Snapshots - Jesus through the Lens of History

Did Jesus go to India and Tibet?

Mystical books on the mystery and magic of the East fueled the imagination of a few generations of New Age devotees. Many voiced their shared belief: Jesus must have traveled into India and Tibet. How else could his teachings sound so modern, metaphysical and hip? So let’s travel back once more and take a few snapshots of the spiritual ‘Happenings’ that were ‘socking it to’ the first century.

Let’s back track a bit. In 1000 B.C. King Solomon built a nation and searched for treasure from wherever he could send troops and ships. Solomon’s ships sailed the coast of Africa, India and even further east to where no Jew had gone before. Since the Hindu religion is one of the oldest recorded, then first contact was probably made way back then.

In approximately 400 B.C. Buddha questions his princely upbringing and Hindu religion, wanders around, finally sits under a tree and becomes enlightened. His followers begin a new religion. Over the next few hundred years, Buddhism aggressively spreads its message mostly east to China, but also at least as far west as Parthia (Turkey and Syria), just a short hop north from the Galilee.

In early 300 B.C. Alexander the Great brilliantly storms around the Mediterranean leaving his heavy handed influence everywhere. He ends with a final thrust into India where his exhausted men strike and force him to return to Macedonia and Greece. Now, this next piece of info deserves a photo op. Before he leaves he has married an Indian princess, taken to wearing local clothing and brings a Hindu guru/sage back home with him. In fact, the sage walks willingly and painlessly into his funeral pyre while Alexander and the troops watch in awe and disbelief. The influence of India has seeped into the fabric of Greece.

Let’s also take a snapshot of the Silk Road that for hundreds of years snaked back and forth to China, and ran through India into the Mediterranean area - think first century Los Angeles rush hour. Now just a little east this thoroughfare passes directly through the Galilee to Jerusalem and beyond bringing Oriental medicine and metaphysics with it.

Gurus and Indian fakirs on beds of nails, Buddhist priests and Chinese merchants – all passed through the thriving and very Hellenized metropolis of Sepphoris, the Jewel of the Galilee. And remember, this was only walking distance from Nazareth.  Joseph and all his sons probably practiced their artisanship for the rich and snooty in the burgeoning “Jewel”.

       So the question remains: Did Jesus travel to India and Tibet? May be he did, but probably he didn’t. He was busy growing up in a Jewish culture, learning his religion and being a good oldest son with family responsibilities until he was at least eighteen. He certainly had enough fascinating Jewish political and religious characters all around to watch and learn from. So, he may not have gone to the Far East, but by the first century the East had come to him with all its mystery, magic and seductive philosophies on enlightenment.