Talk:Barlaam and Josaphat

Arabic version

I moved this page to make room for a page for Josaphat (king), one of the kings of Judah. --ESP 19:12, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Would that be Jehoshaphat? At any rate, I strongly suspect that at some point, Jehoshaphat's name got confused with the name of this character. It's the only explanation I can think of for the weird change of initial consonant from B to J. User:Angr 15:16, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

It appears from the article that the change took place in the 8th century Arabic version. The change may have been prompted by the resemblance to the name Josaphat (Yehoshafat), but probably originated in the fact that the difference between initial Ba and initial Ya in Arabic is whether there is one or two dots below the letter. Ba has one dot, Ya has two.

BobGriffin-Nukraya 21:34, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Josaphat is the Latin form of the Greek name Joasaph (Ioasaph). So, it has nothing to do with Johoshaphat. The Arabic name for the same character was Bilauhar. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.112.229.236 (talk) 17:50, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

"Josaphat" is a Latinization of the Hellenized form of "Jehoshaphat", "'Iosaphát" (Ιωσαφατ). This comes from the Septuagint (see the LXX translation of 1 Kgs. 22:41)-- several centuries before the earliest known date of the account of these two people, and about two centuries before the emergence of Christianity at all. Arsenic-03 (talk) 19:08, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

One small problem...

It doesn't at all seem similar to Gautama Buddha's story. I won't run down a list of bullet points but except for smatterings of "king" and "hermit" I see nothing substantially similar.<Message added by User:24.218.222.105 at 04:10, 17 April 2006. Please sign your posts by typing four tildes (~~~~)>

I tend to agree. That Josaphat means Bodhisatva is convincing. However, according to Buddhists, Bodhisatva is not Buddha. Bodhisatva is a person who is on the path to become a Buddha upon perfection. (In this story, a perfect Christian?). In order to dispel a common misconception, Buddhists believe that there are obvious (manifest) Buddhas like 'Gautama / Gotama' Buddha, the person we generally call Buddha, and silent / private (Pali: pase [pron. pa-say]) Buddhas as well, who are not skilled in teaching. Then, there can be many, perhaps thousands of (pasé) Buddhas right now, because the essence of Buddhism is being watchful of the way mind works that one could logically discover on their own. Please read Devadaha sutta, Brahmajala Sutta or most other suttas - JC (talk) 06:16, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

There are plenty of parallels. It would take too long to list them, but you might like to download this 450kB pdf which has a chapter about it. Scroll to chapter 9 (page 153 in the printed edition).--Shantavira 14:22, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

You should take a look at "Otras Inquisiciones", a book, published in 1952 by the great argentinean writer Jorge Luis Borges, where he describes, in a short article called, according to the portuguese translation, "Formas de uma Lenda" - in English could be "Variatons of a Legend" - , the same parallels. According to Borges, Buddha's legend, as the centuries went by and the oral transmission of the story from the East to the West provoked gradual modifications, became Barlaam and Josaphat's story and, given to that, Siddharta Gautama became a Saint for the Catholic Church.

With all due respect to Borges I don’t see any reason why to consider him the proper authority for this page. Besides, this article should be clearly labelled as non-NPOV, as the pro-Buddhist view clearly distort the objectivity of its message.

Ceplm (talk)

I see some small parallels, but nothing to draw a proving conclusion like this article does. It seems this stems from the movement that likes to portray Christianity as a collection of other religions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.234.190.71 (talk) 23:58, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree. From the text of this article as written, I don't see the connection of the story to Buddha, except for the possible etymology of Josaphat back to Bodhisattva. I'd like to see some more explication and citations to that effect. TuckerResearch (talk) 20:29, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Pronunciation

Hello,

I'm curious if any of you know how to properly pronounce the name 'Barlaam'. Thanks

