Jesus Vs Buddha: 9 Major Dierences

reasonsforjesus.com/jesus-vs-buddha-9-major-dierences/

James Bishop 10/28/2016

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By James Bishop| Jesus is often compared with Buddha, and parallels are attempted to be made between the
morality of both of these people. But not only are their teachings vastly dierent, in this article we will explore
nine major dierences between these two spiritual gures that put Jesus in a league of his own.

1. The purpose and meaning of their lives

In 1960 a theologian by the name of Paul Tillich visited Japan, and in conversation with some Buddhist scholars, he
asked that: If some historian should make it probable that a man of the name Gautama never lived, what would be
the consequence for Buddhism?

These Buddhist scholars responded by saying that the question of the historicity of Gautama Buddha has 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 Gautama (1).

So, whether Gautama actually lived as a historical person, or if he never said and did what is recorded of him saying
and doing, it has no baring on Buddhism itself.

The historicity of Jesus is intrinsic to the Christian faith; without Jesus there is no Christianity. The apostle Paul in
one of his epistles emphasized this. In his letter to the Corinthians he states that if Jesus was not raised from the
dead then the Christian faith is futile and useless, and we are still in our sins (1 Corinthians 15:1419 ).

The very pinnacle, the very center point of Christianity is Jesus atoning death on the cross for the salvation of
mankind, and this of course means that Jesus had to be a historical gure that actually died on a cross, and was
resurrected. Take Jesus out of the equation then the Christian faith goes with it.
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2. Their historicity

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The sources we have for the historical Jesus far surpasses that of what we have for Buddha in its earliness and
abundance. To that end we can sketch a more reliable portrait of the Jesus of history. For Jesus we have numerous
sources to go on, namely the biographical Gospels, the Pauline epistles, non-Pauline epistles, and the general
epistles. That amounts to +- 12 authors who had authored some 27 books within 60 years of Jesus life.

Our early apostolic church fathers as well as others further corroborate Jesus historicity and the events in his life
independently, such being the likes of the historians Josephus Flavius and Cornelius Tacitus. Furthermore, the
earliest New Testament writings were written about 50 or 51 AD (Pauline epistles) that only leaves a gap of 17 to
21 years from the time of Jesus death to the rst writings. The latest book, Revelation, comes in at no later
than 60 65 years of Jesus death. But what do we have for the Buddha?

For him we rely on information from sources far removed from his existence, and this is a reason why there is much
uncertainty surrounding his life. The earliest Buddhist scriptures come to us around the end of the 1st century BC
(Buddha lived either from 566486 BC or 448368 BC), and the Buddhacarita (The Acts of the Buddha which is an
epic poem written by Avaghoa) was written around the 2nd century AD.

Either way the earliest source comes 300 to 400 years after his life. Following the Buddhacarita we have the
Lalitavistara Stra, Mahvastu, and the Nidnakath all of which come in 100 year increments. Other sources would
include the Jtakas, the Mahapadana Sutta, and the Achariyabhuta Sutta, and they house accounts that may be
earlier than the biographies, but which are still late and not exhaustive on giving us historical information on the
Buddha.

From this we can be historically sure of what the earliest followers of Jesus thought of him as such a short time span
between the real life events of Jesus ministry and the time at which the Pauline epistles and Gospel accounts were
penned is just too short for unhistorical elements to embellish the historical core.

On that note such cannot be said for the Buddha since centuries elapsed before our rst written texts appear.

3. Their self-concept 2/10

3. Their self-concept

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Buddha insisted that he was not divine, and that his problem with life was suering of people and even animals. He
taught that in order to eliminate suering from ones life, one had to let go of desire, and in turn live a life of
moderation and self control. Some time after one would reach a state of happiness and bliss (known as Nirvana)
where you will no longer be reborn into a life of suering.

Jesus, on the other hand, claimed to be equal with God, and his mission was to come and save his people by
getting them to repent of their sins, and to turn to him as the only means of salvation. A major aspect of his ministry
was on the emphasis of evil. Jesus solution is to repent, love God and other humans, believe on him as the Saviour
through faith, as well as to keep the Ten Commandments.

