Hindu Appropriation of Jesus Christ



 [AMAIC: The following article has biblical errors, but it does show the clear likenesses between

the Lord Jesus Christ and Lord Krishna]

Tuesday, February 1, 2011


Is Jesus Christ derived from Lord Krishna?

Have you every noticed the amazingly coincidental similarity between these two names - Jesus Christ and Lord Krishna - and asked yourselves, why the names of two major religious figures in two major religious are exactly the same? Have you every looked at the evolution of religions and wondered if it's possible that Christianity is actually derived from Hinduism (partly the story of Lord Krishna)? Well, you're not the only one! Many leading experts believe that not only the name Jesus Christ is a derivative of Lord Krishna, but also, the religion of Christianity might be partially and fully derived from Hinduism! [sic, or vice versa]

 

Once we start comparing Christianity and the teachings of Christ with the life and teaching of Lord Krishna (and Hinduism in general), we immediately start seeing glaring similarities in the two. It would be naive to assume that these similarities are purely coincidental/circumstantial and that Christianity evolved all by itself to have the name of it's main deity to be exactly the same as one of the Trinity in Hinduism, among other obvious similarities!

 

Let's analyze some of these similarities -

 

Similarities between Krishna's father Vasudev and Christ's father Joseph - Joseph had eleven brothers (in Matthew's genealogy), meaning they were all 12 brothers. The name "Vasudev" is actually a part of the famous Hindu "12 syllable mantra". Now, this one similarity in numbers might be disregarded by Christian skeptics as a coincidence, but when we start looking deeper into different versions of Bible (yes, Bible has many versions and sometimes contradictory stories), we find that this number 12 is repeated again and again in the life of Jesus. For example, the last time we see Joseph in any of the gospels is also when Jesus was 12 years old (this is found in the story of passover visit to the temple in Luke). Matthew's genealogy also is organized into three tesseradecads and the last of those connects Joseph to Zerubbabel through 12 generations (excluding Joseph because he is a descendent), and we note that this number 12 shows up all over again. Many experts believe that these changes to genealogy are deliberate and there are plenty of contradictions regarding both Joseph and Jesus's genealogy, but one thing that always shows up is this number 12! In Hinduism though there are no contradictions at all and Vasudev always has been associated with the 12 syllable mantra, this has also lead to the use of number 12 in various social rituals as well without any contradictions/confusions. But in Christianity, it's seems as if many attempts have been made to fit this number 12 in relation to Joseph/Jesus at various places over time as Bible evolved from the earliest old testament to today's version. Also, the fact that Joseph is supposedly added in the gospels of Matthew and Luke but not in the early epistles of Paul, has interested many scholars because it shows that the exchange of knowledge (number 12 for example), happened from Hinduism to Christianity and not the other way round. Finally, everyone knows that Jesus dined with 12 apostles in the last supper, which again is intriguing when we see it in terms of so many other such seemingly unrelated Christian stories throughout different versions of Bible. But why were early Christian scholars trying to introduce this number? Where did they learn about this number from? The only answer that prominent experts would agree on is that it originated in Hinduism.Now I ask any Chritian skeptics, do you still disagree? How can you explain this uncanny similarity between the mortal fathers of both Krishna and Jesus?? It's clear as a day that the early Christians took Hinduism and the legends of Lord Krishna and distorted it into their Bible in multiple stories over time.

 

Krishna means "of darker color" and Christ means "covered in dark/olive oil" - Now, this one is obviously almost exactly the same and makes even the most skeptic Christians wonder how can even the names have exactly the same meaning! Some Christian skeptics have gone on to claim that Christ doesn't mean dark and rather, it means "anointed", which is a valid point because "anointed" indeed is one of the old translations of the word "Christ". But then we ask the simple question: How would an "anointed" person look like? Would he look somewhat discolored? Would he look darker? The answer to these questions is a resounding yes! Just think about it for a second, if I cover myself with any anointments, would the color of my skin change to darker? Yes, it would. If someone is still skeptic, we went deeper into the Hebrew language and found that the word "Chrism" actually refers to anointment by Olive oil! A person covered with olive oil will certainly look darker and can be thought of as "of darker color" or in other words - "Krishna"! The similarity in both the name Krishna and Christ but also the very meaning of the names - "Dark color" and "Covered with dark (Olive) oil" - are uncanny and can't be refuted. It's not hard to surmise that the early Christians were aware of the name "Krishna" and it's meaning and significance and they modeled the name "Christ" exactly after "Krishna" both in the meaning and the intent.

