Did Jesus Come Before Jesus?
I ran an interesting poll on Twitter and the results of the poll were pretty much in line with what I expected! The questions listed events in the life of Jesus that replicated those of Buddha, Krishna etc that but 90% of answers only picked Jesus.
The reason is rather simple…
“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge” – D.J Boorstin
“Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance & conscientious stupidity” -MLK
“If you have never left your father’s farm, you’ll think it is the biggest” – Nigerian
One thing I’ve come to realise is that your truth, whatever it may be, doesn’t necessarily negate the truth of another. In fact, 2 opposing truths may co-exist once you understand the roles of perspective & limitation of knowledge: Unless of course, you’re an intolerant bigot!
Most religious people I know have read books in biology, maths, geography etc & have even read biographies; but they will quickly cringe at the thought of reading books on other religious beliefs & this leaves most of them starkly ignorant about very important similarities. But tell me, if you have ONLY read the bible, how can you know if other religions/cultures have similarities with yours? How do you know if what you stand in condemnation against isn’t the explanation you seek?
And worse, how do you know your belief isn’t a copy of theirs?
Figures like Buddha, Krishna, Dionysus, Zoroaster, Horus, etc all lived BEFORE Jesus so if anything, the story of Jesus copies theirs & not the other way round.
These figures have different aspects similar to the story of Jesus but, combined, have all the following features:
Born of a Virgin, born in a manger, birth celebrated on December 25, called the “son of God”, no records found between 12-30, baptized, baptizer beheaded, walked on water, turned water to wine, fasted 40 days, crucified, resurrected…
Indulge me & think about this for a minute:
The Bible can be summarised as a book on Abraham, his God &the relationship with his descendants. So if The Almighty God picked Abraham as a friend & that is documented in the bible & you believe it whole heartedly, why do you think that it is impossible that God also picked someone else in some other region & had a similar relationship with him & his descendants?
And if you assume God could have & did pick others and they too kept a book of history, wisdom and models, why think that their book or beliefs or relationship with or understanding of God is inferior to yours?
Even the bible points to these as lessons to be learnt but guess what? Intolerance, superiority complex, judgmentalism and ignorance blind people despite all of these traits being anti-love or anti-the-teachings-of-Christ which makes them… anti-christ!
Yes, anti-Christ can be a behaviour and we all need to constantly check if we have it!
Religion forms a deep core of culture & as no culture should be seen as superior or inferior, so also, no religion should either!
Humans evolve along with every creation of humans INCLUDING culture and religion…as long as the evolution is in the direction of love and human dignity
So do yourself & your service to your God a favour: read widely, learn, understand, tolerate, imbibe, evolve, love, be patient, cohabit this earth peaceably, show kindness, shun judgement, have good control of yourself…