Did Jesus ever travel to India to learn from Eastern Religions
Did Jesus ever go to India?
There is no biblical support for the idea that Jesus ever traveled to India. The only two recorded times Jesus left the land now known as Israel is when he traveled to Egypt as an infant (Matthew 2:13-21), and when he traveled to nearby areas such as Tyre and Sidon (Mark 7:24). The only story of Jesus’ childhood is found in the Gospel of Luke, where Jesus at the age of twelve was teaching in the Temple, (Luke 2:41-52). From Jesus' birth to the age of twelve, there is no information about Jesus, and from the age of twelve to about thirty, there is no Biblical information about Jesus. These two gaps in the story have led many to speculate as to what Jesus did in the years where nothing is recorded in the Bible.
There are several competing views of Jesus’ activity during these years. The orthodox position is that Jesus grew up in Nazareth and learned the craftsman’s trade under Joseph, his father. Then, around the age of thirty, Jesus began his ministry. Jesus himself says that Nazareth was his hometown, where he grew up. People also knew that he was Joseph’s son, suggesting that Jesus lived a public life in the small town of Nazareth until his ministry.
The Infancy Gospel of Thomas, which was not written by the Apostle Thomas and was not written until around the 2nd-3rd century AD, attempts to fill in the gaps of Jesus' life with tales of a temperamental Jesus. In these tales, Jesus uses his divine powers to make birds out of clay, He saves his brother James from a snake bite, and He even curses a boy to death. The inconsistency in the nature of Jesus and His odd behavior is just one of the many reasons the Gnostic Gospels are not taken as historical accounts of Jesus’ life. There are few, if any, serious scholars who read these apocryphal tales of Jesus portrayed as the malevolent trickster and see them as historical accounts.
The third view of Jesus' undocumented years is that supposedly Jesus journeyed to India to learn the secrets of Hinduism and Buddhism from Eastern gurus. Within Eastern religions, there are several sources that make this claim, but none of them have definitive proof. Some Eastern traditions even believe that Jesus survived the crucifixion and traveled to India for safety until he died around the age of 120. In these stories, Jesus is commonly identified as the Kashmiri saint, Issa Yuz Asaf ("Jesus Son of Joseph"). Many of these stories derive from a Russian correspondent who claimed to have visited India in the 19th century, where he learned of the life of Issa. In 1895, James Archibald Douglas, professor of English and History in England, visited the Hemis Monastery to investigate the claims of Nicolas Notovitch. Douglas debunked Notovitch's claims of a secret manuscript detailing Jesus's life and travels in India.
There are many Eastern gurus who perpetuate the myth that Jesus traveled to India. One of the most recent authors to promote this view is Holger Kersten, who wrote, “Jesus Lived in India: His Unknown Life Before and After the Crucifixion (1994). Kersten presents little evidence for his claim and is not taken seriously in biblical scholarship. Even the Biblical skeptic Bart Ehrman examines many of the modern writings claiming that Jesus traveled to India, and comments that the stories are filled with implausibilities and inaccuracies. Ehrman wrote, the “The Apocryphal idea that Jesus traveled to India as a child to learn from the Brahmins, comes to us not from ancient forgeries but relatively modern ones.” Ehrman dismisses any possibility of Jesus traveling to India, concluding “The real facts, however, are that these mysterious accounts have uniformly been exposed as fabrications perpetrated by well-meaning or mischievous writers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries… Today, there is not a recognized scholar on the planet who has any doubts about the matter.”[1]
It is fascinating that despite the lack of historical evidence for the claim that Jesus traveled to India, the mythical legend is still promoted. The best argument for Jesus’ traveling to India is an argument from silence. An argument from silence is a logical fallacy because it treats the absence of evidence as evidence itself. In this case, the conclusion of Eastern influence upon Jesus is based not on evidence, but rather on what is missing from a text. The undocumented years of Jesus' life not recorded in the canonized Gospels leaves the door open for voices of conjecture and fanciful storytelling.