 

Both Christ and Krishna were known to be threatened by the local ruler when they were young. Both have very similar stories - In Krishna's case, it was Kansa (also known as Kamsa) who wanted to kill him. He tried to imprison Krishna's parents but they were able to flee and survive in time. Surprisingly, Jesus Christ has a very similar story as well in which the evil king Herod actually issued a royal decree to warrant Christ's death. Further, Kansa killed all offsprings of Devaki trying to ensure that Lord Krishna would also die as one of the children; this same story also shows up in Bible as the story of the Massacre of Innocents in Matthew where King Herod ordered that all young children in Bethlehem be killed to ensure Jesus' death. Also, just as in the case of Lord Krishna, Christ's parents (Mary and Joseph) survived in a very similar fashion. Lord Krishna grew up in Vrindavan hidden away from Kansa while Jesus grew up in Egypt in hiding from Herod. Since the stories are so surprisingly similar, it's not difficult to see why the Christian version might be derived from then existing Hindu version.

 

Both Christ and Krishna were divine beings / "sons of God" walking on the earth as mortals - This one is obvious but extremely important because of the fact that Christ is not depicted as an angel or a jinni or some other supernatural creature in the Bible! Instead, Christ is considered the Son of God Himself! This is intriguing because Christian myths are full of all manners of supernatural/divine creatures sent by God to earth for various purposes; but why ONLY Christ is the son of God? Why are not all the angels also sons of God? The answer becomes obvious when we draw parallels with Hinduism: Lord Krishna is an Avatar of Lord Vishnu. This is why He is not same as minor gods, pretas and other creatures. Lord Krishna is a conscious manifestation of God Himself. Now if Christ were to come from Krishna, it's logical to assume that the early Christians took the Hindu story of Lord Krishna and transformed it into their own versions/interpretations, but the main details like being Son/Avatar of God stayed the same.

 

Both Christ and Krishna clearly state that the only way to salvation is through them - Lord Krishna, in Bhagwat Geeta, states that Moksha is attained by those who completely surrender to Him and Him alone. Those who do not surrender to Lord Krishna and rather worship false gods will not attain Moksha/Salvation/Nirvana. In Bible, Jesus Christ again asserts, in exactly the same fashion, that the only real way of attaining salvation is by accepting Jesus as your lord and savior! Please also note that this is a somewhat unique case because it doesn't apply to other Abrahamic religions. For example, Mohammed, in Islamic traditions, doesn't claim that salvation can be attained only by accepting Mohammed as our lord and savior. Only Jesus claims, exactly the same as Lord Krishna does, that we must accept Him as the lord and savior to attain true salvation. The similarities are again obvious!

 

Similarities between Christ's Cross and Lord Krishna's Maharoopa/Vishwaroopa - Now this one would require atleast one full book to fully analyze as the philosophical and religious implications of both are truly immense. I'll probably cover it more completely in later articles but here let me briefly mention that the Cross signifies Christ's willingness to accept all the sins/pains in the world. In other words, Cross implies that the results of all the actions of humans in the world go to the Christ. This is exactly the same as what Lord Krishna implies in the Maharoopa when he says that all results of all actions of all beings go to him. This is just one similarity between the Cross and Maharoopa, but the readers would certainly see more as they look deeper.

 

So we see that the similarities between Jesus Christ and Lord Krishna, and consequently Christianity and Hinduism, are unmistakable from linguistics, philosophical, religious, historical and mythical perspectives! There are hundreds of more similarities that clearly prove that Christianity is simply a distorted or perhaps a misinterpreted version of a facet of Hinduism!

 

....
 
Taken from: http://www.hinduisminfo.com/2011/02/christ-krishna-christianity-hinduism.html

Abraham in Greek Mythology

 

by

 

John R. Salverda

[The AMAIC considers the Middle East – West comparisons of John R. Salverda as interesting, with some of them we think being very likely. But we do not necessarily agree with all of the following]

Abraham and the Minyan Athamas

Contents:


Minyans, Kurds, Armenians, and UR.

Thessalians.

Abraham and the Ram-Lamb?

The Almost-Consummated Sacrifice of the Son!

Competing Wives and their Allegorical Significance.

Isaac and the Mountain.

Different Hebrew Traditions Coalesced in Greek Mythology.



