Brahma and Abraham

[GrandizerII]

Like I said, it's confirmation bias.

The names Abraham and Brahma may have some phonetics in similar but they're etymologically not connected. There is no evidence that Abraham was based on Brahma no matter what know-it-alls on the internet like to think and no matter what red herrings and strawmen they like to throw out in response. Sarasvati and Sarah aren't similar. And the respective accounts aren't similar also. If one has to cherry pick to find the similarities, they're doing it wrong and in fact may even be intellectually dishonest.

When one wants to assess whether some mythical character is based on some prior mythical character, you need to consider similarities that:

1. actually are there and not just made up or exaggerated
2. are so significant qualitatively and quantitatively that appeal to coincidence just doesn't cut it
3. actually were not conceived of later after the latter mythical character had already been conceived
4. that don't stem from some third common source instead

When in doubt, listen to actual scholars and not spiritualists.

[The Grand Nudger]

-and you'll find those actual scholars comparing the judaic and vedic tales and noticing their similarities. You'll find them comparing abraham, and brahma, as literary traditions.

Because it's fascinating, and they're clearly related - not because they think a jew sat down and plagiarized a story.

[GrandizerII]

Putting aside the obvious non sequitur in Gae's post (comparison does not imply causal link after all), here's some overview:

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

All good and dandy, except note that some (if not most or all) of these prominent "scholars" have profiles like this:

Steven Rosen (quoted in the OP btw) is editor of the magazine for the Hare Krishna movement:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_J._Rosen

Clearly not trying to promote their religion at all.

For "scholar", we also have a Hindu mystic by the name of Rajneesh:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajneesh

We do have at least three scholars mentioned/cited that seem legit:

Constantine Samuel Rafinesque was said to be a genius thinker but it's not clear if he had relevant expertise on this topic being discussed and if he even made comparisons between Abraham and Brahma.

Hananya Goodman who is author of "Between Jerusalem and Benares: Comparative Studies in Judaism and Hinduism", supposedly representing "the first serious attempt by a group of eminent scholars of Judaic and Indian studies to take seriously the cross-cultural resonances among the Judaic and Hindu traditions." However, access to this work has been difficult online, so withholding judgement on this one.

Then there's David Flusser, who is quoted as saying that "One can easily discover parallels in the Upanishads to the Abraham legend" but a look at this article (which I have been fortunate enough to find online) shows he wasn't comparing Abraham himself to Brahma, but rather a specific legend about Abraham to what was said in the Upanishads.

http://www.etrfi.info/immanuel/20/Immanuel_20_053.pdf

[Angrboda]

FWIW, the authors contention is that the characters are based on each other, and others, in effect - based on ideas commonly popular to more than one tradition known in the ANE.  Which is....exactly how syncretism works....it's not a unilateral flow of influence, or plagiarism.

Based on characters (specific) and based on ideas (general) are two different things. I believe Grandizer is suggesting you are arguing the former based on the latter.

[GrandizerII]

FWIW, the authors contention is that the characters are based on each other, and others, in effect - based on ideas commonly popular to more than one tradition known in the ANE.  Which is....exactly how syncretism works....it's not a unilateral flow of influence, or plagiarism.

Based on characters (specific) and based on ideas (general) are two different things.  I believe Grandizer is suggesting you are arguing the former based on the latter.

I mean it's more that I'm addressing specifically the thesis in the quoted OP that the character Abraham is influenced by the character of Brahma. Yes, the author does talk about how Abraham also influences Hindu notions, but that is neither here nor there. This whole linking Abraham to Brahma (and vice versa) is a stretch, given the elaborations in the OP itself but also given the lack of scholarly work confirming the validity of these claims.

It would be more apt to compare Jehovah to Brahma, considering they are both divine, but even that should require some evidence for the causal link.

[The Grand Nudger]

Comparative mythology, not comparative godology. The reason that the two are compared is due to the similarities between the myths about each, not whether both characters are gods. Leprechauns are a christianized and diminutive form of an irish god - but the objection above would insist that this was a less-than-apt comparison on account of only one of them being a god. That's something that happens, alot, with myths. When one culture wants to incorporate some piece of another cultures mythological narrative, they rarely give that out-group narrative equal footing with their own. They use the themes, they include the theologically useful claims, they appropriate the names. Rarely do they claim that the other guys gods are equally divine - never so in the case of henotheism, monolatry or monotheism.*

There's no shortage of scholarly work on the subject of abraham and brahma. Let wonder lead you to knowledge.

