Posted by jimmyjames [jimmyjames] on March 31, 1999 at 17:20:58 {ohFII14TUcOfSZqlzZ0Uijuk77B9Xg}:
There's no doubt about the fact that the story of Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita and the story of Jesus Christ are remarkably similar in many details.
Kersey Graves, in the book The World's 16 Crucified Saviors details many of these similarities. Although he makes a few mistakes (Krishna was not crucified- this story was developed much later), it provides a good starting point in examining the parallels.
On the other hand, the dating of the Bhagavad Gita seems to be uncertain at best. It's clear that the Gita must have been written after the Upanishads since elements of them are found in the Gita. The earliest date I've seen is 500-200 B.C., long before Christ was alive. However, others claim dates as late as the 3rd century A.D., long after Christ. This is important because it's vital in understanding whether the story of Krishna influenced the story of Christ, or the other way around.
India seems to be kind of sloppy with the dating of its religious literature, and there is no definite, agreed upon date. I've provided a link in my other post which briefly discusses the 500-200 B.C. date. This page claims that the Bhagavad Gita must have been written after 150 A.D. based on the fact that the Gita was written in classical Sanskrit. The earliest records of the Sanskrit, it is claimed, are dated A.D. 150.
In this page, various dates are given: 150 A.D., 500 B.C., 900 A.D., 300 A.D. The page seems pro-A.D. based on the same Sanskrit argument found in the previous link. It also states:
"The Vedic and Upanishads period extends from B.C. 2000 to A.D. 200. Since the Gita is the summary of all Vedas and Upanishads which is also one of the Ithihasas, it must be after the Christian Era."
From what I'm reading, there doesn't seem to be any way of knowing for sure whether the Gita was written before or after the accounts about Christ. This page, like many other skeptics, claims that the story of Christ was without a doubt influenced by the Bhagavad Gita. I have no problem accepting this to be true if it can be proven, but how can a definite statement about it be made when the dating of the Gita is unconfirmed and ranges from 500 B.C. to 900 A.D.? Unless there are other arguments or further proof of the Gita's dating or it's influence on Christianity, it will seem to me that any statement that Krishna influenced Christ or that Christ influenced Krishna is based more on bias than anything else.
In the above link, two arguments are presented: 1. That Hinduism is older than Christianity and thus it must have been that Krishna influenced Christ, and 2. That Krishna allegedly lived centuries before Christ.
Is this really conclusive? On point 1, is the fact that Hinduism is older than Christianity enough to say that it must have influence it? On point 2, is this really relevant? There doesn't seem to be any evidence that there ever was a real man named Krishna. When this man is purported to have lived doesn't really matter- the record of him in the Bhagavad Gita is what does, and there is no telling for sure when this record was written.
AF, J.H., Seeker, Beaver, anyone?
Thanks, jimmyjames