki
indicated that the Gospels were written by an enlightened being:
Some have commented on the similarity between the Blessed Virgin Mary and Guan Yin. The Tzu-Chi Foundation, a Taiwanese Buddhist organization, also noticing the similarity, commissioned a portrait of Guan Yin and a baby that resembles the typical Madonna and Child painting.
Some Chinese of the overwhelmingly Roman Catholic Philippines
, in an act of syncretism
, have identified Guan Yin with the Virgin Mary.
During the Edo Period
in Japan, when Christianity was banned and punishable by death, some underground Christian groups venerated the Virgin Mary disguised as a statue of Kannon; such statues are known as Maria Kannon. Many had a cross hidden in an inconspicuous location.
in The Story of Philosophy
suggests that Jesus-Buddha corresponds to a "feminine ideology," Nietzsche to a masculine, and that Plato-Socrates fall somewhere in between. Paul Carus
's The Gospel of Buddha
, published in 1894, was modeled on the New Testament and told the story of Buddha through parables. Other books covering a possible connection between Buddhism and Christianity include, Bible Myths and their parallels in other religions, The History of Religions (Washburn Hopkins), The Lotus Gospel, The Secret of the East, or the origin of the Christian religion, Oriental Origins to Christianity (Paris 1906),
Christopher Moore published in 2002 Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal
, a novel which seeks to fill in the "lost" years of Jesus from the point of view of Jesus' childhood pal, "Levi bar Alphaeus who is called Biff". They journey to the east, where they study Hindu, Taoist and Buddhist teachings.
Other writers on Buddhism's relation to Christianity include the authors Arthur Lillie, Godfrey Higgins, Edward Washburn Hopkins, Zacharias P. Thundy, Christian Lindtner, Gene Matlock, Daniel Hopkins and Alexander Harris.
Buddha
In Buddhism, buddhahood is the state of perfect enlightenment attained by a buddha .In Buddhism, the term buddha usually refers to one who has become enlightened...
and Jesus
Jesus
Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
. According to Jerry Bentley, they "have often considered the possibility that Buddhism influenced the early development of Christianity. They have drawn attention to many parallels concerning the births, lives, doctrines, and deaths of the Buddha and Jesus" .
Birth stories
This belief held by Buddhists is validated by certain ancient birth accounts of the Buddha, such as in the Asvaghosha's Buddha-carita (acts of Buddha) the Buddha is described as a descendent of solar kings, who was born when the sun retired; "There the sun, even although he had retired, was unable to scorn the moon-like faces of its women which put the lotuses to shame, and as if from the access of passion, hurried towards the western ocean to enter the (cooling)water". This Buddhist text also compares the birth of the Buddha to the constellation of the seven Rishis, which some have compared to the early Christian art depicting "seven-rays" coming out of a white dove. Others have linked this to the Pali text titled Seven Suns.It has been asserted that the story of the birth of the Buddha BC 623 was well known in the West, and possibly influenced the story of the birth of Jesus. Epiphanius
Epiphanius
Epiphanius was the name of several early Christian scholars and ecclesiastics:*Epiphanius of Pavia *Epiphanius of Salamis , bishop of Salamis in Cyprus, author of the Panarion, or Medicine Chest against Heresies*Epiphanius of Constantinople, , Patriarch of Constantinople*Epiphanius Scholasticus ,...
and Socrates Scholasticus
Socrates Scholasticus
Socrates of Constantinople, also known as Socrates Scholasticus, not to be confused with the Greek philosopher Socrates, was a Greek Christian church historian, a contemporary of Sozomen and Theodoret, who used his work; he was born at Constantinople c. 380: the date of his death is unknown...
(5th century CE) mention a Terebinthus who called himself Buddas who claimed to be born of a Virgin. The Buddhist and Christian narative both begin with a dream, here some have suggested a loose parallel with Brahma's dream.
Saint Jerome
Jerome
Saint Jerome was a Roman Christian priest, confessor, theologian and historian, and who became a Doctor of the Church. He was the son of Eusebius, of the city of Stridon, which was on the border of Dalmatia and Pannonia...
