A Japanese Model for Christian origins with a Jesus who never preached

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ABuddhist
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A Japanese Model for Christian origins with a Jesus who never preached

Post by ABuddhist »

I thought that the following point deserved its own forum thread.

As a counter to the assertion that Christianity cannot have arisen without a Jesus preaching upon the Earth, I cite for you the cult of Amitabha Buddha, which has endured for over 1 thousand years. Its central saviour figure, Amitabha Buddha, is not alleged by any person to have been upon the Earth, yet millions of people throughout history, inspired by the so-called Pure Land Sutras, have developed faith in Amitabha Buddha as their heavenly saviour ruling from Sukhavati (the Western Pure Land) and offering salvation to all people upon Earth with faith in him. Particularly well-documented is the spread of the cult of Amitabha Buddha in Japan, where there were organized missionary efforts, "revival meetings" (people gathering to chant praises of Amitabha Buddha for hours), and even martyrs (people executed for refusing to abandon their belief that faith in Amitabha Buddha was the only way to avoid a bad rebirth) - all without anyone claiming that Amitabha Buddha had been upon this Earth. His divine and salvific power was said to save despite this lack of connection.

This model may be of use for both mythicists and advocates of minimal historicity (viz., a Jesus who was crucified upon the Earth but never preached upon the Earth).
Last edited by ABuddhist on Wed Aug 10, 2022 5:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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neilgodfrey
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Re: A Japanese Model for Christian origins with a Jesus who never preached

Post by neilgodfrey »

ABuddhist wrote: Thu Nov 25, 2021 5:19 pm and even martyrs (people executed for refusing to abandon their belief that faith in Amitabha Buddha was the only way to avoid a bad rebirth) -
Can you explain a little why they were executed for their beliefs? (I am trying to understand the nature of early Christian perseuctions and wonder if there is any overlap here.)
ABuddhist
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Re: A Japanese Model for Christian origins with a Jesus who never preached

Post by ABuddhist »

neilgodfrey wrote: Thu Nov 25, 2021 6:21 pm
ABuddhist wrote: Thu Nov 25, 2021 5:19 pm and even martyrs (people executed for refusing to abandon their belief that faith in Amitabha Buddha was the only way to avoid a bad rebirth) -
Can you explain a little why they were executed for their beliefs? (I am trying to understand the nature of early Christian perseuctions and wonder if there is any overlap here.)
From what I understand, they were executed because the state regarded salvific models based upon only faith in Amitabha Buddha as shattering the bonds that woulds induce people to follow laws.
davidmartin
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Re: A Japanese Model for Christian origins with a Jesus who never preached

Post by davidmartin »

This is essentially the argument Stevan Davies makes in his book Jesus the Healer (now revised/expanded)
His Jesus doesn't 'preach', he simply employs off beat psychological 'parable' statements to heal people with disordered thoughts (similar to modern day treatments), to a 'nirvana' like state Jesus called the kingdom of heaven. Jesus also heals using rudimentary medicine he says (pastes, mud, spittle, sacred pools), in fact he points out Jesus refers to himself as a physician. He discounts Jesus's preaching having anything to do with Christianity's rise as it was unremarkable outside this healing context
Davies goes on to attribute the spread of Christianity to the pneumatic or charismatic possession experience it employed which was a pre-existing movement Jesus just happened to be a member of
It's a fascinating book and has a flavour of the old school scholars like JRS Mead about it, a little kooky but perfect if you are sat next to that pretty girl on the plane.. you can be the 'Jesus expert' and entertain with tales of the wild, rustic healer with this handy little book
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GakuseiDon
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Re: A Japanese Model for Christian origins with a Jesus who never preached

Post by GakuseiDon »

Fun fact: Jesus was actually buried in Japan, in a village in the north of the country. He died at age 106. Modern Bible scholars 'ignore' the evidence, perhaps frightened by the implications. Those cowards!
https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2014/11/ ... -in-japan/

According to the folklore, Jesus made his way to Japan when he was 21 years old, during a 12 year gap in the New Testament known as his “lost years.” ... Upon his arrival, Jesus Christ is said to have studied with a master of theology at Mt. Fuji, learning about religion, philosophy, and about the Japanese language and culture...

According to the legend, upon returning to his homeland, Jesus was later sentenced to his crucifixion, but he was able to escape when his brother, called Isukiri by the Japanese, secretly traded places with him. In the story, it was Isukiri rather than Jesus Christ who was crucified upon the cross, while Jesus himself fled back to Japan carrying none other than a lock of the Virgin Mary’s hair and the severed ear of his doomed brother...

The story says that Jesus lived a long and happy life here in this mountain town, and lived to be 106 years old...

To this day, there are many curious people who make there way to this remote town around 3 hours outside of Tokyo by train to see the supposed grave of Christ with their own eyes, and it is estimated that around 20,000 such pilgrims come through here every year either out of genuine religious zeal or mere morbid curiosity. There is also a festival held here every spring called the Christ Festival, in which kimono clad women dance about the grave and chant.

