Page 32 - 200303 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - February 2003

32 Did Jesus Live in Japan? 32 Did Jesus Live in Japan? Strangest Story Ever ancient Japanese history. Together, they offhand. It is very likely the someone — Strangest Story Ever Told located two graves in a bamboo grove on or something — is buried in the tomb Told the ancestral land of the Sawaguchi below. Locals say archaeologists have Weird Legend of Jesus family, whose tradition held that the confirmed that a very old crypt does, in Weird Legend of Jesus in Japan burial site remain undisturbed, but did not fact, exist beneath the gravesite, and the in Japan explain why. town claims some interesting customs According to the scrolls, one tomb that predate the modern “rediscovery” of It’s a story of Jesus Christ, and it holds the ears of Jesus’ brother, Isukiri, the tomb. goes a little something like this: Jesus and a lock of the Blessed Virgin Mary’s Until recently, for example, didn’t die up on his cross at Golgotha. hair, while Christ himself rests in the one newborn children in Shingo were That was his brother. Christ himself fled directly opposite. decorated with a black cross on the across Siberia and, after a brief detour The scrolls talk of Christ’s “lost” forehead. through Alaska, landed in Japan — where years, during which, they say, he traveled he got married and raised a family. to Japan for spiritual training. Years later, Locals Make a Living Off the Jesus The town, Shingo, calls itself when he was condemned to die in Judea, Legend Kirisuto no Sato: Hometown of Christ. he escaped to his adopted hometown. Not many burgs outside of In Shingo, locals held him in awe Even if they don’t quite believe the Bethlehem make that claim. as the “long-nosed goblin.” Christ story, the people of Shingo know a good Today, Shingo is known more for supposedly changed his name to Daitenku thing when they see it. its garlic farms (they even make garlic ice Taro Jurai, sired a biblical three daughters “It’s just a way of attracting cream there) and apple orchards than the and lived to the ripe old age of 106. tourists, making money,” said Father Tomb of Christ — that is, if it were to be Marcel Poliquin, a Roman Catholic priest known for anything at all (it’s not). A Dubious Character and His Hunt in Towada, about 45 miles from Shingo. The site itself, a few minutes’ drive for Pyramids At local gift shops, believers and from the town’s tiny commercial district, nonbelievers alike can buy Jesus coasters, is rather unspectacular. Two 8-foot-high The original scrolls were lost in the Jesus thermometers, Jesus telephone wooden crosses surrounded by a white war, but a copy survives, and is on display cards and more. picket fence sit on a bluff in the woods — in a glass case — at a museum on the One shop even sells “Kirisuto no overlooking a gravel parking lot. A small Tomb of Christ grounds. Sato” sake. museum sits at the other side of the There are some obvious problems Visitors to the tomb also inevitably parking lot. with this tale. First, if true it would pony up a few hundred yen to visit the On a typical day, dozens of people undermine the entire basis for the museum, and the town’s big annual draw wander through. Some leave a small Christian faith: for the religion to be is a festival at the gravesite. There, local offering — five-yen coins, considered valid, Jesus had to die on the cross. It also dancers march around the graves banging lucky, are common — in a basket at the contradicts the Bible, which details his drums and singing in a language no one gravesite. Some even pray. crucifixion. understands — but some say is derivative The idea of Jesus visiting, much The scroll was discovered in the of ancient Hebrew. less settling down in, Japan’s equivalent intensely nationalistic climate of the “Maybe it’s true, maybe it’s not,” of the Ozarks may sound patently absurd. prewar years; similar “discoveries” says one friendly local in a neighborhood Even many locals doubt the tale. But document Moses’ trip to Japan, where the bar. “It’s a legend.” some residents of Shingo say it’s entirely divine emperor gave him the Ten A schoolgirl who lives in a nearby plausible that the man many call Messiah Commandments and the Hebrew town says she’s never been to the came here, and claim they can prove it. language, not to mention the Star of gravesite. David. “But it’s probably a lie,” she adds. An Ancient Scroll and a Remarkable Toya himself was a bit of a dubious Father Marcel tries to see the Tale character; he traveled Japan in search of humor in the heresy. seven ancient pyramids, far older than “I say it as a joke: ‘Christ died in In the years leading up to World those of Egypt. The day after he my parish.’” War II, ancient scrolls turned up in the uncovered the Tomb of Christ, Toya So who, if anyone, is buried in the hands of a Shinto priest just outside of “found” one of the pyramids nearby — a Tomb of Christ? Tokyo. They pertained to two small, strange collection of rocks atop a small Some speculate that it was an early forgotten graves in the remote mountains hill and a large, flat slab he claimed was a leader of Japan’s indigenous Ainu of northern Honshu, the main island of fallen monolith. population. Some say an ancient wise Japan A surreal road sign near the tomb man. Others believe that an early The scrolls — written in a of Christ today features notations in Christian missionary rests below. Japanese so archaic that only experts can English and Japanese denoting the Or, perhaps, nothing at all. [End] read it — recount the unlikely tale of locations of “Tomb of Christ” and Christ’s escape from death, and were “pyramid.” This just before the chapel- THE 'X' ZONE RADIO FEATUTES? purportedly written — or at least dictated shaped Tomb of Christ bus stop, where 2 minute features coming to a radio station — by Jesus himself as his last will and nearby ads would lead a passing tourist to near you. Hear over night news of the testament. Call it the Last Testament. believe the site was in some way strange, the weird, the bizarre - what When the priest realized what he sponsored or recognized by Coca-Cola. others call fringe, THE 'X' ZONE proves to had uncovered, he summoned Banzan But the tale cannot be dismissed be reality. Visit www.xzone-radio.com and Toya, an artist/researcher specializing in be part of the 'X' REVOLUTION