I came across a fascinating snippet of trivia today, that is downright inspired in its sheer unlikeliness. Apparently, there is a village called Shingo in northern Japan which contains a tomb which purports to be the final resting place of ... Jesus Christ. I kid you not. And there is a second tomb next to it which contains a lock of the Virgin Mary's hair and the ear of Jesus' kid brother, Isukiri. I kid you not.
The beliefs are a result of the Takenouchi Documents, apocryphal religious writings discovered by Japanese "cosmoarcheologist" Wado Kosaka in 1936 (and conveniently lost soon after, during the Second World War). Kosaka's other claim to fame is an attempt to contact aliens on live television.
The story goes like this: After Jesus was captured and condemned to death by the Romans, he actually managed to escape by switching with his (Japanese?) brother, Isukiri. Thus, it was Isukiri who was crucified, while Jesus fled to Japan, along with a lock if his mother's hair and one of his brother's ears(!) Jesus settled in the village of Shingo, married a local woman and had three children, before dying at the ripe old age of 106.
Despite the improbability of the story, it took hold, perhaps supported by the unusual eye colour, customs and speech of the villagers, many of whom claim to be descendants of the foreign refugee from two millennia ago.
It's a bizarre story and difficult to take seriously, but I see it as a testament to almost infinite suggestibility the of the human mind.
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