GOSPELS: The 4 Gospels: Mathew, Mark, Luke and John are dated in the common era (CE) between circa CE 60 - 100. The Gospels talk about the life and time of Christ but there are some years missing. Speculators tends to attribute the missing years to "Jesus in India" or the influence of Buddhism on Jesus, this speculation has never had any proof that Jesus was in India before or after crucifixion. After crucifixion, Jesus was already a known religion figure and a founder of a new religion, his where about would have been documented either by Christians followers or by independent source. The "missing years" before crucifixion may be attributed to incomplete documentation---some written records may still not yet to be found.

If there are stories pre-date the idea of Jesus-Buddhism connection, there is no proof (acceptable to the Christiandom) to authenthicate the connection. Much of the speculation comes from outside of the Christian Canon. The Christians did not deny Jesus exposure to Judea's society under polytheism or Judasim's monotheism, what would be the reason to deny Jesus contact with Buddhism--if he indeed had?

INFLUENCE BY BUDDHISM may not be likely. Jesus preached One God; Buddhism preaches no God. The only one commonality is the message of love and cross referenced with Meh-ta (empathy) in Buddhism. Even on this point, there are differences. The "love" preached by Jesus and today's Christians is the outward love from one to the others. The Buddhist love (Meh-ta) is self-love (non-altruism). All religions share some common features, such as prohibition of killing, stealing, etc., but it does not mean that one influences the other.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiy5uY3Iw2s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9w-xJfSOyc

Buddhist missionaries were very prominent all the way to the Mediterranean Sea from 50 B.C. until 50 A.D. The story of the Magi from the East at Jesus's birth, could reflect an earlier relationship with Buddhist missionaries that was subsequently watered down by anti Buddhist groups. If Jesus attempted to merge his native Judaism with Buddhism, there would likely be some opposition from Jewish loyalist. Such opposition to gentiles is recorded in Acts. Stronger evidence stems from parallel teachings and stories. In addition to love and compassion, both taught the need to deny a sense of "self" and pursue "oneness" with others. Jesus seemed to be much more of a theist than Buddha, but that could reflect his Jewish roots. Finally, stories like walking on water and feeding the multitudes are also told about Buddha. About whom were these stories told first...Jesus or Buddha?

Buddha lived between 563BCE and 480BCE. Buddha was born Hindu and started new religion which did not survive in India but spread outside India. Jesus was born Jew and started new religion which did not survive in Israel but spread outside Israel. Hinduism and Buddhism are founded upon the philosophy of rebirth. In Gospel there are few statements indicative of rebirth but there is no explicit philosophy on rebirth. Matthew 11.14, 16.13, 16.14, 17.10, 17.11, 17.12, 17.13.

Story of Noah's Arc in old testament and Manu's Boat in Hinduism have great similarity. Story of Barlaam and Josaphat could be of some interest.

I see no reason to assume a Buddhist connection to the account of the wise men in Matthew.  That story is far more easily and logically handled by looking at Parthian connections.

Now that there were Buddhist missionaries is very clear and it is plausible that they influenced some of the teachings and/or stories of Jesus, but it is not necessary.  It is interesting to see the arguments brought forward to make the connections, but some of the arguments are not convincing at all.  Some of these look very much like the arguments that since there were pyramids in both ancient Central America and in Egypt that there must be a connection.  I tend to think that parallel ideas can develop independently of each other.  And there is also the notion that commonalities sometime do not reflect mutual influence but rather some deeper, unrecognized common source.

I, too, am open to parallel ideas developing from not yet understood common sources. Some might suggest a a universal consciousness, perhaps like Jung's collective unconscious, or the Buddhist idea of one universal consciousness - "thou art that". Still, the more easily understood historical explanations are possible - even regarding the pyramids.  I have no desire to re-write history to fit personal biases - mine included - but our current understanding of human history is based on many assumptions.

Delineating the causes and sources of cross-cultural parallels in spiritual teachings is, to state the obvious, complicated. But one perspective I'd like to offer this discussion is a shift in the focus from spiritual ideas to experiential spiritual practices.

A hallmark of many spiritual practices is inculcating a lived appreciation for how we "story" our existence -- by which I mean a practical, questioning appreciation for how we come to conceptualize ourselves, one another, and the world. To put this in a mix of contemporary and ancient terms -- much of spiritual practice across cultures involves deconstructing inherited forms of conceptual "idolatry." 

As quick examples: The Buddha effectively promulgated such a deconstructive praxis in his teaching that there is no substantive "self". (The "THAT THOU ART" teaching was actually not his -- that comes from Upanishadic Hinduism.) And Jesus analogously taught a kind of deconstruction in teachings such as "Love your enemies" and with his parable of the Good Samaritan -- for Jesus' audience, who despised Samaritans on ethnic, religious, and political grounds, there was effectively "no such thing" as a good Samaritan. 

Both teachers repeatedly invite their followers to examine prejudicial assumptive views of themselves and the world.

So, somewhat ironically, some of the deepest parallels across religious cultures come not so much in similar ideas, but in similar approaches to questioning ideas. 

