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eturn every 8,600,000 years? We are apparently being asked to take all of these quite literally.
Moreover, who is this “sun-god” and how does this fit into the picture of what is taught
regarding Krishna’s deity? Are there many deities, then? That would be pretty typical of
Hinduism, but the main point for our present purposes is that this would again have a potentially
serious bearing on the previous question of the concept of deity that is being employed of
Krishna.
For many readers, the years and personages involved in the previous two paragraphs by
themselves would seem to indicate that, indeed, what was said above concerning the typical view
being that Krishna was “a poetic device” or some other mythical construct seems to make some
good sense! From the angle of typical Hinduism, this would not rule out the words of the book
being truthful themselves in some non-historical sense, but it would rule out the deity of Krishna
himself as any sort of historical rival to Jesus and his claims.
Also contributing to this notion is an even more crucial issue. None of the actual Hindu
texts themselves, including the Bhagavad-Gita, can be accurately dated prior to the Twelfth
Century AD! 29
So even if one accepted the earlier date of Krishna actually living and talking
with his first disciple Arjuna some 5,000 years ago, his words were not recorded for
approximately 4200 years later! How many changes occurred to the text regarding Krishna’s
teaching concerning himself (or anything else, for that matter) in over four millennia?
Irving Hexham presents a brief survey of several widespread dates for the actual writing
of the Bhagavad-Gita, that still indicate at least two insurmountable problems. Any of the dates
still necessitates a gap of at least 3300 to 3500 years, which is absolutely huge! 30
Further, the
29 Nirad C. Chaudhuri, Hinduism: A Religion to Live By (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 30-31.
30 Cf. Hexham, Understanding World Religions, 145-147.
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