Adam s 11:48, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

In the movie "Repentance" ("Monanieba" was the Georgian title) directed by Tengiz Abuladze in 1987, the main character is "Varlam Aravidze". Since the Greek Beta softens to Veta, the pronunciation of Varlam's name is probably that of Barlaam, at least in Greek. Bar Lahm (lahm sounds like the first syllable of 'lama') or Var Lahm. BobGriffin-Nukraya 21:27, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

That explanation matches Sanskrit pronunciation guide that has single and double length vowels just as in Dutch. JC (talk) 06:22, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

John of Damascus versus Euthymius of Athos

John of Damascus died in the mid 8th century, while Euthymius died in the early 11th century. If John Damascene is the actual author/editor of the Barlaam and Ioasaph, then it must have entered the Christian world well before the time of Euthymius. It does appear from the name of the work by Euthymius, 'Sibrdzne Balavarisa (Wisdom of Balahvari)', that Euthymius' source was not the work attributed to John of Damascus (see wiki page for Euthymius of Athos). This brings into question my claim (above) that the Georgian name 'Varlam' is derived from Barlaam. BobGriffin-Nukraya 01:58, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

The article at project Gutenberg ( http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext96/bioas10.txt ) states that the story is 'believed to have been translated into Greek (possible from a Georgian originial) sometime in the 11th century A.D.' Attribution to John of Damascus is traditional. The title refers to one John the monk (Ο Ιωαννης Ο Μοναχος) from the monastery of Saint Sabas which would be the monastery of Mar Saba, where John of Damascus dwelt after leaving Damascus. Whether the title is intended to refer to John of Damascus or to someone else is not clear. However there is no tradition (known to me) of John of Damascus travelling from there.

So it looks like the evidence supports Euthymius of Athos as preceding the Greek translation 65.123.241.82 23:19, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Move

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was PAGE MOVED per discussion below. -GTBacchus^(talk) 23:26, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Requested move

Saint Josaphat → Barlaam and Josaphat — reason for move Lima 13:43, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Survey

Add  * '''Support'''  or  * '''Oppose'''  on a new line followed by a brief explanation, then sign your opinion using ~~~~.

• Support The article is more about the legend called "Barlaam and Josaphat" than about the alleged Saint Josaphat, who was never canonized; it is about both alleged saints, not one only; "Barlaam and Josaphat" is the name of the corresponding other-language Wikipedia articles and the articles in other encyclopedias Lima 13:52, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support per Lima. --Kober 15:21, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support. While the interest here is in the story, and it should be under that title, Lima's remarks are far too strong. Several third-century saints are apocryphal, and few were ever canonized. Septentrionalis 21:06, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Discussion

Add any additional comments:

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

the seeking of inner peace

"The story of Josaphat was re-told as an exploration of free will and the seeking of inner peace Meditation in the 17th century."

This line is a little unclear. It can't stand as it is, so I'll assume it means "inner peace through meditation" and change it accordingly. Heavenlyblue (talk) 01:05, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Also, can anyone add any further information on this subject? Heavenlyblue (talk) 01:12, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

few were ever canonized

From the Move discussion:

"Several third-century saints are apocryphal, and few were ever canonized. Septentrionalis "

Can anyone further clarify this point and incorporate this information into the text? It seems that this is a bit of a grey area. Heavenlyblue (talk) 01:19, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Non-Georgian sources

