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Christ is known to most as a miracle worker who was born in a stable, died on the cross, and started one of the world’s largest religious groups. But according to one little-known legend, Jesus settled in the Japanese village of Shingo with a farmer’s daughter where he had three children.
The Shingo locals have another name for the Messiah: Daitenku Taro Jurai.
They recount Jesus’ life story this way: When Jesus was a young man, he traveled to Japan in order to study theology. He became a follower of a prominent master who lived near Mount Fuji and learned about Eastern culture, as well as how to speak Japanese.
When he was 33, Jesus returned to Judea to speak of the land he had just visited. But upon returning home, he was sentenced to crucifixion. In order to trick the executioners, he traded places with his younger brother, Isukiri.
Jesus then traveled back to Japan, where he adopted a new identity, grew garlic, raised children, and cared for the needy. After he passed away, his body was exposed to nature for four years. His bones were then buried, and atop the burial site, there is a cross with a picket fence surrounding it.
The story of Jesus living in Japan is an example of Japanese folklore that seeks to explain a tradition about Shingo villagers carrying out Christian traditions. According to the tale, women wore veils, the men wore clothing that resembled the clothing worn in biblical Palestine, and crosses were marked on the children’s foreheads. Traditions such as these are, of course, foreign to the rest of Japan.
Due to this legend, Shingo, Japan labels itself as Christ’s Hometown, or, in Japanese, Kirisuto no Sato. The northern Japanese village of about 2,400 residents welcomes about twenty thousand visitors annually. These visitors attend places and events such as the Legend of Christ Museum (which contains religious relics) and the Christ Festival (an event designed to comfort the spirit of Jesus).
A scroll contains the key to the belief that Jesus once lived in Shingo. The scroll, claimed to be Jesus’ last will and testament, was allegedly discovered by a team of archaeologists in 1936. At about the same time, a Shinto priest supposedly uncovered other documents about Christ’s life. These documents detail Jesus’ travels between Israel and Japan, as well as explain how he died in Shingo, not Jerusalem.
The documents, which were eradicated during the Second World War, are all the more suspicious because Jesus lived during a period of time in which there was no written language in Japan.
Despite Japan’s legend of Christ, only about 1% of the country’s population is Christian, according to the U.S. Department of State’s Office of International Religious Freedom. Shintoism and Buddhism are the largest religious groups in Japan, with 48% and 46% of the population practicing those religions, respectively.
In Shingo itself, there is no church within thirty miles, and as of 2012, there was only one Christian resident, as Smithsonian Magazine explains.
Perhaps Christianity’s inability to flourish in Japan is due to the country’s history. Christian missionaries first visited Japan in the sixteenth century. However, infighting among the missionaries led to a ban on Christianity that began in 1614 and did not end until 1873.