Minyans, Kurds, Armenians, and UR

The Athamas of Greek Mythology, as the King of Orchomenus a city founded by Minyas, was a well known Minyan. Abraham and his family were said to have been from Ur of the Chaldees. These two statements fit together because the Minyans were the Armenians (Ur-Manneans indicating those from the mountains [ur] of Minni), and the Armenians of Urartu were famously known as the Chaldians of Urartu. This is the land where Noahs ark landed, and the People of Noahs land, could build ships, (The Greek word for ship, is plausibly derived from the very name of Noah, naus) and they were very colonial. The Minni, named in connection with Ararat, by Jeremiah (from Jeremiah 51:27), are the same People as those mentioned by Josephus (quoting Nicolaus of Damascus), who uses the Greek form Minyas, (Antiquities i. I. 6,) to indicate a place in Armenia, the country where Noahs Ark landed. Thus there are fairly convincing connections between the Greek, Minyas, and the Armenians. Historians know well these People and call them the Manneans, or the kingdom of Van. This group lived in the mountains, (alternately known as, the Gordyan or Cordyaean mountains by Berosus, and as, the Chaldean mountains by Xenophon,) where Noahs ark landed. The Chaldeans are the descendants of Noahs grandson, Arpachshad. Abraham was one of these Chaldeans. These three closely related peoples, the Armenians, the Hebrews, and the Minyans, knew about each others existence, and they kept in touch in ancient times. Since the Manneans, are known to have been largely composed of Hurrians it seems reasonable to assume that the Hurrians were so called after Ur, the homeland of Abraham (The pre-Canaan home of Abraham, the city of Haran, named for Abrahams brother, and the surrounding quod-city area, including the cities of Nahor, named for either Abrahams brother or his grandfather, Pethor the home of Balaam, and Carchemish were also settled, according to modern archaeologists, by the Hurrians.). The theory that Abraham came from the city of Ur in Sumer dies slowly, but surely. As has been argued by Prof. Cyrus Gordon and others, Abraham was a nomadic herdsman, he was from the mountains of Noah, the ship builder, with specialized abilities like knot tying for the rigging of canvas, astral navigation for nomadic travels, and he had herds for wealth, (goats and sheep, animals that are specialized for the mountains,) he was not a city dwelling farmer, like the Sumerians, and obviously did not come from the urban centers of the plains of Shinar.

 

Thessalians

Trading merchandise, stories, and perhaps even adventurous tourism, would go between Greece and the Minyans by way of a seafaring, horse breeding People, who also had ties to the Minyan culture called, the Thekel, (the Thekelwesh, of the Sea Peoples,) more familiarly known as, the Thessalians or Thessalonians, a name they adopted about 825 BC. The People of Thessaly, were from the Levant, and were a branch of the Aeolians, the sons of Aeolus, (plausibly from Eloah [god], with the usual Greek suffix, -us appended) the Hebrews knew of these People and called them, the sons of Elishah. The Aeolians traded extensively with the people of the land of Canaan, (see Ezekiel 27:9-25) and, gray colored, Minyan ware, (as it is so called by modern archaeologists who find it scattered throughout northern Greece and southern Thrace from the time preceding the Troy VI period), likely came from the Maneans down through the Mitanni to the coastal cities on the Cyprus corner of the Mediterranean sea, from there the goods were carried over sea by the Aeolians of Thessaly, to northern Greece and Thrace. The Thessalians, as is evidenced by the story of the Argonautica (often referred to as the Minyan tale), were also familiar with another oversea route, between Armenia and Greece, through the Black Sea.

 

Abraham and the Ram-Lamb?

The Minyans, as Hurrians from Armenia, knew well the story of the Hebrew, Abraham, they called him Athamas. The Minyans most likely got their, only slightly tainted, version of the story, brought over by migrants from the area of Carchemish and therefore named its Greek colony at the city of Orchomenus (a plausible transliteration, and supposed by some to have been founded by Athamas himself) after the place. Even a cursory comparison of the two supposedly unrelated stories displays them as remarkably coincidental. Athamas began a movement toward, the abolition of, that age old and wide spread, religious concept, human sacrifice (as well as its companion tradition, cannibalism). Although we praise Abraham for his role in this abolition, it seems that some factions (mainly, the Achaeans) of the ancient Greeks, were of a different opinion. They considered their Abrahamic equivalent Athamas, and his descendants as well, to be cursed for their part in the civilizing of mankind (See Herodotus 7. 197 Athamas the son of Aeolus contrived death for Phrixus, having taken counsel with Ino, and after this how by command of an oracle the Achaeans propose to his descendants the following tasks to be performed: whosoever is the eldest of this race, he is brought forth to the sacrifice. This is done to the descendants of Kytissoros the son of Phrixus, because, he brought the wrath of the gods upon his own descendants.). In both cases, whether Scripture or myth, the abolition of human sacrifice in favor of animal sacrifice (the ram) is the obvious message of the story. Pausanias describes a statue depicting the sacrifice of this ram; "There is also a statue of Phrixus the son of Athamas carried ashore to the Colchians by the ram. Having sacrificed the animal, he has cut out the thighs in accordance with Greek custom and is watching them as they burn." (Pausanias, Description of Greece 1. 24. 2) Take note of the Greek custom of cutting out the thighs as if to make the sacrifice Kosher. There is no doubt in my mind as to where they got such a notion.

