Question:

Whenever I approach my Hindu friends to present Jesus to them, they usually talk about their gods Rama and Krishna. What they say is that archaeology has proven both Ramayan and Mahabharat as historic events and hence were Rama and Krishna. How shall I give response to them regarding historicity of Ramayan, Mahabharata, Rama and Krishna in contrast to the historicity of Biblical events and Jesus?

Answer:

What you should do is ask them to present their evidence.  I have had this claim made to me more than once, but it completely collapses when we simply start asking some basic questions.  For example,  a few years ago a Hindu believe responded quite strongly to a claim I had made in a post at my web site that Krishna is not a real person, but a myth.  I responded as follows:   We know where Jesus was born (Bethlehem), where he lived (Nazareth and later Capernaum) and where he died (Jerusalem).  We know the name of his mother and of his adoptive father.  We know the name of his aunt and uncle, as well as the name of three of his brothers.  We know the name of dozens of his friends.  We have hundreds of direct quotes from Jesus, written down, in some cases by the actual persons who heard them or, in other cases, written down by people who spoke to the ones who heard him speak these things.

I then asked this person who was offended that I called Krishna a myth to tell me two simple things.  Where did he live and when did he live.  This man wrote back a few days later.  He said that Krishna lived in a city whose location is not know which no longer exists and he told me that he lived somewhere between 1600 and 200 BC.  To this I say “case closed.”  Krishna is a myth.  There just possible might be a person who actually lived on whom the character who we now call Krishna is based, but the evidence strongly supports the far more likely conclusion that Krishna is purely a myth–a fable if you will.

I am very confident that if you push your friends to present their case, it will totally collapse.  Here is the bottom line:  Jesus was a real person.  In fact, we know as much about Jesus from historical sources as any other ancient person.  Krishna and Rama are not real persons and claims to the contrary need to be backed up by facts.  To this point, as far as I have known, and I pay attention to such things, such evidence simply does not exist.

John Oakes