(4th century CE) mentions the birth of the Buddha, who he says "was born from the side of a virgin" (the Buddha was, according to Buddhist tradition, born from the hip of his mother). The story of the birth of the Buddha
Queen Maya
Queen Māyā of Sakya was the birth mother of the historical Gautama Buddha, Siddhārtha of the Gautama gotra, and sister of Mahāpajāpatī Gotamī the first Buddhist nun ordained by the Buddha. "Māyā" means "illusion" or "enchantment" in Sanskrit and Pāli. Māyā is also called Mahāmāyā and Māyādevī...
was also known: a fragment of Archelaos of Carrha (278 CE) mentions the Buddha's virgin-birth.
In the 1893 book, Influence of Buddhism on Primitive Christianity, Arthur Lillie argues that the birth accounts of the Buddha were copied into the gospels listing the following infancy parallels:
- The palm-tree bends down to Mary as the Asoka tree to Maya.
- The story of Simeon, the accounts of the bright light being almost word for word the same.
- The idol bending down to the infant Jesus.
- The miracle of the sparrows restored to life.
- Judas Iscariot in early life attacked Jesus, just as Devadetta, the Judas of Buddhism, attacked Buddha. A violent blow that Jesus received in the left side made a mark that was destined to be the exact spot that received the mortal spear-thrust at the Crucifixion. [199]
- The whole story of the disputation with the doctors seems copied servilely from the “Lalita Vistara.”
- Buddhism had invaded Persia, and Maitreya, the coming Buddha, was expected 500 years after Buddha’s death. The Persian Buddhists called him Sosiosh. The Gospel of the Infancy explains the presence of the Magi, which in the Canonical Gospels is quite unintelligible. Why should Persians come with hysterical enthusiasm to greet a Messiah whose chief exploit was to be the slaughter of all Persians and all the other nations except Jews? The “Gospel of the Infancy” announces that Zoroaster had sent them. The Persians mixed up Sakyamuni Buddha, Mithras and ZoroasterZoroasterZoroaster , also known as Zarathustra , was a prophet and the founder of Zoroastrianism who was either born in North Western or Eastern Iran. He is credited with the authorship of the Yasna Haptanghaiti as well as the Gathas, hymns which are at the liturgical core of Zoroastrianism...
and were expecting SosioshMaitreyaMaitreya , Metteyya , or Jampa , is foretold as a future Buddha of this world in Buddhist eschatology. In some Buddhist literature, such as the Amitabha Sutra and the Lotus Sutra, he or she is referred to as Ajita Bodhisattva.Maitreya is a bodhisattva who in the Buddhist tradition is to appear on...
at the time.
Of course some of these traditions derive from Mahayana Buddhism which developed at the same time as the Gospels and by this some have suggested Christian influence. Note that none of the above accounts are recorded in the Biblical canon that was established as early as 130 C.E. That is, they fall outside of the mainstream literature that historically informed Christian belief.
Queen Maya
Queen Maya
Queen Māyā of Sakya was the birth mother of the historical Gautama Buddha, Siddhārtha of the Gautama gotra, and sister of Mahāpajāpatī Gotamī the first Buddhist nun ordained by the Buddha. "Māyā" means "illusion" or "enchantment" in Sanskrit and Pāli. Māyā is also called Mahāmāyā and Māyādevī...
came to bear the Buddha after receiving a prophetic dream in which she saw the descent of the Bodhisattva (Buddha-to-be) from the heaven into her womb, in the shape of a small white elephant. This story has some parallels with the story of Jesus being conceived in connection with the visitation of the Holy Spirit
Holy Spirit
Holy Spirit is a term introduced in English translations of the Hebrew Bible, but understood differently in the main Abrahamic religions.While the general concept of a "Spirit" that permeates the cosmos has been used in various religions Holy Spirit is a term introduced in English translations of...
to the Virgin Mary.
The classical scene of the Virgin Mary being supported by two attendants at her side, may have been influenced by earlier iconography, such as the rather similar Buddhist theme of Queen Maya giving birth.