 

The Almost-Consummated Sacrifice of the Son!

Intricate details of Abrahams life appear as parts of the Greek myth as well, I cant think of another pair, of ancient stories which are so similar, and yet so seldom compared! Both Abraham and Athamas were divinely commanded to sacrifice, each their own son, with a knife on a mountain top, and each was about to comply when the child was saved, each by the miraculous appearance of a ram. The ram was considered to have been supplied by God, and was said to have been acceptable to Him as a replacement sacrifice instead of the son of man. ... The symbol of the sacrificed lamb of god, appears in the Greek Myth, complete with an association to the Hebrew story of the garden of Eden, for the quest of the Argonauts, like the Biblical quest of all mankind, hangs in (nailed to) a tree, in a sacred grove, there is a serpent, and the way is guarded. Phrixos sacrificed the golden-fleeced ram to Zeus Phyxios, but gave its fleece to Aetes, who nailed it to an oak tree in a grove of Ares." (See Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 1. 80) "The fleece in Colchis and the apples of the Hesperides, since they seemed to be of gold, two serpents that never slept guarded and claimed as their own." (Philostratus the Elder, Imagines 2. 17. 6) This association begs for the conclusion that these Greeks had some knowledge about the Hebrew concept of the original sin as well as the hopeful promise of the Messiah. No doubt they did, for they knew many intricate details of the Hebrew story, including the sophisticated religious symbolism inherent in the parable of Abrahams two wives.

 

Competing Wives and their Allegorical Significance.

Both Abraham, and Athamas, are said to have had a pair of competing wives each of whom were obvious allegories of differing religious concepts. Offspring was gotten from each of the wives, and the quarrel concerned, whose offspring, and their attending religious concept, would be favored, this is true in both stories. Ino is the Greek equivalent of Hagar from the Hebrew story, while Nephele is the counterpart of Sarah. Consider the Ino, Hagar identification first; The Greeks considered Ino to be the loser of the wifely quarrel, she was exiled and had to flee from her family home, with her half dead child in her arms, (Gen. 21:14,15) to the point of her death, when god intervened, granting Ino powerful miraculous abilities over water, thus saving the lives of Ino and her son Melicertes and appointing them to become great religious icons among the People who lived in the land of her exile, which we are told in the myth, was Corinth in Greece. Except for the location and names, all of these motifs are straight from the life of Hagar, who was looked upon as symbolic of earthly Zion, the covenant with slavery and death (Gal. 4 :22-31).

 

On the other hand, Sarah was symbolic of freedom, the Heavenly Zion, the wife of God (also in Gal. 4 :22-31). Now, Consider the identification of Nephele with Sarah; Nephele was created as a duplicate of Hera, the heavenly wife of god, "Zeus formed a figure of Hera out of cloud (Nephele) (Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 4. 69. 4) "a Cloud (Nephele)? its form was like the supreme celestial goddess, the daughter of Kronos. The hands of Zeus set it as a trap for him, a beautiful misery (Pindar, Pythian Ode 2. 32 ff). Zeus fashioned a Cloud (Nephele) to look like Hera (Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca E1. 20). Hers were the favored offspring, who were carried off to the Egyptian land, (That Colchis [in the Caucasus] was an Egyptian land we learn from Herodotus who says:

There can be no doubt that the Colchians are an Egyptian race. Before I heard any mention of the fact from others, I had remarked it myself. After the thought had struck me, I made inquiries on the subject both in Colchis and in Egypt, and I found that the Colchians had a more distinct recollection of the Egyptians, than the Egyptians had of them. Still the Egyptians said that they believed the Colchians to be descended from the [Egyptian] army of Sesostris (Herodotus Histories 2.104) from which they eventually had a miraculous epic deliverance (Argonautica).

 

Isaac and the Mountain.