Jesus claimed to be the only path to God. Buddha did not.

4. Their concept of God

The Buddha rejected the existence of God, and said that that was irrelevant to the notion of suering (2). According
to one scholar of Buddhism if by God we mean a Creator God then:

the Buddha is an atheist and Buddhism in both its Theravada and Mahayana forms is atheistic
In denying that the universe is a product of a Personal God, who creates it in time and plans a
consummation at the end of time, Buddhism is a form of atheism (3).

The Buddha made no claim to special inspiration or revelation from any divine source. On the other hand Jesus was
a monotheist (he believed in one God), and accepted the Old Testament understanding as authoritative. He also
claimed equal status with the one true God, and convinced many via his miracle working, his authority via his
teachings, and most noticeably in his resurrection from the dead. To this end the Buddha and Jesus are quite
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dierent.

5. Their miracle working

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Jesus miracles are multiply and independently attested. They are also very early, and we nd them in Q, L (special
material for Luke), M (special material for Matthew), Mark, Matthew, Luke, John, and Pauls epistles. The Signs
Gospel preceding John also contains several miracle narratives, and the Jewish-Roman historian Josephus Flavius
armed that Jesus was known for his wonders.

Jesus was known to be a miracle worker by followers, foes and the surrounding people in villages. As one
prominent New Testament historian comments: Whatever you think about the philosophical possibility of miracles of
healing, its clear that Jesus was widely reputed to have done them (4).

This leads me to suggest that on historical grounds (particularly due to their extreme earliness of reporting, and
multiple attestation) that Jesus really was a miracle worker. The only possible negation is that Jesus was some fraud
of immense genius to fool thousands of people, his critics, and his followers whom suered and died for him.

However, such a possibility of Jesus being a fraud can be dismissed, for the reasons above, and because he went to
his gory, bloody, and excruciating painful death by crucixion as a result of his self-proclamation and ministry. Jesus,
with great historical certainty, really did perform wonders of healing and exorcisms. That is indisputable on historical
grounds and is widely supported by modern scholarship.

As Borg explains:

Despite the diculty which miracles pose for the modern mind, on historical grounds it is virtually
indisputable that Jesus was a healer and exorcist (5).

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How does the Buddha fare with regards to miracles? The Buddha once responded to a request for miracles by
saying, I dislike, reject and despise them, and then refused to comply with the request (6). When he was a baby
anywhere he placed his feet a lotus ower blossomed (7).

At another time he allegedly performed the twin miracle whereby he produced ames from the upper part of his
body and streams of water from the lower part of his body. After this he took three giant steps and arrived in
Tavatimsa. When he was there the Buddha preached the Abhidharma to his mother who had been reborn there as a
Deva named Santussita.

There are also other miracle accounts that are alleged to have happened such as his ability to multiply into a million
and then return to normal, he could travel through space, he could make himself as big as a giant and then as small
as an ant.

However, the miracle accounts surrounding the Buddha are late developments, hence probably unhistorical since
our earliest Buddhist texts, the Pali Canon, comes 450 years after his life, and this time gap allows ample time for
non-historical embellishments to mar the historical core.

Some of the miracles ascribed to him seem obviously mythological such as his ability to shape shift to dierent
sizes, walk through mountains, and use telepathy and divine seeing. These dont seem historical, or on par as a
meaningful act of God. They seem akin to the mythological embellishments found in the late Gnostic texts of Jesus
making birds out of clay, cursing his playmates of whom subsequently die, and some parents he curses of whom
then become blind.

Due to their earliness, abundance and multiple attestation the miracles of Jesus in the Gospel accounts surpass
those ascribed to the Buddha.