To be fair, there are broad connections between Jesus’ teachings and various Eastern religious teachings, such as a shared emphasis on love and compassion, the importance of detachment from material possessions, and the call for inner spiritual transformation. These broad connections cease when we look at the core teachings that divide Eastern theology and Biblical teachings. Jesus never taught anything that resembles samsara (reincarnation) or anatman (no-self)? Jesus taught of objective morality dependent upon God who is external from creation. In Jesus’ teachings, morality and justice have nothing to do with karma. Jesus was a Jewish teacher, with his instructions spanning the entirety of the Bible, firmly rooted in a Jewish worldview. It is theologically irresponsible to make any suggested connection between the core tenants of Jesus’ teachings about Eastern religions when Jesus claimed to be the only way to God, thus illuminating all other options such as Hinduism and Buddhism.
Lately, I have given pause to the perpetuation of these mythological stories and tried to look at the lie from a motive perspective, asking, “Why do so many people want and even need Jesus to have traveled to India?” My belief is that those who seek to harmonize Jesus and Eastern religious teachings actually harm the core tenets of both religious views. The perpetuation of the myth of Jesus’ supposed travels to India is an attempt to divert our attention from Jesus’ own claims to be the Son of God. By downplaying Jesus’ deity or even denying his divinity, the door is open for other religions to be true, which leaves Jesus as a liar or a lunatic. Thus, the Eastern religions are constantly referring to Jesus as a good teacher, a rabbi, a prophet, a sage or a guru. In an effort to bring Christ down or lessen his authority, many of the mythological stories of Jesus’ travel to India also deny his death and resurrection. By denying the death and resurrection of Christ, Jesus can be remade in any image we want because we have discarded the historical figure and the very heart of Biblical faith. If this is indeed the motive behind the perpetuation of this clear lie, then it is the work of Satan to distort the truth of God and lead people astray. By creating confusion around the identity of Jesus, Satan can disillusion an entire generation and bring the identity and teaching of Jesus down to a level where they are no more important or factual than any other guru or Eastern teacher.
There is no evidence of any credible historical account that should be considered factual or within the teachings of Jesus himself that would lead any scholar to believe he was influenced by Eastern theology or travels to India. The evidence against such a claim is solid and firmly based against an argument from silence. Which takes me back to my original pondering: what is the motive behind such a claim, and why are so many people ready to believe in something without evidence?
[1] https://ehrmanblog.org/did-jesus-go-to-india-a-modern-gospel-forgery/
There is no biblical support for the idea that Jesus ever traveled to India. The only two recorded times Jesus left the land now known as Israel is when he traveled to Egypt as an infant (Matthew 2:13-21), and when he traveled to nearby areas such as Tyre and Sidon (Mark 7:24). The only story of Jesus’ childhood is found in the Gospel of Luke, where Jesus at the age of twelve was teaching in the Temple, (Luke 2:41-52). From Jesus' birth to the age of twelve, there is no information about Jesus, and from the age of twelve to about thirty, there is no Biblical information about Jesus. These two gaps in the story have led many to speculate as to what Jesus did in the years where nothing is recorded in the Bible.
There are several competing views of Jesus’ activity during these years. The orthodox position is that Jesus grew up in Nazareth and learned the craftsman’s trade under Joseph, his father. Then, around the age of thirty, Jesus began his ministry. Jesus himself says that Nazareth was his hometown, where he grew up. People also knew that he was Joseph’s son, suggesting that Jesus lived a public life in the small town of Nazareth until his ministry.
The Infancy Gospel of Thomas, which was not written by the Apostle Thomas and was not written until around the 2nd-3rd century AD, attempts to fill in the gaps of Jesus' life with tales of a temperamental Jesus. In these tales, Jesus uses his divine powers to make birds out of clay, He saves his brother James from a snake bite, and He even curses a boy to death. The inconsistency in the nature of Jesus and His odd behavior is just one of the many reasons the Gnostic Gospels are not taken as historical accounts of Jesus’ life. There are few, if any, serious scholars who read these apocryphal tales of Jesus portrayed as the malevolent trickster and see them as historical accounts.
The third view of Jesus' undocumented years is that supposedly Jesus journeyed to India to learn the secrets of Hinduism and Buddhism from Eastern gurus. Within Eastern religions, there are several sources that make this claim, but none of them have definitive proof. Some Eastern traditions even believe that Jesus survived the crucifixion and traveled to India for safety until he died around the age of 120. In these stories, Jesus is commonly identified as the Kashmiri saint, Issa Yuz Asaf ("Jesus Son of Joseph"). Many of these stories derive from a Russian correspondent who claimed to have visited India in the 19th century, where he learned of the life of Issa. In 1895, James Archibald Douglas, professor of English and History in England, visited the Hemis Monastery to investigate the claims of Nicolas Notovitch. Douglas debunked Notovitch's claims of a secret manuscript detailing Jesus's life and travels in India.