 

On the day of Isaac's being weaned, Ishmael was caught taunting of Isaac over heirship. (Gen. 21 :8, 9) ... Phrixus, the fugitive, was the son of Nephele. The Greek myth likewise connects the conflict between the heirs with the exile to the Egyptian land and eventual deliverance of Phrixus, when his bones and descendants are brought back home with the Argonauts. Phrixus sacrificed the ram at its own suggestion to Zeus alone, because he is the god of fugitives;" (Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 2. 1141 ff) See how Apollonius in writing the Argonautica looks upon the sacrifice of the ram to be to the one god, Zeus alone, and further note the phrase the god of fugitives as it may relate to the god of Abram who was a stranger in the lands of Canaan and Egypt and the eventual epic deliverance of Israel. If you study the story of Athamas you will come across the term, "Laphystius" which is a surname of Zeus and is associated with the mountain upon which Athamas nearly sacrificed his son, it is derived from the verb "laphussein", meaning "to flee" and is apparently synonymous with the similarly used term "Phyxius" (Paus. i. 24. 2, ix. 34. 4.). Phyzius means "the god who protects fugitives" and occurs as a title of Zeus that is often used for him in Thessaly (Schol. ad Apollon. Rhod. ii. 1147, iv. 699; Paus. ii. 21. 3, iii. 17. 8).

And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years (Gen 15:13).

Different Hebrew Traditions Coalesced in Greek Mythology.

 

There was a famous famine in the land of Athamas that precipitated and instigated the sacrifice and exile of his offspring Phrixus. "The oracle prophesied an end to the dearth if Phrixos were to be sacrificed to Zeus. When Athamas heard this and was pressured by the joint efforts of the inhabitants, he had Phrixos placed on the altar. (See Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 1. 80) Now, it was a famine, or a dearth as Pseudo-Apollodorus would have called it, that drove Israel into the Egyptian realm and placed them under the suzerainty of the son of the sun god. However there must have been some confusion among the Greek mythographers concerning the chronology of the events for they seem to have compressed three generations of Hebrew history (those of Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph), into one generation (that of Phrixus) of Greek mythology. Phrixus is the Minyan version of Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, all rolled into one. As Isaac he is almost offered up as a sacrifice by his father on a mountain top, but is saved at the last minute by the miraculous appearance of a ram. As Jacob he goes off to the Egyptian land where he stays until the end of his life. In each case his descendants returned and his bones are carried back home for burial (this is also true of Joseph). As Joseph, Phrixus has an episode with the wife of Cretheus. Cretheus had Demodice as wife; others name her Biadice. Moved by the beauty of Phrixus, son of Athamas, she fell in love with him, and could not obtain from him favor in return; so, driven by necessity, she accused him to Cretheus, saying that he had attacked her, and many similar things that women say (Hyginus Astronomica 2.20). This is an obvious doublet of the same story told about Joseph with the wife of Potiphar. Later Phrixus was given the daughter of the son of Helios (the same Helios whom the Greeks associated with the Egyptian city of Heliopolis) to wed, just as Joseph was wed to the daughter of the High Priest at Heliopolis. Aeetes, the son of Helios received him (Phrixus) and gave him Khalkiope, one of his daughters (See Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 1. 80). Famines played an important role in the Hebrew story as well. And there was a famine in the land: and Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there; for the famine was grievous in the land. (Gen 12:10) and again, And there was a famine in the land, beside the first famine that was in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went unto Abimelech king of the Philistines unto Gerar. (Gen 26:1). Evidently the famine in the days of Abram was so well known that it had to be distinguished from the later famine of Isaac's time. The grievous famine of Abram drove him into the land of Egypt, just as the later famine had done in the days of his descendants Jacob and Joseph. Perhaps it was this feature, the fact that both famines had driven the Hebrews, as fugitives or sojourners, into the land of Egypt, that had mislead the Greeks into combining the two events. Of course, the story of the epic deliverance, in one instance the Exodus and in the other the Argonautica, would serve as the continuation and conclusion in both cases.

 

It truly stretches credulity to imagine that these two widely spread versions of apparently the same story could have been written by two different peoples, the Greeks and the Hebrews, without awareness of one another, as if by instinct. The Greeks who wrote of Athamas obviously had, not only passing, but intricate knowledge, not only of the story, but much of the theology connected to the history of the Hebrew Abraham.

 

--

 

-John R. Salverda

 

For more articles by John R. Salverda on the Hebraic Connections of Greek Mythology, see:

"Helleno-Yishurin. The Hebrew Origin of Greek Legends"