Supposed Jesus / Krishna link

[Goblin_Taters]

What are Christians to say when confronted by those who say that Jesus Christ is not unique, that long before him there are recorded religious persons who were crucified and who rose from the dead, bodily ascended to heaven, etc. I don’t know a whole lot about Hinduism or the other religions which supposedly contain these similiarities with the gospel accounts of Jesus.

What distinguishes Jesus from all these other crucifixions?

 

[mirandajb]

What are Christians to say when confronted by those who say that Jesus Christ is not unique, that long before him there are recorded religious persons who were crucified and who rose from the dead, bodily ascended to heaven, etc. I don’t know a whole lot about Hinduism or the other religions which supposedly contain these similiarities with the gospel accounts of Jesus.

What distinguishes Jesus from all these other crucifixions?

I think you need to go into History. Krishna is not a historical person…records cannot prove it. He is a mythical character. Jesus is real and this is the year 2007 AD.(anno Domino) Domino refers to the Lord Jesus. No other person can make this claim with full historical reference.

 

[PhilVaz]

That reminds me! PhilVaz you need to finish your article ! It’s just about done, something on Ishtar / Inanna, and St. Justin Martyr’s quotes then I’m finished. See the bottom part I borrowed from evangelical author Ronald Nash’s The Gospel and the Greeks ( recommended ! ) that presents the reasons Jesus is more credible than other non-Christian pagan gods. I’ll admit there are some similarites here and there (especially the Greek Dionysus or Roman “Bacchus”, a “son of Zeus” and “savior” who lived c. 500 BC). And Krishna apparently did experience a “resurrection” and “ascension” (see the Mahabharata, Book 16 Mausala Parva) but the full text is not known until the 1st century AD.

A succinct This Rock article on the subject

Jesus and the Pagan Gods by Carl Olson

Phil P

 

[Rawb]

I’ve heard a lot of people say that there are similar cases of Man-Gods who come down and are crucified and ascend into heaven, but I’ve never had anybody actually able to point any out. My knowledge of Hinduism is limited I’ll admit, but the only similarity between Jesus and Krishna that I could recall would be that both are supposed to be (in Jesus’s case, actually was/is) a god who walked on Earth. In Krishna’s case however it was as an avatar, basically a ‘skin’ containing a different God (whom I can’t recall the name of) who some believe is actually just a part of their ultimate god. In Jesus’s case He is 100% Human and 100% Divine. He didn’t just appear as a human, and He is a seperate person of the Trinity, distinct from The Father who begot him. I also don’t remember hearing that Krishna was crucified, and certainly not that that crucifixtion had anything to do with redeeming mankind.

Maybe there is a closer similarity then what I can recall from my knowledge of Hinduism, but if what I remember is right there isn’t much of a connection at all, IMO.

 

[cpayne]

What are Christians to say when confronted by those who say that Jesus Christ is not unique, that long before him there are recorded religious persons who were crucified and who rose from the dead, bodily ascended to heaven, etc. I don’t know a whole lot about Hinduism or the other religions which supposedly contain these similiarities with the gospel accounts of Jesus.

What distinguishes Jesus from all these other crucifixions?

One of the best current writers on this point is Peter Kreeft; you might look up “Handbook of Christian Apologetics.”

Also a short article by C.S. Lewis called “Myth Became Fact.” It’s in his “God in the Dock” book. Your library might have it?

 

[PhilVaz]

Goblin << What distinguishes Jesus from all these other crucifixions? >>

BTW, there are no other crucifixions. Here is my summary after exhaustive research (yeah I actually went to a university library and looked this stuff up). Your alleged “crucified saviors” are:

Adonis Crucified? No, death by boar in field of lettuce.
Attis Crucified? No, castrated under a pine tree.
Dionysos Crucified? No, ripped apart by the Titans.
Orpheus Crucified? No, later (3rd or 4th century AD) gnostic tribute or forgery.

On the “Orpheus amulet” see especially this article by Bede’s Library. Also the 19th century Kersey Graves “Sixteen Crucified Saviors” is a joke and skeptics like Richard Carrier will tell you that. I own the Graves book as a re-print and it is available online.

BTW, Krishna was not crucified either, depending on which story you read, he was shot by the hunter Jara who mistook him for a deer (reference above to the Mahabharata, Book 16).

I also recommend www.Tektonics.org stuff since he appears to have most of the facts straight where I could double-check him.

Confronting the “Copy Cat” Thesis series by J.P. Holding and others

Phil P

 

[cpayne]

Also Prometheus—staked out on a boulder.

 

[Nikhil]

What are Christians to say when confronted by those who say that Jesus Christ is not unique, that long before him there are recorded religious persons who were crucified and who rose from the dead, bodily ascended to heaven, etc. I don’t know a whole lot about Hinduism or the other religions which supposedly contain these similiarities with the gospel accounts of Jesus.

What distinguishes Jesus from all these other crucifixions?

There are no Hindu gods who were crucified. None. If anyone has told you this it is an absolute lie. On the contrary almost all Hindu gods kicked the living daylights out of every “evil” that came in their paths.

Sort of like what the Jews wanted Jesus to do when He was on a roll. Except that Jesus was not of this world and He was not looking for a victory that was of this world. Jesus’ crucifixion has no equivalent in any other religion. Jesus is the only One who came to die - as an expiation for our sins.

Krishna pretty much came to live it up like a king. Jesus was and is the complete opposite.

 

[Marianus]

Nikhil, that’s an excellent comparison of Jesus and Krishna. Krishna kind of does what human beings, especially Hindu ones, might expect an incarnate God to do, whereas Jesus up-ended many of the Jews’ expectations about the Christ. The living God is indeed a God of surprises, whose wisdom surpasses and confounds the wisdom of this world.

In reply to your post, Rawb: the majority Hindu view seems to be that Krishna is an avatar of Vishnu. But some of the Vaishnava (Vishnu-worshipping) sects, including the Gaudiya Vaishnavas, the sect to which today’s Krishna Consciousness movement belongs, hold that Krishna is “the Supreme Personality of Godhead”, and that Vishnu, Narayana etc. are emanations from him.

In general, “incarnation” is a convenient but less than correct English term for the Sanskrit “avatara”. “Avatara” literally means “descent” or “crossing-over”, as far as I understand it. So Krishna and other Hindu deities do not literally incarnate, i.e. “take flesh”. They do not have a human nature, but only a divine nature. So it is like Docetism, where the god only appears to be man.