The iconography of Mary breastfeeding the child Jesus, unknown in the West until the 5-6th century (probable date of a frieze excavated in Saqqara
Saqqara
Saqqara is a vast, ancient burial ground in Egypt, serving as the necropolis for the Ancient Egyptian capital, Memphis. Saqqara features numerous pyramids, including the world famous Step pyramid of Djoser, sometimes referred to as the Step Tomb due to its rectangular base, as well as a number of...
), has also been connected to the much more ancient iconography of the goddess Hariti
Hariti
Hārītī , is a Gandharan ogeress and Bactrian mythological figure who was later transformed in to a symbol for the protection of children, easy delivery, happy child rearing and parenting, harmony between husband and wife, love, and the well-being and safety of the family...
, also breastfeeding her child, and wearing Hellenistic clothes in the Greco-Buddhist art
Greco-Buddhist art
Greco-Buddhist art is the artistic manifestation of Greco-Buddhism, a cultural syncretism between the Classical Greek culture and Buddhism, which developed over a period of close to 1000 years in Central Asia, between the conquests of Alexander the Great in the 4th century BCE, and the Islamic...
of Gandhara
Gandhara
Gandhāra , is the name of an ancient kingdom , located in northern Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan. Gandhara was located mainly in the vale of Peshawar, the Potohar plateau and on the Kabul River...
.
Parallel lives
Scholars see strong parallels in the lives of Buddha and Jesus. That Buddha and his disciples traveled as preachers, going into homes and preaching gospels to those who hear, is one obvious parallel of a literary motif not found in other traditions. Jesus, too, pursues this form of preaching and teaching. Jesus speaks of himself as 'the light' and the son of a great father while, perhaps in Mahayana traditions, their Buddha proclaims himself to be a great father with sons of light (Bodhisattvas, although given the meaning of 'awakened (bodh) beings' several have suggested the Prakrit bho- and awakening by light and other Buddhist traditions associate the Bodhisattva with light)). In many pre-Christian Buddhist texts we read that, on many separate occasions, after hearing a verse from the lord a convert would proclaim that Buddha is like somebody who lights up a path and Jesus’ “Just as long as I am in this world, I am the light (as quoted by Reverend Gary Davis)” is very similar to the Pali Buddhist line; so dippo lokassa nibbuta “The light of the world is exstinguished". Jesus proclaims to come to convert the wicked while the Buddha proclaims that his main goal is to save those of noble character or 'those with little dust in their eyes' although in the Lotus sutra the Buddha claims to create an illusionary 'half-way point' for those who are wicked.Ernest De Bunsen states,
"With the remarkable exception of the death of Jesus on the cross, and of the doctrine of atonement by vicarious suffering, which is absolutely excluded by Buddhism, the most ancient of the Buddhistic records known to us contain statements about the life and the doctrines of Gautama Buddha which correspond in a remarkable manner, and impossibly by mere chance, with the traditions recorded in the Gospels about the life and doctrines of Jesus Christ...."
Although other scholars, like Zacharias P. Thundy and Dr. Christian Lindtner claim that the ancient Buddhist play Mrrcchakatika was the Buddhist source for the Christian passion narative because of the numerous parallels.
Religious symbolism
Lama
Lama is a title for a Tibetan teacher of the Dharma. The name is similar to the Sanskrit term guru .Historically, the term was used for venerated spiritual masters or heads of monasteries...
, its bells and rosaries, its images and holy water
Holy water
Holy water is water that, in Catholicism, Anglicanism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Lutheranism, Oriental Orthodoxy, and some other churches, has been sanctified by a priest for the purpose of baptism, the blessing of persons, places, and objects; or as a means of repelling evil.The use for baptism and...
, its popes and bishops, its abbots and monks of many grades, its processions and feast days, its confessional
Confessional
A confessional is a small, enclosed booth used for the Sacrament of Penance, often called confession, or Reconciliation. It is the usual venue for the sacrament in the Roman Catholic Church, but similar structures are also used in Anglican churches of an Anglo-Catholic orientation, and also in the...
and purgatory
Purgatory
Purgatory is the condition or process of purification or temporary punishment in which, it is believed, the souls of those who die in a state of grace are made ready for Heaven...
