East Meets West (or rather influences it)

I am currently reading the book, Passionate Conviction. It is a compilation of various apologetic topics. It is a really good and informative book. As I was reading a chapter on the difference between Jesus and Buddha, I noticed an interesting quote. It reminded me of another quote I had read a while back from a certain "christian" author. Take a look at these two quotes and see if you notice any similarities between the two:

"In 1960, the Protestant theologian Paul Tillich visited Japan, and in conversation with Buddhist scholars in Kyoto, he asked the following question: 'If some historian should make it probable that a man of the name Guatama never lived, what would be the consequence for Buddhism?' The Buddhist scholars responded by saying that the question of the historicity of Guatama Buddha had never been an issue for Buddhism. 'According to the doctrine of Buddhism, the dharma kaya [the body of truth] is eternal, and so it does not depend upon the historicity of Gustama'. Whether Guatama actually said and did what is ascribed to him does not affect the truth of Buddhist teaching, which transcends historical events."

--Netland, Harold. "The East Comes West (or Why Jesus instead of the Buddha?)" in Passionate Conviction. (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2007), 165.


"What if tomorrow someone digs us definitive proof that Jesus had a real, earthly, biological father named Larry, and archaeologists find Larry's tomb and do DNA samples and prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the virgin birth was really just a bit of mythologizing the Gospel writers threw in to appeal to the followers of the Mithra and Dionysian religious cults that were hugely poular at the time of Jesus, whose gods had virgin births? But what if as you study the origin of the word virgin, you discover that the word virgin in the gospel of Matthew actually comes from the book of Isaiah, and then you find out that in the Hebrew language at that time, the word virgin could mean several things. And what if you discover that in the first centruy being 'born of a virgin' also refered to a child whose mother became pregnant the first time she had intercourse?

What if that spring was seriously questioned? (Note: "spring" is Bell's word for doctirne)

Could a person keep jumping? Could a person still love God? Could you still be a Christian?

Is the way of Jesus still the best possible way to live? Or does the whole thing fall apart?...But if the whole faith falls apart when we reexamine and rethink one spring then it wasn't that strong in the first place, was it?"


--Bell, Rob. Velvet Elvis (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005), 26-27.