Image

Moses is buried in Japan, also:

Image
(Translation: Tomb of Moses)

**** While I offer the above in jest, the Tomb of Christ is a real place, and it has a fascinating history. Documents in the 1930s were 'found' by a Japanese Joseph Smith-wannabe that showed that many of the key religious figures -- Buddha, Confucius, Jesus, Moses -- all studied in Japan at some point. At that time of fervent nationalism, it was thought it might show how it was Japan (rather than China and the West) that was the cultural originator of key religious ideas. The Tomb of Christ became popular in the 1960s, when it was promoted locally as a tourist destination.

Perhaps another example in favour of ABuddhist's point that it doesn't take an actual living person to start a religion.
ABuddhist
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Re: A Japanese Model for Christian origins with a Jesus who never preached

Post by ABuddhist »

davidmartin wrote: Fri Nov 26, 2021 2:24 am This is essentially the argument Stevan Davies makes in his book Jesus the Healer (now revised/expanded)
His Jesus doesn't 'preach', he simply employs off beat psychological 'parable' statements to heal people with disordered thoughts (similar to modern day treatments), to a 'nirvana' like state Jesus called the kingdom of heaven. Jesus also heals using rudimentary medicine he says (pastes, mud, spittle, sacred pools), in fact he points out Jesus refers to himself as a physician. He discounts Jesus's preaching having anything to do with Christianity's rise as it was unremarkable outside this healing context
Davies goes on to attribute the spread of Christianity to the pneumatic or charismatic possession experience it employed which was a pre-existing movement Jesus just happened to be a member of
With all due respect, though, the earliest surviving Christian literature (by which I refer to the authentic Pauline Letters, Hebrews, and Revelation to John) does not make reference to Jesus as healing people while upon Earth (nor healing at all) - unless I forget some verse or other.

I talk about a Jesus whose only noteworthy deed upon this Earth was getting crucified (presumably as part of some minor anti-Roman fracas which he did not even lead) - said anti-roman fracas may have later become expanded as Jesus's fictional occupation of part of the Temple.
ABuddhist
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Re: A Japanese Model for Christian origins with a Jesus who never preached

Post by ABuddhist »

In order to further expand upon my OP, I add the following things from the other thread:

Scholarship about the origins of Mahayana Buddhism has strongly suggested that cults surrounding Amitabha Buddha and similar beings arose when Buddhist monks, absorbed in meditation and guided by scriptures, had visions of Buddhas whom they became convinced were saviour figures. The parallels between those situations and early Christianity (in which, as mythicists, mainstream biblical scholarship, and others concede was filled with pious men assembling, studying scriptures, having visions, and praying) seems striking to me.

Within Mahayana Buddhism, various rescensions of the Perfection of Wisdom in 8,000 Lines Sutra reveal how a mere monk's sermon became attributed to Gautama Buddha.

Jan Nattier a (non-Buddhist) scholar of Mahayana Buddhism, has provided much discussion, both oblique and direct, about the model of Mahayana Buddhism's formation that I have discussed, as has the Buddhist scholar Mu Soeng (a former Zen monk and teacher who is the scholar-in-residence at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies); to take a specific example, Nattier summarizes scholarship about the development of the Perfection of Wisdom in 8,000 Lines Sutra (from a monk's discourse to Gautama Buddha's discourse) in her excellent book "A Few Good Men: The Bodhisattva Path according to The Inquiry of Ugra (Ugraparipṛcchā)" [University of Hawaii Press; New edition (May 31 2005)]. In order to address your concerns that a former Zen monk and Buddhist teacher may have biases, I must inform you that Zen Buddhism is a form of Mahayana Buddhism fundamentally based upon Mahayana Buddhist sutras that Mu Soeng and others concede arose due to visions of Buddhas - even though the Zen Buddhist sutras (Diamond, Heart, and Lankavatara) are presented as actual discourses by Gautama Buddha upon the Earth.
davidmartin
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Re: A Japanese Model for Christian origins with a Jesus who never preached

Post by davidmartin »

ABuddhist wrote: Fri Nov 26, 2021 7:46 am With all due respect, though, the earliest surviving Christian literature (by which I refer to the authentic Pauline Letters, Hebrews, and Revelation to John) does not make reference to Jesus as healing people while upon Earth (nor healing at all) - unless I forget some verse or other.

I talk about a Jesus whose only noteworthy deed upon this Earth was getting crucified (presumably as part of some minor anti-Roman fracas which he did not even lead) - said anti-roman fracas may have later become expanded as Jesus's fictional occupation of part of the Temple.
Sure, i see that POV but S.Davies's take is the gospel account of Mark has some historic basis, and he riffs from there, discounting whatever he see's as secondary additions, and he see's Paul as one of those which isn't hard to do. Personally i think the idea of setting aside Mark and the historic stuff has too many problems but yeah it does have it's appeal as well. i've always been convinced a time traveller from the past who actually knew what went down would never be believed because of some detail that we wouldn't have evidence for!
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Jagd
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Re: A Japanese Model for Christian origins with a Jesus who never preached

Post by Jagd »

ABuddhist wrote: Thu Nov 25, 2021 5:19 pm I thought that the following point deserved its own forum thread.

