What do I think of Michoel Drazin’s book published by G.M. Publications? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
After I got done reviewing Asher Norman’s book, I decided to look into Michoel Drazin’s. This is because Norman refers to Drazin as his authority on Buddha and Krishna and how Jesus is a copy of those. I also have a rule with a book save perhaps Kindle books that usually, I go and scan the bibliography. This book was published in 1990 and as these photos will show, Drazin used nothing but the most up to date research.
As you can see, with great scholarship from the 1700’s and 1800’s, we’re well on the right track. So much of what Drazin says is repeated in Norman’s work so I will only really focus then on one part. That will be the comparisons that are made between Buddha and Krishna.
For this, let’s put on our skeptical hats. Let’s suppose we don’t know much about the life of Krishna and Buddha and we just want to see if the case has been made. We could point out that this comparison doesn’t hold up in modern scholarship as the idea that Christianity is a copycat of other religions has really fallen by the wayside. There’s nothing wrong with old books per se, but when they make claims, you do want to see if those claims have held up over time.
As we go to the section about the similarities between the life of Jesus and that of Buddha and Krishna, something is noticed. For Jesus, we go to the primary sources most often. There is a link that we can see between the two so that we know where in the life of Jesus these are found. Even if one questions the Gospel’s reliability, one can see that they’re still the primary sources so we know where the material is from.
When it comes to Buddha and Krishna, there are no primary sources cited. Instead, all of them are the writers from the 1700’s and the 1800’s. This is an oddity. If these claims can be found in Hindu and Buddhist writings, why not go straight to those writings? Could it be that the claims really don’t hold up? Could it be that these were claims made by people who actually did not understand the religions they talked about and were caught up in parallelomania?
We also have to ask how likely is it that Jews in the time of Jesus who were peasant fishermen and such would make such a tale? Why would they do it anyway? What benefit did they gain from it? Drazin can come up with a “just so” story, but he needs some backing for it.
Of course, we could add in that the research is in. Mike Licona also looked at similar claims from the work of Acharya S. He got in touch with scholars in the field who did not take the claims seriously at all. There’s a reason the copycat thesis hasn’t lasted.
There is plenty more in Drazin’s book that is just wrong and no doubt, more could be said, but we have already said plenty with Norman’s book and there is no need to reinvent the wheel. Drazin engages in the same kinds of arguments that he would not accept if turned on his Judaism. Unfortunately, he is not skilled in what he speaks of to know this. When Concord magazine says Drazin is clearly an expert in the field, we have to disagree.
In Christ,
Nick Peters