Talk:Buddhism and Christianity

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This article was nominated for deletion. Please review the prior discussions if you are considering re-nomination:

keep, October 25, 2006, see discussion.
no consensus, January 8, 2007, see discussion.
keep, July 10, 2007, see discussion.
no consensus, July 2, 2008, see discussion.

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Removed as WP:fringe

This paragraph removed:

According to the linguist Zacharias P. Thundy the name "Therapeutae" is simply an Hellenisation of the Pali term for the traditional Buddhist faith, "Theravada". The similarities between the monastic practices of the Therapeutae and Buddhist monastic practices have led to suggestions that the Therapeutae were in fact Buddhist monks who had reached Alexandria, descendants of Ashoka's emissaries to the West, and who influenced the early formation of Christianity. "The Original Jesus" (Element Books, Shaftesbury, 1995), Elmar R Gruber, Holger Kersten The evidence for this argument rests solely on the similarity of practices and the purported derivation of the name. There is no evidence from antiquity that supports this argument.

This sort of thing belongs on a blog, not Wikipedia. In ictu oculi (talk) 22:56, 7 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Good on you! This nonsensical speculation of Thundy's is all over the internet, this despite the fact he cannot decide himself if it should be "Theravada" or "Theraputra" that is the root of the sect of fanatically Sabbath keeping Jews described by Philo. Here is a good discussion of the word in Greek and its roots, which predate the birth of the Buddha: http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/b-greek/2005-January/032785.html

Gnuwhirled (talk) 01:16, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Merger proposal

There is an article Buddhism and Gnosticism which contains verbatim large chunks of this article. Since, beyond Elaine Pagel's invitation to Buddhist scholars to find parallels (I forget year/publication, can find it if needed) there is no evidence for any connection between Buddhism or Gnosticism and this is considered WP:fringe by scholars of both, does it need a separate article duplicating Buddhism and Christianity? In ictu oculi (talk) 23:35, 7 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it is worth noting that most of the similarities are not accepted by mainstream Christianity, Jesus and the Doves for example, comes from the Muslim Koran, not the Christian bible, other stories are from Gnostic literature. It should be pointed out that the stories Christians allegedly borrowed from Buddha are not widely accepted in the first place by 99% of those who call themselves Christians. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.112.74.47 (talk) 15:40, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It is also worth noting that the presence of an article or the inclusion of content is not determined by what most people accept or believe. With that said, the merger makes a lot of sense, so I support it. Viriditas (talk) 23:55, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Goodo, one more voice in favour and then let's get on and do it. In ictu oculi (talk) 10:29, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Here is the one more voice. Just do it. History2007 (talk) 06:30, 10 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to keep the articles separate. It's already very long now, and the separate article gives space for more information. Joshua Jonathan (talk) 11:53, 10 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I too would like to keep the articles separate, though the section in this article could use a better summary. I'm no religious scholar but from the looks of Buddhism and Gnosticism, it's no fringe theory. I don't see why that much information should be compromised due to someone's religious bias. SweetNightmares (awaken) 03:58, 13 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Restructuring

What a long article! I've restructured it, as is clear from the contents. I hope this improves the readability. Friendly regards, Joshua Jonathan (talk) 11:53, 10 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Original Research

Bible quotes to underscore a point of view cannot be regarded as encyclopedic. In my opinion, this is OR. Joshua Jonathan (talk) 09:13, 11 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Article needs THOROUGH revision

The importance of interfaith relations between Buddhism and Christianity is indicated by the existence of an academic journal (Buddhist-Christian Studies) devoted to the subject. However, this article ignores this dimension in favor of a parade of speculative (at best) theories about Christian origins. These should be reduced to a paragraph or so, limiting the text to the most noteworthy ones (e.g. Nicolas Notovitch representing occult writers, and Marcus Borg's book Jesus and Buddha: The Parallel Sayings for more scholarly fare), with no effort to reproduce their arguments. Coverage here should be parallel to Wikipedia's article on Jewish-Buddhist relations (including the multiply-identified Jubus. --Dawud