6. Their Answer to the Human Predicament

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The Buddha taught one to eliminate suering by getting rid of their desire, in other words one needed to suppress
their desires. However, Jesus came into the world to allegedly bridge the chasm that sin caused between God and
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man. So, the Buddha taught a philosophy and the other came as our saviour (and brought a philosophy along).
Ravi Zacharias, an Indian man who converted to Christianity when he was still young, compares the God of the Bible
to the Buddha:

It does not seem accidental that the night Gautama Buddha left his palace to pursue an answer to pain and
suering was the very night his wife was giving birth to their son. In his quest to eliminate suering, he actually
walked out and left his wife alone in the throes of her pain. Contrast this with the God of the Bible, who came into
this world Himself in the person of His Son to suer on the cross, to embrace pain and suering for the sake of
humanity. Buddha walked away from his son and from pain. In Christianity, God is part and parcel of the solution
(8) .

According to Jesus the problem intrinsic to mankind is more signicant than just the suppression of desires, as the
Buddha taught. For Jesus it is sin that is at the center of the human predicament particularly because sin is the
deliberate rejection of Gods righteous ways.

7. Salvation vs. Liberation

According to the pedagogics of early Buddhism we are each responsible for attaining our own liberation, such is
antithetical to the view of Jesus. According to Jesus we cannot save ourselves because of the divide that separates
man from God. The Buddha pronounced the dharma, the true teaching, which results in liberation, but it is still up to
the individual to grasp the truth to attain nirvana. As one scholar of Buddhism comments:

If the Buddha is to be called a saviour at all, it is only in the sense that he discovered and showed
the Path to Liberation, Nirvana. But we must tread the Path ourselves (9).

According to Jesus we are helpless and hopeless without his atoning death on the cross by the grace of God. Jesus
was an exclusivist throughout our gospel sources, and especially in his claim, as alleged in Johns gospel, to be the
only way to God (14:6), and equal with God (10:30). According to the Bible only in Jesus can we nd salvation.

8. A Matter of an Empty Tomb

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Both the Buddha and Jesus died, Buddha was cremated and Jesus was crucied. However, Jesus tomb was found

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to be empty, and this is armed by the majority of scholars: In fact in a bibliographical survey of over 2,200
publications on the resurrection in English, French and German since 1975, the researcher Gary Habermas found
that 75 percent of scholars accepted the historicity of the discovery of Jesus empty tomb (10).

For the Buddha there is no reliable, or early, historical record of him or any others apart from Jesus, being
resurrected, or appearing, after their deaths. In Jesus case this is evidently well established within early Christianity,
and was a historical fact to Jesus closest disciples. Even one atheist historian admits that:

It may be taken as historically certain that Peter and the disciples had experiences after Jesuss
death in which Jesus appeared to them as the risen Christ. (11)

To this end the alleged resurrection of Jesus sets him apart from the Buddha, and puts the Christian faith in a
dierent category from Buddhism and other Eastern religions.

9. The religion of Christianity is dierent from Buddhism in every way

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Jesus taught that the single most important thing to do was to believe in him. In fact, he said to believe on him is the
ultimate will of God (John 6:29). The reason for this is that Jesus was the sacrice for human sin ( Mark 10:45) and
only faith in him can reconcile us back to God (Ephesians 2:8-9).

Jesus taught about a Kingdom of Heaven and a place of eternal torment called Hell where the wicked will be
punished (Matthew 14:41-42). Jesus healed the sick, raised the dead, cast out demons from people, and was
resurrected from the dead by the God of the Jews who is also the personal Creator of the Universe and the moral
law giver for humanity.

He taught He had the authority to forgive sins ( Matthew 9:6), that we need to be born again in Him ( John 3:3), that
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we should be water baptized, and that we will be rewarded in the afterlife according to our works for His Kingdom on
judgment day (Matthew 16:27).

Jesus taught that he was the way, the truth, and the life, and that nobody will go unto the Father except through Him
(John 14:6). Salvation comes through Him alone and those who are not born again in Him and dont repent of their
unbelief and sinful nature will not inherit eternal life (John 3:18).