There are many Eastern gurus who perpetuate the myth that Jesus traveled to India. One of the most recent authors to promote this view is Holger Kersten, who wrote, “Jesus Lived in India: His Unknown Life Before and After the Crucifixion (1994). Kersten presents little evidence for his claim and is not taken seriously in biblical scholarship. Even the Biblical skeptic Bart Ehrman examines many of the modern writings claiming that Jesus traveled to India, and comments that the stories are filled with implausibilities and inaccuracies. Ehrman wrote, the “The Apocryphal idea that Jesus traveled to India as a child to learn from the Brahmins, comes to us not from ancient forgeries but relatively modern ones.” Ehrman dismisses any possibility of Jesus traveling to India, concluding “The real facts, however, are that these mysterious accounts have uniformly been exposed as fabrications perpetrated by well-meaning or mischievous writers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries… Today, there is not a recognized scholar on the planet who has any doubts about the matter.”[1]
It is fascinating that despite the lack of historical evidence for the claim that Jesus traveled to India, the mythical legend is still promoted. The best argument for Jesus’ traveling to India is an argument from silence. An argument from silence is a logical fallacy because it treats the absence of evidence as evidence itself. In this case, the conclusion of Eastern influence upon Jesus is based not on evidence, but rather on what is missing from a text. The undocumented years of Jesus' life not recorded in the canonized Gospels leaves the door open for voices of conjecture and fanciful storytelling.
To be fair, there are broad connections between Jesus’ teachings and various Eastern religious teachings, such as a shared emphasis on love and compassion, the importance of detachment from material possessions, and the call for inner spiritual transformation. These broad connections cease when we look at the core teachings that divide Eastern theology and Biblical teachings. Jesus never taught anything that resembles samsara (reincarnation) or anatman (no-self)? Jesus taught of objective morality dependent upon God who is external from creation. In Jesus’ teachings, morality and justice have nothing to do with karma. Jesus was a Jewish teacher, with his instructions spanning the entirety of the Bible, firmly rooted in a Jewish worldview. It is theologically irresponsible to make any suggested connection between the core tenants of Jesus’ teachings about Eastern religions when Jesus claimed to be the only way to God, thus illuminating all other options such as Hinduism and Buddhism.
Lately, I have given pause to the perpetuation of these mythological stories and tried to look at the lie from a motive perspective, asking, “Why do so many people want and even need Jesus to have traveled to India?” My belief is that those who seek to harmonize Jesus and Eastern religious teachings actually harm the core tenets of both religious views. The perpetuation of the myth of Jesus’ supposed travels to India is an attempt to divert our attention from Jesus’ own claims to be the Son of God. By downplaying Jesus’ deity or even denying his divinity, the door is open for other religions to be true, which leaves Jesus as a liar or a lunatic. Thus, the Eastern religions are constantly referring to Jesus as a good teacher, a rabbi, a prophet, a sage or a guru. In an effort to bring Christ down or lessen his authority, many of the mythological stories of Jesus’ travel to India also deny his death and resurrection. By denying the death and resurrection of Christ, Jesus can be remade in any image we want because we have discarded the historical figure and the very heart of Biblical faith. If this is indeed the motive behind the perpetuation of this clear lie, then it is the work of Satan to distort the truth of God and lead people astray. By creating confusion around the identity of Jesus, Satan can disillusion an entire generation and bring the identity and teaching of Jesus down to a level where they are no more important or factual than any other guru or Eastern teacher.
There is no evidence of any credible historical account that should be considered factual or within the teachings of Jesus himself that would lead any scholar to believe he was influenced by Eastern theology or travels to India. The evidence against such a claim is solid and firmly based against an argument from silence. Which takes me back to my original pondering: what is the motive behind such a claim, and why are so many people ready to believe in something without evidence?
[1] https://ehrmanblog.org/did-jesus-go-to-india-a-modern-gospel-forgery/
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