Bible Myths and their Parallels in other Religions by T. W. Doane

Author:T. W. Doane [Doane, T. W. (Thomas William)]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-07-31T00:00:00+00:00

Now, in regard to the antiquity of this work, we will quote the words of the translator in speaking on this subject.

First, he says:

"We know that the Fo-pen-hing was translated into Chinese from Sanscrit (the ancient language of Hindostan ) so early as the eleventh year of the reign of Wing-ping (Ming-ti), of the Han dynasty, i. e., 69 or 70 A. D. We may, therefore, safely suppose that the original work was in circulation in India for some time previous to this date. "[302:1]

Again, he says:

"There can be no doubt that the present work ( i. e. the Fo-pen-hing, or Hist. of Buddha) contains as a woof (so to speak) some of the earliest verses (Gâthas) in which the History of Buddha was sung, long before the work itself was penned.

"These Gâthas were evidently composed in different Prakrit forms (during a period of disintegration) before the more modern type of Sanscrit was fixed by the rules of Panini, and the popular epics of the Mâhabharata and the Ramâyana." [302:2]

Again, in speaking of the points of resemblance in the history of Buddha and Jesus, he says:

"These points of agreement with the Gospel narrative naturally arouse curiosity and require explanation. If we could prove that they (the legends related of Buddha) were unknown in the East for some centuries after Christ, the explanation would be easy. But all the evidence we have goes to prove the contrary.

"It would be a natural inference that many of the events in the legend of Buddha were borrowed from the Apocryphal Gospels, if we were quite certain that these Apocryphal Gospels had not borrowed from it. How then may we explain the matter? It would be better at once to say that in our present state of knowledge there is no complete explanation to offer." [302:3]

There certainly is no "complete explanation" to be offered by one who attempts to uphold the historical accuracy of the New Testament. The "Devil" and "Type" theories having vanished, like all theories built on sand, nothing now remains for the honest man to do but acknowledge the truth, which is, that the history of Jesus of Nazareth as related in the books of the New Testament, is simply a copy of that of Buddha, with a mixture of mythology borrowed from other nations. Ernest de Bunsen almost acknowledges this when he says:

"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. It is still more strange that these Buddhistic legends about Gautama as the Angel-Messiah refer to a doctrine which we find only in the Epistles of Paul and in the fourth Gospel. This can be

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