It's clear that the available sources for the article are mostly from the Western scholarly tradition. This could be similar to the 72 virgins issue where an Islamic topic receives much more weight in Western tradition than it did in the actual Islamic tradition. First things first: does anybody know how these names are spelled in Arabic? Even if you can't read Arabic, if you (general you) know the names written in Arabic text, please copy paste them here. Myself and other Arabic-speaking Wikipedians can then take that and run a search to see where this topic is mentioned in Arabic sources; the next step would be sifting through such sources and finding ones which were translated into English first, as that would be less time consuming than producing original translations for Wikipedia (though that is also an option). MezzoMezzo (talk) 11:58, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Mezzo thanks so much. It's perhaps more part of en.wp's WP:WORLDVIEW problem. Until I added Ibn Babuya etc. Buddhist and Islamic sources weren't even mentioned, this was entirely a Georgian Christianity article. I believe the commonest spelling is بوداساف but that is from memory. I did see the Arabic spelling embedded in brackets of one of the English texts but can't remember which. That spelling brings up a few hits on Google including http://www.berzinarchives.com/web/ar/archives/study/islam/general/historical_survey_knowledge.html In ictu oculi (talk) 17:58, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that has "بيلاوهار وبوداساف" In ictu oculi (talk) 18:13, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Unfortunately, there is some Egyptian pharmaceutical manufacturing a drug called بوداسيف that is skewing my search results. Let me try again... MezzoMezzo (talk) 03:51, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Whoa, we're reporting live here! A thread on some forum titled, "Is the grave of the Messiah in Kashmir?" Unfortunately, the link is blocked at the server here in my office. MezzoMezzo (talk) 03:52, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

كتاب بلوهر وبوذاسف IYY (talk) 23:54, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

From this document, page 21:

"And the translation of this book by Ibn Muqfi' was dubbed Kalila wa Damna, and those are the names of two intelligent sons of Awa; one of them was called Karataka and the other Damanaka, and they're the subject of the first chapter of the book. And the book Kalila wa Damna resembles the book Bilawhar and Budasaf, which is often mistranslated as Yudasaf, and it's the story of an aescetic with many different forms revolving around the life of the Buddha."

This is from volume two of what appears to be an academic journal called Turath al-Islam or The Civilization/Culture of Islam. It has two authors: Dr. Hasan Nafi'ah and Clifford Bosworth (I know, I was also like wtf), translated by Drs. Hussein Mu`annas and Ihsan Sidqi al-'Umd and reviewed by Dr. Fouad Zakaria. The publishing date of this issue is June 1998; it's a part of some series called Series of Famous Civilizational Books Published by the National Council for Civilization, the Arts and Literature in Kuwait. This series was established in January 1978 under the supervision of Ahmad Mishari al-'Udwani who lived from 1923 to 1990. There is a big number 234 at the top of the cover page so I think that's the issue number. MezzoMezzo (talk) 04:07, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Also from that Berzina Archives site which I can't access here at work is this thread about the relationship between Sufism and Buddhism which might be of interest on multiple articles if it mentions sources (or of interest to nothing at all if it's just chatting, I can't view it to find out). MezzoMezzo (talk) 04:10, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Article lede

The lede is somewhat telegraphic and needs to be expanded per WP:LEDE to explain teh body better. One of you guys who knows more about the topic should do it, rather than myself - that way it will be done right. History2007 (talk) 17:32, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

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Proposed merge of Barlaams saga ok Jósafats into Barlaam and Josaphat

Covers a subset of the topics of the main article, the lead section is enough for a single section on the main article. AtlasDuane (talk) 11:39, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

After some thought, I agree with this proposal, AtlasDuane (and I have just added a wikilink from Barlaam and Josaphat to Barlaams saga ok Jósafats). Although I'd have thought that there's enough scholarship on many of these different versions of the Barlaam and Josaphat story for them usefully to develop Wikipedia entries of their own, this doesn't seem to be the case for Barlaams saga, which seems to be the object of few studies. Moreover, the entry for Barlaams saga ok Jósafats is, if the content is correct, actually about three independent translations into Old Norse, and there's no particular reason why they would need to be clustered into one Wikipedia entry. Alarichall (talk) 11:37, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

  Y Merger complete. Klbrain (talk) 10:55, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Article Improvement Propositions

I added a {disputed} tag to the article for three reasons:

1. The article itself doesn't describe how the account is supposed to be a Christianized legend of the Buddha despite also recording that the Catholic and at least some Orthodox churches venerate the two figures in question (i.e. they assert that these two not only existed, but that Josaphat was not and could not have been the Buddha). On this front, the article can be improved by describing the similarities noted by academics as well as being clear about the existing camps regarding the matter, as well as some of those that comprise them (it should also note if there's anything that can be called "scholarly consensus" on the matter).

