China’s Early Christian History Proven?
St. Thomas is believed to have travelled to China in his travels Eastward, eventually being killed in India. Little evidence exists for the claims that he visited China, but possible clues may have been discovered that he, or another missionary, made the trek around this same period. Wang Weifan, a 78-year-old scholar of early Christian history in China has found what he believes to be images of Christian stories in stone relief in Eastern China. The images, found in the tomb of an aristocrat from the Han Dynasty (AD 25-220) appear to depict scenes from the creation, Adam and Eve, and even the birth of Jesus.
“There was Christmas. There was Genesis. There was Paradise Lost. They were on display, one by one, on 10 stone bas-reliefs excavated from an aristocrat’s tomb in the Han Dynasty,” said Wang, a professor of theology at the Jinling Theological Seminary in Nanjing, as he told his story to China Daily
There are critics of his claim, from the government-run antiquities community, who claim that the images look nothing like what Weifan has described. The article’s accompanying image sure looks like Christmas to me.
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