Of course, that can't be true because Buddha lived about 500 years before Jesus and more than 3,000 miles away. They never met, could not correspond and neither had e-mail.

Still, the teachings of the two moral prophets are so parallel that it seems almost spooky. We long for a reasonable explanation. But there is none. Even so, modern scholars are taking a new, intense look at the sayings of the two teachers.

Perhaps the easiest to understand of the new books pointing out the similarities is "Jesus and Buddha: The Parallel Sayings" (Ulysses Press, $19.95), edited by Jesus scholar Marcus Borg.

In the book's foreword, Borg points out the similarities the two men share: the primary importance of compassion, the love of enemies and the admonition to find a new way to live - to embrace a "world-subverting wisdom" that goes beyond human appetites and desires.

The one major difference between the two men was their birthright. Buddha was born into a wealthy family while Jesus was born into an oppressed minority. Thus, Borg says, Jesus became a social revolutionary while Buddha primarily remained a quiet teacher of wisdom. Borg even speculates that Jesus would not have been executed by the Romans if he had simply embraced Buddha's lifestyle.

Consider this similarity: Jesus said, "Do unto others as you would have them do to you" while Buddha said, "Consider others as yourself."

Here are some more:

-On love:

Jesus: "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends."

Buddha: "Just as a mother would protect her only child at the risk of her own life, even so, cultivate a boundless heart toward all beings. Let your thoughts of boundless love pervade the whole world."

-On diets:

Buddha: "Stealing, deceiving, adultery; this is defilement. Not the eating of meat."

Jesus: "There is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile."

-About sin:

Buddha: "People compelled by craving crawl like snared rabbits."

Jesus: "Everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin."

-On salvation:

Jesus: "You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free."

Buddha: "One who acts on truth is happy in this world and beyond."

-On spiritual practice:

Buddha: "Then the Lord (Buddha) sat cross-legged in one posture for seven days at the foot of the tree of awakening, experiencing the bliss of freedom."

Jesus: "In the morning, while it was still dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed."

None of this is meant to be a scholarly treatise on the modern-day melding of Buddhism and Christianity. But the parallel sayings do energize one's imagination, particularly when one ponders what may become of these two religions in the future.

The irony is, while Lutherans meet in convention this week to decide if the bread and wine of Holy Communion can be shared with Episcopalians without casting both groups into eternal damnation, the real world is pondering the similarities between Buddhism and Christianity.

The cultures of the world are shifting. Entire religions are being swallowed by hungry pilgrims. Young people are searching for moral wisdom in places we never considered. Buddha and Jesus must be smiling.