As a counter to the assertion that Christianity cannot have arisen without a Jesus preaching upon the Earth, I cite for you the cult of Amitabha Buddha, which has endured for over 1 thousand years. Its central saviour figure, Amitabha Buddha, is not alleged by any person to have been upon the Earth, yet millions of people throughout history, inspired by the so-called Pure Land Sutras, have developed faith in Amitabha Buddha as their heavenly saviour ruling from Sukhavati (the Western Pure Land) and offering salvation to all people upon Earth with faith in him. Particularly well-documented is the spread of the cult of Amitabha Buddha in Japan, where there were organized missionary efforts, "revival meetings" (people gather to chant praises of Amitabha Buddha for hours), and even martyrs (people executed for refusing to abandon their belief that faith in Amitabha Buddha was the only way to avoid a bad rebirth) - all without anyone claiming that Amitabha Buddha had been upon this Earth. His divine and salvific power was said to save despite this lack of connection.

This model may be of use for both mythicists and advocates of minimal historicity (viz., a Jesus who was crucified upon the Earth but never preached upon the Earth).
An incredible point of reference, thank you for sharing! I just did a quick look at Amitabha Buddha (I'm also working my way through Buddhist texts in general, so I haven't gotten to the "level" of approaching Mahayana yet, haha) and it's funny to see people (probably westerners) asking "was he a real person?" and "was he a god?" It appears that the core of the Amitabha figure is the cause and source of salvation, with the aspects of him being a person, a god, a bodhisattva, a buddha, etc. sprouting out from that core. Incredible to also see the attributes of immeasurable light & life associated with him, since that parallels the deep emphasis on light and life in the Gospel of John (and even the Gospel of Thomas).

One could even compare the oldest, perhaps vague idea of the kingdom of god (which could also be called "the divine realm", based on the Greek) with the pure land. It appears that the Christian hero was similarly (and now I think firstly) a cause/source of salvation (as in eternal life), with the details later elaborated into the crucifixion story and the life narratives in general (in my understanding, the sayings/parables were probably the first things to be attributed to this figure).

I also didn't know that Pure Land Buddhism was at least as ancient as the first/second century! With provenance in Central Asia, too! For some reason I like the idea of a wandering pure land Buddhist traveling to Syria/Egypt and sharing material that becomes the basis for all Christianity (Dharma becomes gospel; one cannot help but see the striking parallel between the Christ versus Satan temptation and the Buddha versus Mara temptation, which appears to be one of the oldest parts of the Christ story). Even the healing miracles appear to be the removal of duḥkha!

Maybe good to also note that the earliest Christians seemed to see themselves as an isolated brotherhood (sangha) and in Acts "Christianity" is referred to as "the way" (as in "the path") which sounds very Buddhist.

Perhaps also good to note how Mani traced his lineage between Jesus and the Buddha (and Zarathustra, who also has a temptation story!).
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GakuseiDon
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Re: A Japanese Model for Christian origins with a Jesus who never preached

Post by GakuseiDon »

ABuddhist wrote: Thu Nov 25, 2021 5:19 pmIts central saviour figure, Amitabha Buddha, is not alleged by any person to have been upon the Earth, yet millions of people throughout history, inspired by the so-called Pure Land Sutras, have developed faith in Amitabha Buddha as their heavenly saviour ruling from Sukhavati (the Western Pure Land) and offering salvation to all people upon Earth with faith in him. Particularly well-documented is the spread of the cult of Amitabha Buddha in Japan, where there were organized missionary efforts, "revival meetings" (people gather to chant praises of Amitabha Buddha for hours), and even martyrs (people executed for refusing to abandon their belief that faith in Amitabha Buddha was the only way to avoid a bad rebirth) - all without anyone claiming that Amitabha Buddha had been upon this Earth. His divine and salvific power was said to save despite this lack of connection.
One thing that interests me is the lack of apparent visions of a heavenly Jesus reported in the early literature. Paul notes apparent appearances, but beyond that, the "age of revelation" (as I personally call it) seemed to have ended with Paul. Yet, to my mind, having a heavenly Jesus that was accessible with people on earth should have driven a lot more appearances stories than just Paul's.

Some options:
  1. No further significant appearances occurred at that early time, which I find hard to believe.
  2. There were stories of appearances but they were dropped by proto-orthodox editors since they didn't conform to the proto-orthodoxy of the time
  3. Some other reason
What about in the case of Amitabha Buddha? Were there many appearances reported in the early literature? Were places and times recorded with those appearances? Was he described at all? The comparison there might be interesting.
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