1a. Additionally, as stated elsewhere in this talk page, "buddha" and "bodhisattva" are two different concepts (albeit on a continuum); at once, "Josaphat" is asserted to ultimately be a corruption of "Bodhisattva" but is also regarded as evidence that the account was in reference to the "Buddha" (who had been considered such for centuries). Meanwhile, the story says that Josaphat was named "Josaphat" (or "Ioasaph", rather), as if "he" (that is to say "Josaphat", that is to say "the Buddha" according to the aforementioned) was named "Bodhisattva" at his birth-- as opposed to, say, his known birth name "Siddhartha". On this front, evidence discussing this detail should be described and cited.

2. There's no evidence presented in the article that Sanskrit and Manichean predecessors to the Christian account exists. The article as written also casts doubt on the certainty of the penultimate source being a Manichean manuscript ("The origins of the story may be a Central Asian manuscript written in the Manichaean tradition.") even though it initially asserted this as fact in the "History" section. (For what it's worth, I haven't found evidence of either in my own searching, only allusions to such-- I've found images of the document of the account in Arabic, Persian, Greek, Old French, and Ge'ez, but I've never found any production of their proposed Manichean or Sanskrit prototypes). On this front, the article can be improved by citing the known Sanskrit/Manichean Persian documents/fragments.

3. "Josaphat" is a rather direct Latinization of Iwsafat ('Iosaphát, which the "Ioasaph" found in the account is only two letters off from), which is a Hellenization of the Hebrew "Jehoshaphat"; this is evidenced in the the Septuagint translation of 1 Kings 22:41 where the namesake is described. The translation predates Christianity by about two centuries, and the account of the two figures in question by several more. In contrast, citation #3 doesn't express certainty about its etymological assertion (writing anecdotally, "This is said to be a corruption of the original Joasaph...."). This detail is relevant and, at the least, contradictory to the explanation given in the "Names" section (as of April 16th, 2023) but also calls into question the premise of the article (that the tale is based on Gautama) in a way that impacts its entirety. This, along with any acknowledgement/refutation of this, should be noted-- if any exists. Arsenic-03 (talk) 23:10, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

The ultimate source is the original Buddhist accounts of the life of Buddha (as likely to be written in Pali as in Sanskrit); see Family of Gautama Buddha to start with. More generally, it's the role of Wikipedia to report on generally-accepted scholarship, not to try to refute such scholarship (which would be "original research"). As for dubious traditional saints, have you heard of Decanonization? AnonMoos (talk) 00:35, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

"[T]he original Buddhist accounts of the life of Buddha" isn't a specific source; the article as-is currently asserts "The tale derives from a second to fourth century Sanskrit Mahayana Buddhist text, via a Manichaean version...." and then cites a paywalled paper without excerpt (something that's done for citation #14, even if it's in untranslated French). There are no citations in this article that point to either of these proposed texts-- either the texts themselves or papers that materialize them.

The article later states "The origins of the story may be a Central Asian manuscript written in the Manichaean tradition.", which makes uncertain a claim that was earlier made in certainty.

I'm not proposing that the scholarship be refuted in the article, as I'm outright saying that statements in this article ought to be sufficiently fleshed out with citations and more detail (which would also be cited). Before there were scholars that asserted that the account was based off a document of the life of Siddhartha Gautama, the figures were canonized and venerated in certain churches and communions that are absolutely not "extremely small minorities"-- and still are to this day. That this disagreement in fact exists (and, implicitly, that said parties wouldn't venerate figures they believe are both fictional and derivative of a figure outside their religion) needs to be reflected.

