page_title: Buddhist influences on Christianity
section_title: Rejections of influence
hierarchical_section_title: Buddhist influences on Christianity / Early Christianity / Rejections of influence
caption_attribution_description: English: The Crucifixion, Genoa Svenska: "Korsfästelsen". Chiesa del Gesù, Genua.
context_page_description: Some scholars believe that there exist significant Buddhist influences on Christianity reaching back to Christianity's earliest days. Buddhism was known in the pre-Christian Greek world, and hence the later Roman Empire, through the campaigns of Alexander the Great. Several prominent early Christian fathers were certainly aware of the Buddha, even mentioning him in their works. The notion of Buddhist influence in early Christian history, however, remains controversial.
  Some historians such as Jerry H. Bentley and Elaine Pagels suggest that there is a possibility that Buddhism influenced the early development of Christianity". There have also been suggestions of an indirect path in which Indian Buddhism may have influenced Gnosticism and then Christianity. Some scholars hold that the suggested similarities are coincidental since parallel traditions may emerge in different cultures.
  In the East, the syncretism between Nestorian Christianity and Buddhism was deep and widespread along the Silk Road, and was especially pronounced in the medieval Church of the East in China.
context_section_description: Most scholars believe there is no historical evidence of any influence by Buddhism on Christianity, Paula Fredriksen stating that no serious scholarly work has placed the origins of Christianity outside the backdrop of 1st century Palestinian Judaism. Leslie Houlden states that although modern parallels between the teachings of Jesus and Buddha have been drawn, these comparisons emerged after missionary contacts in the 19th century and there is no historically reliable evidence of contacts between Buddhism and Jesus.
  Other scholars such as Eddy and Boyd state that there is no evidence of a historical influence by outside sources on the authors of the New Testament, and most scholars agree that any such historical influence on Christianity is entirely implausible given that first century monotheistic Galilean Jews would not have been open to what they would have seen as pagan stories. The Macmillan Encyclopedia of Buddhism states that theories of influences of Buddhism on early Christianity are without historical foundation.
  Modern scholarship has roundly rejected any historical basis for the travels of Jesus to India or Tibet or influences between the teachings of Christianity and Buddhism, and has seen the attempts at parallel symbolism as cases of parallelomania which exaggerate the importance of trifling resemblances.
  There are inherent and fundamental differences between Buddhism and Christianity, one significant element being that while Christianity is at its core monotheistic and relies on a god as a creator, while Buddhism is generally non-theistic and rejects the notion of a Creator God which provides divine values for the world.
  The central iconic imagery of the two traditions underscore the difference in their belief structure, when the peaceful death of Gautama Buddha at an old age is contrasted with the harsh image of the crucifixion of Jesus as a willing sacrifice for the atonement for the sins of humanity. Buddhist scholars such as Masao Abe see the centrality of crucifixion in Christianity as an irreconcilable gap between the two belief systems.
caption: The Crucifixion (1622) by Simon Vouet; Church of Jesus, Genoa. The crucifixion of Jesus is central to Christian belief.[28]
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