The Lost Years of Jesus

[Sudalaimuthu Palaniappan]

You can check out the web site: http://www.ascension-research.org/lyj-rev.html
for information about a book entitled
"Lost Years of Jesus: On the Discoveries of Notovitch, Abhedananda, Roerich,
and Caspari" by Elizabeth Clare Prophet regarding the very subject.
"Well-written and provocative. The research was not only thorough
and accurate but very, very careful."
-- ROBERT S. RAVICZ, Ph.D., Professor of Anthropology, California
State University, Northridge

"The Autobiography of Jesus of Nazareth and the Missing Years" by Richard
G. Patton seems to be another book to look into.

Whether Jesus came to India/Tibet or not, a serious scholar D. D. Kosambi, who
was no jingoist, says the following about the westward influence of Buddhism
in his book "Ancient India".

"The religion not only influenced Manichaeanism but must earlier have helped
the formation of Christianity. The scholars who wrote the Dead Sea scrolls,
though good Jews, show peculiarities that appear to be of Buddhist origin.
Their practice of living in a monastery almost on top of a necropolis would be
repulsive to Judaism, though quite agreeable to Buddhists. The 'Teacher of
Righteousness' mentioned in the documents of this (probably Essene)
Palestinian foundation bears the precise title of the Buddha. It is not,
therefore, surprising that the Sermon on the Mount should sound more familiar
to Buddhists than to the followers of the Old Testament who first heard it
preached. Some of the Christ's miracles such as walking on the water were
current much earlier in literature about the life of the Buddha. For that
matter, the Christian saint's legend that goes under the title 'Barlaam and
Josaphat' is a direct adaptation of the Buddha's life-story".

Kosambi's book was published in 1965. Does anybody know if the research on
Dead Sea scrolls since then supports or opposes his conclusions?

Regards

S. Palaniappan