The name business needs citation to more in-depth material and better development: the claim in the present version of the article is that "Josaphat" is a corruption of "Bodhisattva", but the account itself says that Josaphat was named "Josaphat" at his birth. "Bodhisattva" isn't a forename, it's a title; it also wouldn't necessarily be how the Buddha would be referred to after centuries, absent specific context. It's the claim itself that doesn't make sense-- this seeming incongruence could be at least partly resolved through the production of the proposed Buddhist and Manichean texts (or citations to papers analyzing them), as well as discussion of those materials as they relate to this detail. Put another way: this account could still be a Christianized record of the life of Siddhartha Gautama even without this name detail-- but if that's said, then there has to be some context as to how it's the penultimate title that was corrupted into "Josaphat" (the given name of the Josaphat in question) and not the actual given name. It can make sense if the proposed ancestor texts refer to the Buddha as the Bodhisattva the entire time.

Nothing involved in addressing these matters would constitute "original research". Arsenic-03 (talk) 03:13, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Whatever -- I know nothing about the specific Indic text which may have been the immediate source for the non-Indic versions, but there are multiple well-known Buddhist texts on the life of Buddha which you could easily find for yourself by paying a little attention to the Wikipedia articles about Buddha. I really don't know why this specific text is so critically important anyway, since it was merely the funnel for transmitting well-established Indian traditions about the life of Buddha to cultures west of India. I really don't care too much about this "Manichean manuscript", since the important fact was that Buddhist traditions were spread to cultures without much knowledge of Buddhism, regardless of the particular way in which this was done. AnonMoos (talk) 05:28, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

"I really don't know why this specific text is so critically important anyway, since it was merely the funnel for transmitting well-established Indian traditions about the life of Buddha to cultures west of India."

...it's important because 1) the present article is alleging the existence of a specific Manichean text that's based off a specific Buddhist text, and 2) because these proposed texts are at the very root of the proposed transmission history. They are reportedly how these traditions spread.

These specific texts have to demonstrably exist for the statement "The tale derives from a second to fourth century Sanskrit Mahayana Buddhist text, via a Manichaean version...." to not be conjecture. Arsenic-03 (talk) 12:49, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

You seem to believe that unless we have a manuscript chain of transmission for every intermediate step along the way (like the provenance trail of an artistic object in a museum), then the hypothesis that Buddhist traditions were transmitted to cultures with little knowledge of Buddhism must fail. Unfortunately, that's simply not the way that it works. The transmission of traditions is inferred from the similarities between the ultimate source (life of Buddha) and the destination result (Christian folklore tale of Barlaam and Josaphat). In many somewhat parallel cases, we have very little idea about what most of the intermediate stages were. If, in this particular case, we have some information about the actual text that was used to transfer the traditions from an Indic culture to a non-Indic culture, then that would be a definite bonus, but it would not be critical evidence for the fact of transmission. In zooming in on the Manichean manuscript, you have given great importance to something which is not really that important (though of course it should be properly cited, and deleted from the article if it's impossible to properly cite it). AnonMoos (talk) 14:20, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

"You seem to believe that unless we have a manuscript chain of transmission for every intermediate step along the way (like the provenance trail of an artistic object in a museum), then the hypothesis that Buddhist traditions were transmitted to cultures with little knowledge of Buddhism must fail." I'm saying that "The tale derives from a second to fourth century Sanskrit Mahayana Buddhist text, via a Manichaean version...." either has to be substantiated with said texts or explicitly qualified as a hypothesis (unlike how it's presently presented in the article) because it alleges the existence of specific documents that have yet to be cited. The "Document Hypothesis" for the Pentateuch and the hypothetical "Q source" are thus considered specifically because they're postulations based on ultimately circumstantial evidence and patterns; its adherents have yet to produce these alleged ancestral documents.

