SHINGO, Japan
(AP) _ Nearly 2,000 years ago, a man fled for his life from the
Middle East, crossing Siberia and Alaska before living out his
days in this snowbound hamlet in northern Japan. The tale is fanciful
enough, but even more so when townspeople tell you the name of
the visitor they say is buried here: Jesus Christ.
This strange
historical theory is founded on a radical rewriting of the Christian
belief that Jesus was crucified, resurrected three days later
and then rose to heaven _ all in Jerusalem. It has its roots in
shaky archaeology and shadowy local customs some say came from
the Holy Land.
Many officials
here disavow the theory, but nevertheless, some 10,000 people
visit the Shingo burial site each year. Perhaps it"s because
the legend fits in with the fascination in Japan _ where fewer
than 1 percent of the people are Christians _ with such trappings
of Christianity as Christmas and church weddings.
The Jesus-in-Japan
theory first emerged in the 1930s when researchers claimed to
have found a "will of Christ" _ the original of which
was lost during World War II _ indicating that Jesus was buried
in Shingo. Later, a burial mound believed to fit the theory was
found in the village about 370 miles north of Tokyo.
According
to the story, Jesus came to Japan in his early 20s, studied Japanese
culture and religion and then returned to Judea when he was 33
to begin his ministry. He was never crucified _ having switched
places with his younger brother Isukiri _ and managed to flee
across Siberia to Alaska and on to Japan by boat. In Shingo, Jesus
is said to have married, had three daughters and lived until age
106. No one has actually ever burrowed into the mound to study
its contents, as far as town officials know.
Townspeople
are reluctant to profess much belief in the story. But the town
is not resisting its fame _ or the money tourists bring with them.
The hamlet has held a "Christ festival" every June since
the early 1960s at the mound, where a signboard declares the tomb
"holy ground." In 1997, a small exhibition hall was
built nearby. On display there is the other half of the Jesus
in Japan story: Exhibits on age-old Shingo customs that the villagers
say indicate an ancient link with the Middle East and Christianity.
Displays include a doll of a child with a cross painted on its
forehead, which officials say Shingo villagers used to do to infants.
Traditional clothes in the exhibit are hung with Star of David
emblems. One display tells the story of a village chant that is
meaningless in Japanese, but is supposedly derived from an ancient
Hebrew song.
The museum
says the town"s former name, Herai, comes from the word Hebrew.
Mitsuru Takahashi, a liquor store owner who sells "Christ
hometown sake" and tea cups with crosses on them, said he
isn"t sure about Jesus really being buried here. "But
I wonder if there is someone great in that tomb, someone we should
respect and praise," he said. Some say the grave might be
that of a leader of the Ainu, the indigenous people who inhabited
the islands before the ancestors of today"s Japanese arrived
from the Asian mainland. Another theory raises the possibility
that the tomb holds the body of a missionary who came to the remote
north to escape a crackdown on Christians in Japan in the late
1500s and early 1600s. The nearest Roman Catholic priest, the
Rev. Marcel Poliquin, a Canadian who has been in Japan for 40
years, looks at the legend with amusement. "It"s just
a way of attracting tourists, making
money," he said in Towada, about 45 miles from Shingo. "I
say it as a joke: `Christ died in my parish.""
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