The Unknown Buddha of Christianity: The Crypto-Buddhism of the Essenes

Michael Lockwood (The Unknown Buddha of Christianity); Eds., Wisdom Quarterly

The Unknown Buddha of Christianity: The Crypto-Buddhism of the Essenes (Therapeutæ and Qumranites)

INTRODUCTORY

"If the right theory should ever be discovered, we shall know it by this token: that it will solve many riddles." – Attributed to the poet Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Recapitulation

[The Unknown Buddha in Christianity] is the third volume of a trilogy devoted to the investigation of the relation of Buddhism to Christianity.

The previous volumes are Buddhism’s Relation to Christianity (2010) and Mythicism: A Seven-Fold Revelation of the Buddhist ‘Branch’ Grafted onto Jesse’s ‘Lineage Tree’ (2013). To briefly recapitulate the contents covered in the first volume, here is the summary given on its jacket’s front inside flap:

There is a proverb in India to the effect that one should not inquire too deeply into the origin of rishis (God-men) or rivers. This book, however, seeks to plumb the very depths of the great puzzle of the relation between the Buddha [the "Awakened One"] and Jesus [the Kristos or "Anointed One"].

Seated Buddha, Sri Lanka (M. Lockwood)

The First Section features a select, annotated bibliography highlighting almost two hundred years of scholarly work on the remarkable parallelism between the messages and lives of the Buddha and Jesus.

The Second Section deals with Buddhist narrative sculptures, a number of which were created in the centuries BCE. They are paralleled by episodes in the Christian scriptures.

The Third Section considers several stone inscriptions of King Asoka who, in the third century BCE, ruled over most of India and beyond, into what is now [formerly Buddhist] Afghanistan. These inscriptions reveal the spreading abroad of the Buddhist doctrine (Dharma), as far as Egypt and other countries around the Mediterranean. There are many parallels between Buddhist doctrine and Christian doctrine.

The Fourth Section examines the strange story of the most widespread legend of Christian sainthood during medieval times. The Buddha was somehow turned into a Christian saint who, by 1583, was actually listed in the Roman Martyrology, which provides an extensive list of saints officially recognized by the Church!

The Fifth Section discusses several instances of parallel parables. It may be of interest to note that only Buddhism and Christianity have made such extensive use of parables.

The Sixth Section lists various parallels in the sayings of the Buddha and Jesus.

The Seventh Section attempts to emphasize certain pioneering developments achieved by Buddhism, as a missionary religion, prior to similar developments in Christianity.

The Eighth Section takes up the contentious debate about the historicity of Jesus. Various arguments for, and a few against, his being historical are considered. And, finally...

The Ninth Section deals with two examples of extreme revisionism. Both of these theories argue that Jesus is not a historical person. And, further, they both hold that the evangelists who wrote the Gospels of the New Testament were actually Buddhists. The pioneer of this extreme revisionism is the Danish Sanskrit scholar, Christian Lindtner. The strong reactions to his radical views have illustrated the basis of the Indian warning not to inquire too deeply into the origin of God-men or rivers.

To briefly recapitulate the contents covered in the second volume, here is the summary given on its jacket’s front inside flap:

Rome/Vatican created "Jesus" details to rule.

The expression ‘Mythicism’ has come to be used to identify the negative side of the debate whether ‘Jesus of Nazareth’ was or was not a historical person. This book examines five major types of challenges to Jesus’ historicity:

• I. In the First Section, Robert M. Price’s article, “New Testament Narrative as Old Testament Midrash,” and Thomas L. Brodie’s book, Beyond the Quest for the Historical Jesus, reviewed by René Salm, reveal a layer of fictional mimetic dependence of many works of the New Testament on the Old Testament.
• II. In the Second Section, Dennis R. MacDonald’s book, The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark, reviewed by Richard Carrier, reveals a truly astonishing second layer of fictional mimetic dependence which Mark’s Gospel has on Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. As Mark’s is the earliest of the four Gospels, this mimetic dependence also extends to the other three.
• III. In the Third Section, an examination of a book by John H. C. Pippy (Egyptian Origin of the Book of Revelation) and of another, by D.M. Murdock (Christ in Egypt), reveals a third layer of fictional mimetic dependence of the New Testament on ancient Egyptian religious writings.
• IV. In the Fourth Section, ten very short reports by Christian Lindtner reveal an astounding fourth layer of fictional mimetic dependence of the canonical Gospels on Buddhist scriptures.
• V. In the Fifth Section, Robert Eisenman’s book, The New Testament Code, reviewed by Robert Price, reveals a fifth layer of fictionalized mimetic dependence of the New Testament on a coded transformation of historical material from the writings of Philo of Alexandria, Flavius Josephus, and others.
• In the Preface, Introduction, and Miscellaneous Concluding Remarks, Michael Lockwood reveals how these five mimetic layers are interrelated and how Lindtner’s overarching theory confirms and even surpasses the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer’s brilliant insight that Christianity came into being by its “grafting the doctrine of [the] Buddha upon the mythological dogmas of Judaism.”
• This book is a sequel to Lockwood’s earlier work, Buddhism’s Relation to Christianity (2010). More