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Most scholars believe there is no historical evidence of any influence by Buddhism on Christianity. [verification needed] 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. [28]
The idea of a Greek influence on the development of Buddhism has been particularly advocated by Étienne Lamotte [62] and Thomas McEvilley, who has speculated that “like the Gandharan art style, the Gandharan Buddhist style must have had a prominent Hellenic factor”, [63] although he does not employ the term "Greco-Buddhism" for this ...
[11] [39] Buddhist scholar Masao Abe pointed out that while "the event of the Cross" is central to Christianity, it is not possible for Buddhism to accept its importance. [39] Buddhist philosopher D. T. Suzuki stated that every time he saw a crucifixion scene it reminded him of the "gap that lies deep" between Christianity and Buddhism. [40]
As Christianity spread throughout the Hellenic world, an increasing number of church leaders were educated in Greek philosophy. The dominant philosophical traditions of the Greco-Roman world then were Stoicism , Platonism , Epicureanism , and, to a lesser extent, the skeptic traditions of Pyrrhonism and Academic Skepticism .
Adolf von Harnack (1851–1930), who belonged to the School of the History of Dogma and proposed a Kirchengeschichtliches Ursprungsmodell, saw Gnosticism as an internal development within the church under the influence of Greek philosophy. [55] [224] According to Harnack, Gnosticism was the "acute Hellenization of Christianity". [55]
However, the author of the Gospel of John was not personally familiar with any Greek philosophy [80] and probably did not borrow the Logos theology from Platonic texts directly; [78] [79] instead, this philosophy probably influenced earlier Jewish deuterocanonical texts, which John inherited and expanded his own Logos theology from.
A statue of Siddartha Gautama preaching. Since the arrival of Christian missionaries in India in the 1st century (traces of Christians in Kerala from 1st-century Saint Thomas Christians), followed by the arrival of Buddhism in Western Europe in the 4th and 5th centuries, similarities have been perceived between the practices of Buddhism and Christianity.
The genesis of modern understanding of Greek mythology is regarded by some scholars as a double reaction at the end of the 18th century against "the traditional attitude of Christian animosity mixed with disdain, which had prevailed for centuries", in which the Christian reinterpretation of myth as a "lie" or fable had been retained. [1]