(*I'll keep it in mind, but at present the only thing that pops up is contemporary paganism - a significantly artificial outlier)

[GrandizerII]

The Jehovah/Brahma remark was meant to be a sidenote. Main point doesn't change. The stories appear to be too dissinilar, the characters appear to be too dissimilar, in accordance with the primary sources that it would require grasping at straws to link them together in a causal sense.

You can easily convince me that Noah's story is paralleled in accounts prior, that Noah himself has parallels in the main characters of those respective prior accounts, because just looking at the accounts side to side makes it clear. Of course it would be another thing to convince me that Noah was influenced by Manu specifically rather than by some of the other prior figures, but that's another story

The OP is another story. We fail to see a strong case in the OP in the case of Abraham and Sarah and Brahma and Sarasvati. The misses are too many. The hits are forced.

[The Grand Nudger]

Out group influence in cultural narratives usually isn't "strong" - as we've already discussed. As for the primary sources..if you mean old magic book, old magic book flat out states that abraham and his clan came from the east to the ane, also already discussed. You're still arguing against some thing that no one in comp myth is suggesting.

It's just the one thing - that the people who came up with one set of stories had heard the other, liked bits of the other, and chose to include those bits in their own for effect. Think Angel and Buffy. The former didn't copy the latter, and the similarities between the two aren't "strong" even though we know for a fact that one was literally a spinoff. They have a couple of shared characters, alot of thematic overlap - but - otherwise, it reflects the work of a different group of people in a different narrative universe. As it progressed, it went further and further from the source material.

Myths seem to work alot like our tv shows do, and that might have something to do with their shared purpose and shared point of origin. Let wonder lead you to knowledge, or...not..I guess? I'd suggest The Great Transformation by Karen Armstrong. It sets the broad stage that our ideologies took shape in and gives the context for syncretism in the ane (and further afield). The question isn't whether these narratives were informed by each other, but how and why. What value did people see, and how were the myths physically transported. In some cases we have answers for that, others, not so much.

[GrandizerII]

We tend to be very unforgiving towards theists when they make weak cases for particular beliefs they hold. We should be just as unforgiving in this case.

And the Bible doesn't say Abraham hailed from India or anything close to it. Yes, you posted some Bible verses, but a read of these verses doesn't lend much support to your pov. Not that it matters anyway because the argument isn't whether ancient Hindu thinking had some influence on Judaism. The argument is whether we have something beyond fantasy-thinking to suggest/conclude that the character of Abraham is based on the character of Brahma. The OP is a grasp at straws attempt, and there has been no scholarly reference yet presented here that specifically establishes the link between the two figures. The only people I've seen online arguing for the Brahma-Abraham link are spiritualists quoting other spiritualists or anti-Christian atheists, both happen to be unreliable sources.

We can have a look at the accounts themselves, see that they are too dissimilar, note the lack of scholarly work suggesting otherwise, look at what the OP says and note its fallacies, and when we do so, the reasonable conclusion I can make is that the link is imagined.

You'll have a much better time making the case that Dumbledore and Gandalf are related instead (and based on Merlin himself). And yes, maybe even Angel and Buffy as well. The case to be made first, though. It's not enough to assert or to grasp at straws or to allude to some work that doesn't specifically address the case being argued.

[The Grand Nudger]

Unforgiving, forgiving...what on earth? The question of whether the character of abraham was influenced by the character of brahma is just that, and only that. Yes, we have reason to think that it has been. You can do the research yourself, or stop at whatever point you find convenient. Your ideas about unreliable sources are absurd, and I still have no idea whatever it is you think that you're arguing against.

Well move now to The Zohar. You see, they have the same notion, but in reverse.

Rabbi Abba said, ….the children of the East were wise – having inherited a legacy of wisdom from Abraham, who bestowed it upon the sons of the concubines, as is written: To the sons of his concubines Abraham gave gifts, while he was still alive, and he sent them away from his son Isaac eastward, to the land of the east. Afterword they were drawn by that wisdom in various directions.‘

It's actually referencing our genesis snippet here. More fun exposition on a theme. All involved parties believed that everyone got everything else from them, each took the time to write down as much - and they were all right. From the time that old magic book gets written, to the time that the zohar appears, we have a span of roughly 2k years in which jewish literature repeatedly makes explicit connections.