, and its worship of the double Virgin, so strongly resembles Romanism that the first Catholic missionaries thought it must be an imitation by the devil
Devil
The Devil is believed in many religions and cultures to be a powerful, supernatural entity that is the personification of evil and the enemy of God and humankind. The nature of the role varies greatly...
of the religion of Christ."
It is believed use of rosaries
Rosary
The rosary or "garland of roses" is a traditional Catholic devotion. The term denotes the prayer beads used to count the series of prayers that make up the rosary...
spread from India to Western Europe during the Crusades via its Muslim version, the tasbih. Some, however, suggest an alternative route. A form of prayer rope appears to have been used in Eastern Christendom much earlier; so, it is argued, the Muslim tasbih may in fact originate at a Christian source. Both, it is pointed out, have 33 beads, corresponding to the years of Christ's life. In Buddhist tradition, rosaries commonly have 108 beads, corresponding to the number of the virtues of the Buddha, or the number of sins one has to overcome in order to attain enlightenment. (See Buddhist prayer beads
Buddhist prayer beads
Buddhist prayer beads are a traditional tool used to count the number of times a mantra is recited whilst meditating. They are similar to other forms of prayer beads used in various world religions; thus some call this tool the Buddhist rosary.-Mala:...
.)
Prayer with the palms touching one another, the Añjali Mudrā
Añjali Mudrā
Añjali Mudrā or Pranamasana is a hand gesture which is practiced throughout Asia. It is used as a sign of respect and a greeting in India and amongst yoga practitioners and adherents of similar traditions...
, is a common form of greeting and prayer gesture in all Indian spiritual traditions, including the Buddhist. It is absent in Jewish traditions, whose scriptures specify raised or clasped hands. Prayer with the palms touching one another is, however, depicted in Christian art from the Middle Ages onwards.
In 1921, Sir Charles Eliot
Charles Eliot (diplomat)
Sir Charles Norton Edgecumbe Eliot GCMG, PC was a British knight diplomat, colonial administrator and botanist. He served as Commissioner of British East Africa in 1900-1904. He was British Ambassador to Japan in 1919-1925.He was also known as a malacologist and marine biologist...
, writing of apparent similarities between Christian practices and their counterparts in Buddhist tradition, expressed the view that: " When all allowance is made for similar causes and coincidences, it is hard to believe that a collection of such practices as clerical celibacy, confession, the veneration of relics, the use of the rosary and bells can have originated independently in both religions."
During one of the modern-day interfaith dialogues, the great Theravada thinker Buddhadasa Bhikkhu, recalling the Buddhist core principle of anatta
Anatta
In Buddhism, anattā or anātman refers to the notion of "not-self." In the early texts, the Buddha commonly uses the word in the context of teaching that all things perceived by the senses are not really "I" or "mine," and for this reason one should not cling to them.In the same vein, the Pali...
, or Non-self, used to note that he personally liked the sign of the Cross, as he reinterpreted the Cross as the letter "I" (i.e. the first-person pronoun in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
) being crossed out, meaning "no ego, or no self".
Buddhist views of Jesus
Buddhist views of Jesus differ, since Jesus is not mentioned in any Buddhist text. Some Buddhists, including Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama regard Jesus as a bodhisattvaBodhisattva
In Buddhism, a bodhisattva is either an enlightened existence or an enlightenment-being or, given the variant Sanskrit spelling satva rather than sattva, "heroic-minded one for enlightenment ." The Pali term has sometimes been translated as "wisdom-being," although in modern publications, and...
who dedicated his life to the welfare of human beings. Both Jesus and Buddha advocated radical alterations in the common religious practices of the day. There are occasional similarities in language, such as the use of the common metaphor of a line of blind men to refer to religious authorities with whom they disagreed (DN
Digha Nikaya
The Digha Nikaya is a Buddhist scripture, the first of the five nikayas, or collections, in the Sutta Pitaka, which is one of the "three baskets" that compose the Pali Tipitaka of Theravada Buddhism...
