The lost years of Jesus

I've wondered about it myself. There are interesting similarities between the teachings of Jesus and Buddha. I have a book about it and I'll post it as soon as I find it on one of my many bookshelves. I'm not making lite of the subject but I screen captured this from Facebook several Christmas Eve's ago and just came across it.

Fun to imagine the possibilities

Three wise men might have gifted them some Sutra perhaps!? Maybe if "In Brahmin lineage, each family is supposed to have one gotra and one Sutra" and Jesus had no apparent genetic father meant he created a lineage of the divine father for him as the son with a holy spirit as the manifestation of that connection.
:huh:

Sutra - a text in Hinduism or Buddhism.
Gotra - broadly refers to people who are descendants in an unbroken male line from a common male ancestor or patriline.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sutra
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotra

It could explain the journey out into the desert, perhaps out past Babylon into modern day Afghanistan and Pakistan. He would have encountered the Kushan Empire perhaps, which seemingly allowed Buddhism and Hinduism types of paths. He would not have had to reach India or China to have run into Buddhism & Hinduism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kushan_Empire

Setting aside what is or isn't possible - for there are too many variables for my limited mind to consider here - I'm pretty much with Kamizu here.
We can be reasonably certain about the historicity of Abraham Lincoln. About the vampire hunter I'm not so sure.
Socrates, on the other hand, appears to be purely an invented character, but then again little to nothing about our understanding of the universe would have to change to accept that he might actually have existed and in exactly the way Plato had us believe he did.
Jesus of Nazareth is a combination of the two. We have no reason to believe that the stories are based on a real person, but the stories themselves are incredible to a degree where we can say that the kind of Jesus the Bible would have us think of likely never actually walked the earth.
Now the question of course is, "does it matter?" Does the validity and value of "his" teachings change at all depending on whether any of the reports are accurate or any of "his" claims are true? And do any of them change because we successfully sticked a new label onto him? I do not think so...

Kamizu and Gisteron make very valid points, and I share Gisteron's conclusion that it doesn't matter to me whether the myths of Jesus are historically (factually) accurate or not. It does fascinate me that different cultures have passed down their own myths, which are different to those that we've traditionally heard in Europe and the Americas. Whilst the 'facts' of the myth are quite different the core messages of the myths seem to me to be essentially the same

This is a great documentary - but the last 15 minutes is particularly relevant to this thread. Did Jesus learn Buddhist teachings in India, and then return there after his ministry in Palestine?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acqgY04hhzM

For those keen to delve a little deeper into such less well known myths I really enjoyed this book (written in 1908):
http://www.yogiramacharaka.com/

Most relevant to this thread is the following chapter:
http://www.yogiramacharaka.com/mystic_youth_of_jesus.html

I agree with Kamizu snd Gisteton as well on that point but, I also think Br. John understand the point I am trying to get across. But, what is to say he didnt go to india or china or any of those countries maybe it came to him? Does it really matter? Its a discussion thats all but, I appreciate all the comments thank you btw br. John please share that book when you get time

Btw Master Adder I was meaning your point about him not having to go to india

Well, ultimately, it doesn't matter what we say. Hinduism, undoubtedly, lays claim to Him in some fashion anyhow, so we may as well just jump on their bandwagon.

From " Jesus in Hinduism ":

I've an Indian friend who, when he was seven ,moved with his family from India to England, where he was enrolled at a new school. On his first day he was asked to speak to the class about a saint from his Hindu tradition.

Enthusiastically he began to tell the story of the saint called Ishu, who was born in a cowshed, was visited by three holy men, performed many amazing miracles, walked on water and spoke a wonderful sermon on a mountain.

Of course, he was telling the story of Christ. But he was bewildered to hear that the teacher laid claim to Ishu for herself and her friends and she let him know that this was her Lord and her story, not his. He was very upset about this, because Ishu's tale was his favourite story.
...
Christ was different. He was radically different. He preached for three years and got killed for it. He gave everything. A friend betrayed him. We have all had some experience where someone we trust turns on us, but imagine how we would feel if a friend betrayed us to death! Does the word forgiveness spring to mind? Not in my case, but it comes a close second. In Hindu scripture it says that forgiveness is the principal quality of a civilised man, and civilisation is measured in terms of spiritual qualities rather than economic or scientific advancement. It's quite clear to me where Jesus hung his hat on that issue.
...
Of course, Jesus didn't get away with this either, but he had the courage of His convictions. He spoke the truth, the absolute truth to a materialistic society and risked life and limb for His mission. I wonder how He might fare today with His uncompromising stand on hypocrites and whited sepulchres? For instance, if he was to visit Belfast he might have problems being heard unless He declared first if he were a Catholic or a Protestant Christian.

So I've tried to find the tales of this Hindu saint Ishu, even under different names, but could not find any source material...
What I like about the article is how clearly biased it is towards a view that Jesus was indeed a good moral teacher and was not much different from the character we find in the Bible, since of course any potential historic Jesus is unknown to us and can thusly not be evaluated in these things. The article also doesn't go out of its way to mention tales of his life that we didn't know from the Bible already nor indeed to reference anything outside of itself. That wasn't very surprising; it was mildly more surprising to not find anything on this Ishu character that wasn't a modern book. What would at any rate be amazingly surprising is if we could find some source material dating back to the times when the gospels were written and not either another millennium or so older or a few centuries younger. Instead I found nothing...

I haven't checked the source material in this article but it references sections the of the Bhavishya Maha Purana (a late edition from after 1739) and the Rajatarangini (1148 AD). Who knows whether the Isha Masiha is Jesus, but there are old myths in India about a foreigner that could be easily (and have been) conflated with Jesus, rightly or wrongly. It doesn't seem to be solely a recent phenomenon.

http://www.adishakti.org/forum/history_of_isha_messiah_jesus_the_christ_12-13-2006.htm

Some Islamic accounts from the late 1st Millenium also suggest that Jesus did not die in Palestine but went to foreign lands.

The English, the French, the Americans, Egyptians, and Ethiopians have all claimed that Jesus visited their lands at some point. Again - I'm not sure whether the historical truth of any of these stories is the thing we're meant to focus on. Having said that, if the source documents for Novotich's translation could be identified and dated that might or might not lend credence to an older source for a visit to India: (http://reluctant-messenger.com/issa1.htm)