These ideas are absolutely fundamental to Christian theology and dont even appear on the map on
Buddhist philosophy. Here are a list of core beliefs of Buddhism as listed on Buddhanet.

1. There is no almighty God in Buddhism. There is no one to hand out rewards or

punishments on a supposed Judgement Day.

2. Buddhism is strictly not a religion in the context of being a faith and worship owing
allegiance to a supernatural being.

3. No saviour concept in Buddhism. A Buddha is not a saviour who saves others by his
personal salvation. Although a Buddhist seeks refuge in the Buddha as his
incomparable guide who indicates the path of purity, he makes no servile surrender. A
Buddhist does not think that he can gain purity merely by seeking refuge in the Buddha
or by mere faith in Him. It is not within the power of a Buddha to wash away the
impurities of others

4. A Buddha is not an incarnation of a god/God (as claimed by some Hindu followers). The
relationship between a Buddha and his disciples and followers is that of a teacher and
student.

5. The liberation of self is the responsibility of ones own self. Buddhism does not call for
an unquestionable blind faith by all Buddhist followers. It places heavy emphasis on
self-reliance, self discipline and individual striving.

6. Taking refuge in The Triple Gems i.e. the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha; does not
mean self-surrender or total reliance on an external force or third party for help or
salvation.

7. Dharma (the teachings in Buddhism) exists regardless whether there is a Buddha.

Sakyamuni Buddha (as the historical Buddha) discovered and shared the teachings/
universal truths with all sentient beings. He is neither the creator of such teachings nor
the prophet of an almighty God to transmit such teachings to others.

8. In Buddhism, the ultimate objective of followers/practitioners is enlightenment and/or

liberation from Samsara; rather than to go to a Heaven (or a deva realm in the context
of Buddhist cosmology).

The idea of sin or original sin has no place in Buddhism. Also, sin should not be 8/10
 9. The idea of sin or original sin has no place in Buddhism. Also, sin should not be
equated to suering.

10. Buddhist teachings expound no beginning and no end to ones existence or life. There
is virtually no recognition of a rst cause e.g. how does human existence rst come
about?

11. The Dharma provides a very detailed explanation of the doctrine of anatman {anatta in
Pali} or soullessness , i.e. there is no soul entity (whether in one life of many lives).

12. The concept of Hell(s) in Buddhism is very dierent from that of other religions. It is not
a place for eternal damnation as viewed by almighty creator religions. In Buddhism, it
is just one of the six realms in Samsara [i.e. the worst of three undesirable realms].
Also, there are virtually unlimited number of hells in the Buddhist cosmology as there
are innite number of Buddha worlds.

As we can see, Jesus oers us a dierent solution to our problem of sin. The solution was not to reect more,
overcome desire, or meditate but to believe on him as the only means of reconciliation back to God.

The comparison made between Jesus and Buddha is a false one, and while similar moral parallels may appear (if
we ignore the surrounding theological context), Jesus ministry and resurrection put him in a category of being
Saviour, Lord, and God, while Buddha was just another man with an opinion of the human condition.

References.

1. Robert, W. 1961. Tillich Encounters Japan in Japanese Religions 2. p. 4871.

2. Nyanaponika, T. 1996. Buddhism and the God-idea. Available.

3. Jayatilleke, K. 1974. The Message of the Buddha. p. 105.

4. Ehrman, B. 1999. Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium. p. 199.

5. Borg, M. 1987. Jesus, A New Vision. p. 61.

6. Walshe, M. 1995. The Long Discourses of the Buddha.

7. Buddhist Studies. 2008. The Life of the Buddha: The Birth of the Prince. Available.

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8. Zacharias, R. 2014. Why Suering? p. 131.

9. Walpola, R. 1959. What the Buddha Taught.

10. Craig, W. 2013. Accounting for the Empty Tomb. Available.

11. Ludemann, G. 1995. What Really Happened? p. 80.

This article was originally featured on the website of James Bishop and was used with
permission from the author. Point number 9 to conclusion was edited into the original.

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