Happy Josaphat’s Day!

Today is Idul Adha, Islam’s Day of Sacrifice and end of the line for several hundred thousand goats, sheep and cattle across Indonesia. For those who care about such things it commemorates Ibrahim’s willingness to sacrifice his son as an act of obedience to his (merry prankster) God. The laneways outside mosques are awash in blood as animals are butchered and their meat parceled off for distribution to poor families. It’s a big deal: for many people a more important day on the calendar than the Idul Fitri holiday that caps the fasting month.
Personally, I’m much more interested in the fact that Nov 27 is also St. Josaphat’s Day. One of the more entertaining discoveries of the past six months or so was the fact that sometime back in the Middle Ages the Catholic Church unwittingly canonized Siddharta Gautama (the Buddha) in the form of Josephat. Yer Grinch stumbled across this whilst diligently investigating the entomology of “riffiest riff that ever riffed a raff” http://www.nonstick.com/sounds/Yosemite_Sam/ltys_083.mp3 segued into “Jumpin’ Jehosephat” at which point all roads lead to Rome… literally.
As unpalatable as it is to some, there is wide agreement among Catholic scholars that the “Christian” St. Jo is not a historical figure. The evidence points to an engaging, textured story about the origins of the Buddha in 6th century BC captured listeners' imaginations that was carried by the winds of commerce between India/Sri Lanka and Jerusalem over the course of the next millennium+, morphing along the way through the filters of several languages, to be "spun" into a Christian tale. http://www.laputanlogic.com/articles/2006/03/15-1234-6894.html
I love it not because if gets under the skin of genuine devotees – though this is fine sport as well – but bc it pokes holes in the ‘absolutism’ that is central to so much orthodoxy, and the sweet irony that for centuries the same missionaries who sought (and continue to seek) to “save” the heathen sub-continent were also unwittingly paying homage to the spiritual leader of 360 million Buddhists.
And so it goes…