(This can be especially evident when comparing different cultures' meditation procedures -- there are many forms of meditation, but it's not hard to find markedly similar practice principles across traditions, notwithstanding their often divergent theological vocabularies. )

Understanding universal consciousness intellectually is one thing and personally experiencing the existence of universal consciousness is quite a different thing. In this connection I like to mention the following books which records the spiritual experiences of Sri Ramakrishna.

"Sri Ramakrisha The Great Master" by Swami Saradananda, (tr.) Swami Jagadananda.

"The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna." by Mahendranath Gupta, (tr.) Swami Nikhilananda.

Above books available across the world at Vedanta Society bookstores.

http://www.vedanta.org/wiv/links/centers.html

David, one of the things I hear you saying is: regardless of how diverse our thoughts may be, human experience and behavioral response is remarkably similar. I think people will question ideas that no longer work for them. Perhaps this is one reason political and religious revolutions usually start among the poor masses. Jesus obviously stuck a chord with the poor and disenfranchised; and I assume Buddha did too. I suspect that all of the above help explain the similarities between Buddha and Jesus: social evolution, direct cultural exchange and a yet to be understood collective unconscious.

David, With all due respect, I must say to you that your suspicion that Jesus was influenced by Buddhist missionaries in Palestine in his formative years is totally erroneous. Your error results from your lack of knowledge of the Ancient Jewish Mystical Tradition (The Kabbalah). Judaism has within it an ancient body of mystical  knowledge that the Jewish Patriarchs and Prophets and Jesus as well used to reach the ultimate level of consciousness, called Prophecy Consciousness in Judaism and Unity Consciousness in the contemporary body of knowledge dealing with higher states of consciousness. This body of mystical knowledge provided the Patriarchs, Prophets, and Jesus with the transcendental knowledge and techniques  to perform the many supernormal acts they performed. Also, it provides the method that Jesus  used to attempt to establish the Kingdom of God in Israel prophesied by Isaiah with its peace, prosperity, abundance, and non- predation in man and animals. Let me suggest two books by Aryeh Kaplan that you can read to introduce yourself to the Ancient Jewish Mystical Tradition knowledge: Meditation and the Bible and Meditation and Kabbalah. All the best to you in your search for this wonderful and great knowledge.

Coming at it purely from the angle of teaching, there is such a profound gulf between the teachings of Jesus and the Buddha that I don't see the need to posit any influence.

Jesus' suffering was the one, all-sufficient suffering that redeemed humanity, and without which no amount of human suffering would have redeemed them. Human suffering is therefore radically meaningless in the Christian tradition.

By contrast, the Buddha's insight was the suffering is a universal problem, and the path to the end of suffering is a collective undertaking. Buddhism derives its teleological meaning from the engagement of Buddhists in the path to the cessation of suffering.

Jesus' claim to be able to redeem all humans rested on his divinity. The Buddha, on the other hand, was just a person. When we take refuge in the Buddha, we do so because he was one of us, and that what he could do, we all can do.

The presence of a god, and of an afterlife, and of a divine plan for all of 'creation' underpins Judeo-Christian thinking. In Buddhism, all of these things are what are called 'questions of the fourth type' – questions that are irrelevant to the practice of Buddhism because no matter what the answers are, our actions will be the same. 

Ronan, to the degree that the traditional teachings of the church reflect the actual teachings of Jesus, you may be correct. But most scholars question whether the Christ of the church had much in common with the Jesus of history. Once removed from 2000 years of church dogma, one can make a case that Jesus had much more in common with the Buddha than commonly supposed. 

Edward Conze, a leading expositor of Buddhism to the twentieth-century western world, has pointed to a number of similarities between Mahayana Buddhism and the Gnosticism of the early Christian centuries. And others have found resemblances. One is the special emphasis on Wisdom. There may indeed be a central core of meaning shared by the relevant Sanskrit, Semitic, Greek, and Latin terms -- as a reference to "wisdom," "mind," "awareness," "consciousness," different from mere intellect or rationality.

All the words intended to be descriptive of Wisdom are, like "Wisdom" itself, elusive in meaning and variously nuanced. They concern questions which neither science nor philosophy nor theology can precisely phrase, let alone precisely answer. By itself the similarity in nomenclature of central ideas does not necessarily prove geographic connectedness. It is striking, however, that a particular Wisdom theme and mystical systems associated with it arose just beyond both borders of Iran in the same period. In both, "knowledge" as an intuitive revelation (Greek gnosis , Sanskrit jnana) is the key to salvation.

In both Gnosticism and Buddhism, the opposite of gnosis or consciousness is ignorance, the root evil. Drunkenness, blindness, poverty, deficiency, emptiness, were favorite Gnostic metaphors for the un-knowing state of humankind. Western thinkers and clerics almost universally deplore what they regard as the "negativism" of Gnosticism and Buddhism. The Greco-Judaic-Christian model does indeed take a more optimistic view of human possibilities: God is Good; God created this world for human beings to enjoy; and when their brief lives are ended, they will, if worthy, be rewarded in perpetuity. Buddhists speak of this life as being suffused with dukka , which is usually translated as "suffering." The Pali or Sanskrit word would perhaps mean more to the Western mind if it were seen to include such notions as incompleteness, unsatisfactoriness, frustration, anxiety.