Comments on: The Oldest Buddhist Manuscripts http://varnam.org/blog/2006/03/the_oldest_buddhist_manuscript/ History, Current Affairs & Books Sat, 19 Sep 2009 20:39:01 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: indianchristian http://varnam.org/blog/2006/03/the_oldest_buddhist_manuscript/comment-page-1/#comment-2096 indianchristian Fri, 10 Mar 2006 01:13:14 +0000 http://varnam.org/blog/?p=1035#comment-2096 First, this is no doubt an exciting discovery and I wish archaeologists could have examined and excavated the area of the find. This could also shed light on the influence of Buddhism in the Bactrian empire. The Dead Sea Scrolls do <b>not</b> have any books that shed information on the life of Jesus. The only books found among the Dead Sea Scrolls belong to the Old Testament which is an entirely Jewish corpus and the oldest book found among the Dead Sea Scrolls is the Book of Isaiah. The scrolls themselves pre-date Jesus by at least 80 years and are primarily used as information regarding the Essenes and life of the Jews during the Second Temple. The roots of Christianity have always been Judaic so I am not sure how the Dead Sea Scrolls "challenge(s)" the origin of Christianity. With this information the parallels to the newly discovered manuscripts in Buddhism can easily be identified. First, this is no doubt an exciting discovery and I wish archaeologists could have examined and excavated the area of the find. This could also shed light on the influence of Buddhism in the Bactrian empire.

The Dead Sea Scrolls do not have any books that shed information on the life of Jesus. The only books found among the Dead Sea Scrolls belong to the Old Testament which is an entirely Jewish corpus and the oldest book found among the Dead Sea Scrolls is the Book of Isaiah. The scrolls themselves pre-date Jesus by at least 80 years and are primarily used as information regarding the Essenes and life of the Jews during the Second Temple. The roots of Christianity have always been Judaic so I am not sure how the Dead Sea Scrolls “challenge(s)” the origin of Christianity.

With this information the parallels to the newly discovered manuscripts in Buddhism can easily be identified.

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