If those documents can't be produced, then you aren't allowed to assume with certainty that the documents must have existed, because 1) that wouldn't be the only conceivable way that such information was transmitted, and 2) that wouldn't be the only conceivable pattern of transmission past the documents that have been demonstrated. Arsenic-03 (talk) 15:02, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

The case of Barlaam and Josaphat is simply not parallel to J, E, D, P, and/or Q in any meaningful way, because we have amply-attested Buddhist texts in the original languages recounting the life of Buddha (texts whose existence you've been carefully ignoring, to instead chase after the Manichean whatever which is simply not too important). These texts actually exist (those who know Pali etc can read them), and are not in the slightest degree hypothetical. AnonMoos (talk) 11:25, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

At no point have I ignored the existence of Buddhist texts recounting the life of the Buddha. However, Pali manuscripts aren't relevant to the very narrow matter at hand; my first response to you emphasized how the issue (well, one of them that I have) is that a claim about specific documents in specific languages has been made in order to substantiate a claim about the source and transmission of the account, but the alleged documents have yet to be cited. Whether you think this is "important" in light of the existence of other documents that aren't being cited as the texts in question is irrelevant-- you cannot even begin to claim with certainty that these Sanskrit and Manichean texts exist, and that an account derives from them, if you cannot produce those specific texts.

If they have as much known existence as J/E/D/P/Q, this statement definitely has to be phrased as a hypothesis as to how the story reached West Asia. The assertion "we have Buddhist texts in Pali" as evidence of derivation is an assertion of a different substance, and that relevance needs to be demonstrated in a way more involved than mere citation. Arsenic-03 (talk) 12:14, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

I've already explained what's worth explaining in my comment of "14:20, 10 July 2023" above. You say that you're not ignoring the amply-attested actually-existing Buddhist texts on the life of Buddha, yet in that very same July 12th comment of yours you go on to ignore them yet again (recidivist behavior)! The Manichean manuscript is not given great emphasis in the article because it does not have great importance to the subject-matter of this article. As I've already explained several times, it would have been a funnel by means of which the amply-attested and in no way hypothetical Buddhist traditions would have been transmitted from Indic cultures to a non-Indic culture. We know what the Buddhist traditions on the life of Buddha are, and we know what the end-result is in the legend of Barlaam and Josaphat. Since we have the end-points, knowing the exact nature of any intermediates is not too critical (though it would be a nice bonus). J/E/D/P/Q are not intermediates between two known attested existing entities, but hypothetical ultimate sources, so your analogy is somewhat inept, and not too relevant. AnonMoos (talk) 03:49, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

Firstly, who is this "we" that's aware of the relevant Buddhist traditions? You have no way to tell what any given person knows about this article topic, the matter of the life of the Buddha, and any interrelation between the two. In the first place, the purpose of this article at present is to accomplish informing about the third. You're projecting an undue expectation of prior knowledge onto an arbitrary readership that would obviate any informative value of this article with its present thesis.

Secondly, you've been repeatedly discussing "Buddhist texts" that the article itself does not cite for the claim it makes to substantiate the assertion for the origin of the text. I am not ignoring the Pali texts-- the current article is. Meanwhile, what's being invoked are specific texts in specific other languages and/or traditions that have yet to be produced either primarily or secondarily.

That these texts exist are in fact not just important because they propose how the account reached West Asia, but because it's also proposed that some of the names are corruptions of Sanskrit terms, which is part of what's used as evidence for this specific transmission claim. Overall, you're claiming that it's "not that important" despite the fact that the claim exists, answers a major question of transmission given the present article thesis, and is intertwined with other claims.

If the evidence of the transmission is not in the proposed chain, but in the idea that it resembles Buddhist traditions, then it's the cited similarities that need to be written as evidence (they currently aren't). Otherwise, there's no demonstration that these are endpoints, to begin with-- that would just be you assuming your conclusion.

