Scholars Get Closer to Words of Buddha as They Unravel Oldest Buddhist

[RevBates]

The oldest Buddhist scrolls ever discovered were made on birch bark and spent two millennia folded in clay pots, in a cave, situated along the northern border of Afghanistan and Pakistan, and now they’re bringing team of researchers “close, very close” to the words of Buddha.

In 1994, around 200 scrolls were discovered in clay pots in a cave on the Afghanistan and Pakistan, in the ancient kingdom of Gandhara , left behind by a culture which flourished between 100 BC and 200 AD.

https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/gandhara-scrolls-buddha-0012146

[Jonathan H. B. Lobl]

Thank you.  This is interesting.

 

 

[mark 45]

very much so.

[RevBogovac]

Quote

“[...] Buddhism was transmitted from India to China and elsewhere, to become one of the world's great religions.”

 

So Buddhism is a religion now...? 🤔

 

[Key]

3 hours ago, RevBogovac said:

 

So Buddhism is a religion now...? 🤔

 

Generally accepted as much by the modern populace without direct knowledge on the subject.

[Jonathan H. B. Lobl]

4 hours ago, RevBogovac said:

 

So Buddhism is a religion now...? 🤔

 

 

 

I seriously doubt that this is what Buddha intended.  I also doubt that Buddha intended a professional monk class.  Well, once you have professional clergy -- and seminaries -- the rest follows.  What are they teaching the lay people?  The best karma of all, flows from feeding the monks and supporting the temples.  

 

 

 

[Jonathan H. B. Lobl]

41 minutes ago, Key said:

Generally accepted as much by the modern populace without direct knowledge on the subject.

 

 

We could quote the Bible.  (Ecc.)  "There is nothing new under Heaven."       

 

 

[RevBates]

5 hours ago, RevBogovac said:

 

So Buddhism is a religion now...? 🤔

 

No it's not really but I guess some practiciners might consider it one.

[Jonathan H. B. Lobl]

3 minutes ago, RevBates said:

No it's not really but I guess some practiciners might consider it one.

 

 

There are Buddhists who will tell us, that Buddhism is a practice -- suitable for followers of all religions.

 

In Indonesia, which has religious freedom --   -- there is a government list of legal religions.  Buddhism is one of the options.

 

Do you want consistency?  

 

 

[RevBogovac]

18 hours ago, Jonathan H. B. Lobl said:

[...] Do you want consistency?  

 

 

 

Yeah, I know... got carried away. Sorry!

 

[Jonathan H. B. Lobl]

2 minutes ago, RevBogovac said:

 

Yeah, I know... got carried away. Sorry!

 

 

 

No need.  Look at the monk's in Burma, inciting violence, in direct contradiction to Dharma.  

 

The world is a strange place and getting weirder.  

 

 

 

[Key]

On 6/25/2019 at 5:15 AM, Jonathan H. B. Lobl said:

 

 

I seriously doubt that this is what Buddha intended.  I also doubt that Buddha intended a professional monk class.  Well, once you have professional clergy -- and seminaries -- the rest follows.  What are they teaching the lay people?  The best karma of all, flows from feeding the monks and supporting the temples.  

 

 

 

I suspect much the same with Jesus, no?

[Jonathan H. B. Lobl]

1 hour ago, Key said:

I suspect much the same with Jesus, no?

 

 

My sense of things, is that if there was a historic Jesus -- behind all the stories and mythology -- he was a reformer.  By that I mean that he was interested in reforming the Judaism of his day.

 

In particular, there is the story of a gentile woman, who wanted a healing from Jesus.  He called her a dog, because she wasn't Jewish.  

 

Also, it was Paul, who took the Jesus movement to the gentiles.  There is nothing in the Gospels to suggest that Jesus wanted a gentile following.  The legendary conflict between Peter and Paul suggests that Peter wanted no part of a gentile mission.  There is the Great Commission, where the risen Christ commands his followers, to spread the Good News.  I think this puts us back into mythology and pious fraud.

 

What we now think of as Christianity, was birthed, not by Jesus, but by Paul.  A man who first met Jesus, on the road to Damascus.  To my understanding, more mythology and pious fraud.  The story becomes more ludicrous, when Paul lectures the Jews on the real Jesus.  The man he never met.  

 

Back to your point.  Would Jesus recognize anything, about Christianity, in any of it's forms?  I truly doubt that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 26, 2019 by Jonathan H. B. Lobl

[Key]

1 hour ago, Jonathan H. B. Lobl said:

 

 

My sense of things, is that if there was a historic Jesus -- behind all the stories and mythology -- he was a reformer.  By that I mean that he was interested in reforming the Judaism of his day.

 

In particular, there is the story of a gentile woman, who wanted a healing from Jesus.  He called her a dog, because she wasn't Jewish.  