13.15, Matthew
Gospel of Matthew
The Gospel According to Matthew is one of the four canonical gospels, one of the three synoptic gospels, and the first book of the New Testament. It tells of the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth...
15:14). Some believe there is a particularly close affinity between Buddhism (or Eastern spiritual thought generally) and the doctrine of Gnostic texts such as The Gospel of Thomas
The 14th century Zen master Gasan Joseki
Gasan Joseki
Gasan Jōseki was a Japanese Soto Zen master. He was a disciple of Keizan Jokin, and his disciples included Bassui Tokushō, Taigen Sōshin, Tsūgen Jakurei, Mutan Sokan, Daisetsu Sōrei, and Jippō Ryōshū....
indicated that the Gospels were written by an enlightened being:
- "And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They toil not, neither do they spin, and yet I say unto you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. ... Take therefore no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself."
- Gasan said: "Whoever uttered those words I consider an enlightened man."
Guanyin and the Virgin Mary
Some Chinese of the overwhelmingly Roman Catholic Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
, in an act of syncretism
Syncretism
Syncretism is the combining of different beliefs, often while melding practices of various schools of thought. The term means "combining", but see below for the origin of the word...
, have identified Guan Yin with the Virgin Mary.
During the Edo Period
Edo period
The , or , is a division of Japanese history which was ruled by the shoguns of the Tokugawa family, running from 1603 to 1868. The political entity of this period was the Tokugawa shogunate....
in Japan, when Christianity was banned and punishable by death, some underground Christian groups venerated the Virgin Mary disguised as a statue of Kannon; such statues are known as Maria Kannon. Many had a cross hidden in an inconspicuous location.
In literature
H.G. Wells in his Outline of History draws parallels between what he sees as the essentially similar messages of the Buddha and of Jesus, and contends that in each case followers and priests distorted the original teachings. Will DurantWill Durant
William James Durant was a prolific American writer, historian, and philosopher. He is best known for The Story of Civilization, 11 volumes written in collaboration with his wife Ariel Durant and published between 1935 and 1975...
in The Story of Philosophy
The Story of Philosophy
The Story of Philosophy: the Lives and Opinions of the Greater Philosophers is a book by Will Durant that profiles several prominent Western philosophers and their ideas, beginning with Plato and on through Friedrich Nietzsche...
suggests that Jesus-Buddha corresponds to a "feminine ideology," Nietzsche to a masculine, and that Plato-Socrates fall somewhere in between. Paul Carus
Paul Carus
Paul Carus, Ph.D. was a German-American author, editor, a student of comparative religion, and professor of philosophy.-Life and education:...
's The Gospel of Buddha
The Gospel of Buddha
The Gospel of Buddha was an 1894 book by Paul Carus. It was modeled on the New Testament and told the story of Buddha through parables. It was an important tool in introducing Buddhism to the west and is used as a teaching tool by some Asian sects....
, published in 1894, was modeled on the New Testament and told the story of Buddha through parables. Other books covering a possible connection between Buddhism and Christianity include, Bible Myths and their parallels in other religions, The History of Religions (Washburn Hopkins), The Lotus Gospel, The Secret of the East, or the origin of the Christian religion, Oriental Origins to Christianity (Paris 1906),
Christopher Moore published in 2002 Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal
Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal
Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal is the sixth novel by absurdist author Christopher Moore, published in 2002. In this work the author seeks to fill in the "lost" years of Jesus through the point of view of Jesus' childhood pal, "Levi bar Alphaeus who is called Biff".The...
, a novel which seeks to fill in the "lost" years of Jesus from the point of view of Jesus' childhood pal, "Levi bar Alphaeus who is called Biff". They journey to the east, where they study Hindu, Taoist and Buddhist teachings.
Other writers on Buddhism's relation to Christianity include the authors Arthur Lillie, Godfrey Higgins, Edward Washburn Hopkins, Zacharias P. Thundy, Christian Lindtner, Gene Matlock, Daniel Hopkins and Alexander Harris.