On the other hand? If a claim of fact is being made about these documents being part of a definitive transmission chain, then those documents better well be produced, because if they don't exist, then the reality is that the transmission chain could be anything or nothing, and that lack of clarity (whether or not it's due to the sources being "bad") also needs to be remarked on in some way. This isn't a "nice-to-have", given what the article is-- it's necessary that either this happens or that at least some of the names of the people who make that claim are explicitly attached to it. At any rate, this article possibly also has a POV issue (as someone else here remarked), given that it's acknowledged that these two figures are canonized in certain communions but doesn't point out that they don't believe that they canonized the Buddha-- a later-quoted assertion.

On a side note: in asserting that the the J/E/P/D/Q sources are irrelevant, you assumed the certain existence of the intermediate Sanskrit and Manichean sources. Meanwhile, my point was that if they can't be produced, then they're as hypothetical as the J/E/P/D/Q sources and need to be remarked on as such-- the matter of whether they're intermediate or ultimate is dwarfed by the matter of whether they can be produced in the first place. Arsenic-03 (talk) 05:32, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

Conversion from what to Christianity?

The article seems to imply a conversion from Buddhism to Christianity, but doesn't clearly state it, and seems to require on the reader having prior knowledge of the story?

Is this ChatGPT summary correct?

The character of Josaphat in this narrative is loosely based on the historical figure of Siddhartha Gautama, who later became known as Gautama Buddha, the founder of Buddhism. In adapting the story, Christian authors transformed it into an allegory of conversion to Christianity from a non-Christian faith or a worldly life. Therefore, the specific religion or belief system Josaphat practiced before his conversion is left intentionally vague in the story. SalaDitman (talk) 07:16, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

I don't know or care about ChatGPT, but in the minds of Christian readers of the Barlaam and Josaphat story in the middle ages, the previous religion would have presumably been some form of Indian paganism which they knew nothing about. Few of them would even have known about Buddhism (though before the fall of the Roman empire, Clement of Alexandria had at least heard of it)... AnonMoos (talk) 22:44, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

Fictional premise

@Martin of Sheffield: Greetings! Regarding Special:diff/1215885472, I was attempting to point out for readers unfamiliar with the chronology, that Christianity didn't exist during the lifetime of the Buddha, and so the idea that the Buddha or a character based on his life lived in a kingdom with Christians is clearly fictional. And the conflict over Christianity seems like a major part of the story. I didn't mean to imply the story wasn't based on the Buddha, or that the Buddha was fictional, or perhaps some other implication you're objecting to. Is there a better way to word this note? -- Beland (talk) 20:09, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

@Beland:I'm afraid it did read that the story wasn't based on the life of the Buddha. Consider: "Their life story was based on the life of the Gautama Buddha, and tells of the conversion of Josaphat to Christianity. As the Buddha lived several centuries before Jesus, the premise is fictional". The phrase "the premise is fictional" appears to refer to "their life story was based on the life of the Gautama Buddha" whereas that is believed to be the origin of the whole B&J story. I do understand now why you inserted the sentence and can see why you thought the summary might be misleading, a common problem with summaries. How would you feel about:

Barlaam and Josaphat, also known as Bilawhar and Budhasaf, are Christian saints. Their life story was based on a retelling of the life of the Gautama Buddha who actually lived some centuries earlier. The legend tells of an Indian king who persecuted the Christian Church in his realm. After astrologers predicted that his own son would some day become a Christian, the king imprisoned the young prince Josaphat, who nevertheless met the hermit Saint Barlaam and converted to Christianity. After much tribulation the young prince's father accepted the Christian faith, turned over his throne to Josaphat, and retired to the desert to become a hermit. Josaphat himself later abdicated and went into seclusion with his old teacher Barlaam.

Please feel free to hack it about here, that's what talk pages are for! Kind Regards, Martin of Sheffield (talk) 21:37, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Your suggestion was much clearer. I've tweaked the wording a bit and added it to the article. Feel free to continue revising if needed. Thanks! -- Beland (talk) 22:22, 27 March 2024 (UTC)