 

Also, it was Paul, who took the Jesus movement to the gentiles.  There is nothing in the Gospels to suggest that Jesus wanted a gentile following.  The legendary conflict between Peter and Paul suggests that Peter wanted no part of a gentile mission.  There is the Great Commission, where the risen Christ commands his followers, to spread the Good News.  I think this puts us back into mythology and pious fraud.

 

What we now think of as Christianity, was birthed, not by Jesus, but by Paul.  A man who first met Jesus, on the road to Damascus.  To my understanding, more mythology and pious fraud.  The story becomes more ludicrous, when Paul lectures the Jews on the real Jesus.  The man he never met.  

 

Back to your point.  Would Jesus recognize anything, about Christianity, in any of it's forms?  I truly doubt that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In all honesty, if He had commanded the Apostles to take His message to all nations, then indeed He wanted to be inclusive of the gentiles. But through Judaism or simply belief of His message, I don't know.

[Jonathan H. B. Lobl]

2 hours ago, Key said:

In all honesty, if He had commanded the Apostles to take His message to all nations, then indeed He wanted to be inclusive of the gentiles. But through Judaism or simply belief of His message, I don't know.

 

 

That's the problem, isn't it?  Nobody knows.

 

Buddha was never anything more than a man.  An important man, because he had good spiritual insights -- but only a man.  It is small wonder, that his words were damaged, in the transmission.  It seems unlikely, that Buddha intended to create a new religion.  Certainly, not a new class of professional monk.  I think that he was trying to reform the Hinduism of his time.  

 

The words of Jesus, supposedly, had God's backing.  His message met the same distorted fate as Buddha's.  Maybe worse.  I can say that with confidence, because there are about 40,000 different flavors of Christianity.  The New Testament itself, records some of the disagreements about circumcision and dietary observance.

 

Without Paul's intervention, there would have been no mission to the gentiles.  The Jesus movement would have remained a Jewish movement -- and it would have been absorbed back into Judaism -- much as Buddha has been claimed by Hinduism -- as an avatar of Vishnu, the Preserver.  

 

In the end, it comes down to faith.  Some have it.  Some don't.  I need evidence.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 26, 2019 by Jonathan H. B. Lobl

[RevBates]

On 6/26/2019 at 10:50 AM, Key said:

I suspect much the same with Jesus, no

 

 

On 6/25/2019 at 7:15 AM, Jonathan H. B. Lobl said:

 

 

I seriously doubt that this is what Buddha intended.  I also doubt that Buddha intended a professional monk class.  Well, once you have professional clergy -- and seminaries -- the rest follows.  What are they teaching the lay people?  The best karma of all, flows from feeding the monks and supporting the temples.  

 

 

 

A buddhist monk spend years in training and it's really nothing like the training on ULC. I don't consider or call myself a monk. They leave everything behind in live in monasteries with other monks. In my tradition we don't have Temple's but we do have meditation center's where practiciners can go and learn from the monks.

[mark 45]

21 hours ago, RevBates said:

 

 

A buddhist monk spend years in training and it's really nothing like the training on ULC. I don't consider or call myself a monk. They leave everything behind in live in monasteries with other monks. In my tradition we don't have Temple's but we do have meditation center's where practiciners can go and learn from the monks.

this is not true of all"monks"(or at least those who call themselves one).

[Nathaniel]

Hello Rev. Bates

I was ordained in March of 1999 but today joined this board. I am in fact a priest of Hongaku Jodo, a Pure Land Buddhist sect  that is American and neither Shin nor Sukhavati. Myself and five other priests founded the sect several decades ago. It possesses lineage.
I am retired and though I am still a priest I no longer consider myself a Buddhist but have instead embraced Advaita Vedanta and I enjoy the insights of Taoism. My ordination through the ULC was originally done in jest but since I left the HJ priesthood I have become more interested in the ULC. It is a marvelous group. As to the words of the historical Buddha, you may wish to read this very short book which is available at the link below as a free PDF. It was written by two Theravadan bhikkhus (monks). Brief and to the point it establishes the historical and textual reliability of the Pali Canon. There is a lot of nonsense floating around that the Pali Canon is not reliable (nonsense I once listened to but did not investigate) but the fact of the matter is that it is reliable. The objections to this are directly answered in the book. It certainly changed my view of the Pali Canon. In other words, we already have the accurate words of the Buddha. 

Namaste,
Brother Nathaniel

https://ocbs.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/authenticity.pdf

 

Edited March 8, 2020 by Nathaniel
left out a "i" and I added "reliability."

[Dan56]

On 6/26/2019 at 1:07 PM, Key said:

In all honesty, if He had commanded the Apostles to take His message to all nations, then indeed He wanted to be inclusive of the gentiles. But through Judaism or simply belief of His message, I don't know.

 

Jesus said, "The gospel must first be published among all nations" (Mark 13:10). And "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost" (Matthew 28:19). So Paul went all over, Thomas to India, etc, but most were martyred in Italy. Christ mission was to Judea as prophesied, but remember that the 12 lost tribes of Israel were scattered everywhere.