Here’s a brand-new, hot-off-the-presses publication of mine! It’s a review and study guide of a book by Dr. Michael Lockwood entitled Buddhism’s Relation to Christianity. You can support my work by obtaining a copy of this 23-page PDF, which reveals the Buddhist roots of Christian doctrines and traditions, including purported biographical details of Jesus Christ.
As Dr. Lockwood says:
“…Scholars, for over two hundred years, have been pointing out the influence of Buddhism on the origins of Christianity, but Christian theologians have, in the main, been indifferent to a serious study of this relationship. Such a study would require that they acquire a deep historical knowledge of Buddhism and a mastery of the languages of Pali, Sanskrit, Tibetan and Chinese among others.
“…Jesus and his disciples are allegorical, non-historical characters mixed together with historical characters (such as Pilate and some Temple priests)… Even the story of the ‘Outcaste Woman at the Well’ is a fictitious meta-narrative, though involving the, perhaps, historical persons of the Buddha and his ‘beloved’ disciple Ananda—if indeed they are historical!…
“…Jesus was an allegorical figure modeled on the founder of Buddhism and his fifth century BCE style of preaching: that of the homeless wandering monk….
“If the four canonical Gospels are studied from this perspective, evidence may emerge that the evangelists were, indeed, Indian—or persons trained in India or by Indians.”
If you have enjoyed my work, you will love this “short but sweet” ebook, which I believe contains an exciting “smoking gun” piece of the Christian-origins puzzle.
For more information, see:
http://stellarhousepublishing.com/buddhismchristianity.html
UPDATE: For those who previously obtained a copy of my review/study guide, be advised that I have added the following text to it and uploaded a new edition of the PDF.
Page 15:
In this regard, there does indeed exist evidence that Jews were influenced by Indian religion. In Against Apion (1.22/1.179), Jewish historian Josephus (37-c. 100 AD/CE) recounts the words of Clearchus of Soli (fl. 320 BCE), who told the story of his master Aristotle’s conversation with a Jewish man from “Celesyria” or Syria. Aristotle (384-322 BCE) supposedly stated that the man told him these Syrian Jews “are derived from the Indian philosophers; they are named by the Indians Calami, and by the Syrians Judaei, and took their name from the country they inhabit, which is called Judea…”
Hence, at least three and a half centuries before the common era there were purportedly Indian “Jews” in Syria, whose institutions and communities may have welcomed readily the missionaries from Ashoka a few decades later.
Page 16:
• Testimony in Josephus that the Jews were descendants of Indian philosophers.
I also include the original Greek of Josephus for this important contention.