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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)
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)
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)
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.
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)
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 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 result of the debate was PAGE MOVED per discussion below. - GTBacchus( talk) 23:26, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
Saint Josaphat → Barlaam and Josaphat — reason for move Lima 13:43, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
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)
From the Move discussion:
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)
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)
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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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)
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 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)
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)
@ 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)
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.
![]() | The contents of the Barlaams saga ok Jósafats page were merged into Barlaam and Josaphat on 22 June 2021. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected page, please see its history; for the discussion at that location, see its talk page. |
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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)
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)
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)
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.
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)
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 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 result of the debate was PAGE MOVED per discussion below. - GTBacchus( talk) 23:26, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
Saint Josaphat → Barlaam and Josaphat — reason for move Lima 13:43, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
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)
From the Move discussion:
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)
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)
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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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)
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 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)
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)
@ 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)
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.