3 Curious Legends Of Other Nations Visited By Christ


OK these are pretty weird – and not doctrinal in the slightest. But they are interesting. They are interesting because of what Jesus said here – after his resurrection and just before his old-world ascension:

John 10:16: “And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.”

The people in the Book of Mormon were those other sheep – Christ said so himself. And then he said he had yet other sheep to visit:

3 Nephi 16:1: “And verily, verily, I say unto you that I have other sheep, which are not of this land, neither of the land of Jerusalem, neither in any parts of that land round about whither I have been to minister.”

Of these other sheep we have no record. Yet. We certainly know they were visited, but do we know who they were?

No way no how. But here are some interesting legends of Christ visitations. To be sure there are scores of accounts of a ‘light-skinned, bearded God visiting people – especially in the Americas. But that white god is assigned different names. In these next three accounts he is specifically identified as Jesus.

Two of the three accounts here definitely do not show Christ descending arrayed in glory. Instead they show him escaping the resurrection and living out his days elsewhere.

But do these stories stem from accounts that used to be more accurate?

I have no idea!

Japan

“On the flat top of a steep hill in a distant corner of northern Japan lies the tomb of an itinerant shepherd who, two millennia ago, settled down there to grow garlic. He fell in love with a farmer’s daughter named Miyuko, fathered three kids and died at the ripe old age of 106. In the mountain hamlet of Shingo, he’s remembered by the name Daitenku Taro Jurai. The rest of the world knows him as Jesus Christ.

“It turns out that Jesus of Nazareth—the Messiah, worker of miracles and spiritual figurehead for one of the world’s foremost religions—did not die on the cross at Calvary, as widely reported. According to amusing local folklore, that was his kid brother, Isukiri, whose severed ear was interred in an adjacent burial mound in Japan…

“Having run afoul of the Roman authorities, Jesus was arrested and condemned to crucifixion for heresy. But he cheated the executioners by trading places with the unsung, if not unremembered, Isukiri. To escape persecution, Jesus fled back to the promised land of Japan with two keepsakes: one of his sibling’s ears and a lock of the Virgin Mary’s hair. He trekked across the frozen wilderness of Siberia to Alaska, a journey of four years, 6,000 miles and innumerable privations. This alternative Second Coming ended after he sailed to Hachinohe, an ox-cart ride from Shingo.
“Upon reaching the village, Jesus retired to a life in exile, adopted a new identity and raised a family. He is said to have lived out his natural life ministering to the needy.” (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-little-known-legend-of-jesus-in-japan-165354242/)
I told you it was weird. But did it stem from stories that were more in line with the New Testament and the Book of Mormon? If it happened – were miracles wrought and Beatitudes taught?


India

“I was sitting in Hemis, in Northern India, when the abbot of the Buddhist monastery said to me “You know Jesus studied here…”

“I thought I had misheard the monk. I said “Excuse me? Who studied here?” He clarified. “Issa. You know him as Jesus, we refer to him as Issa. This is the monastery he spent ten years at.” I thought I had misunderstood him until I did the research…

“What makes the “Life of St. Issa” notable (there is a copy in Hemis, the original is in Lhasa, according to a scholar I asked) is that many people have seen it, examined it; it’s a traditional Tibetan text written on blocks of paper, so each story is limited to the characters that can fit on a particular page…

“Later, there are other accounts of this same fellow, post crucifixion making his way back to India. Those accounts include the story of Yuz Asaf “the anointed one” who was traveling with his mother “Mary of virgin birth.” This fellow Yuz Asaf is buried in Srinigar, and a caste of his supposed feet (hard to imagine when that occurred) is next to his tomb and shows someone whose feet had been nailed at some point in that man’s life…

“Yes, there is a body of evidence that Issa traveled to India, Kashmir and Tibet. There are reports of Yuz Asaf preaching in Persia, where a local King erected a statue to him, with the quote “I am the way and the light.” The Qu’ran mentions that Issa “survived the crucifixion and went to preach in India” - as well as mentioning Issa more often than it does Mohamed. So if that’s news, then I would suggest checking into it further.
“But anyone who says that there is no evidence of his appearing in India, Kashmir or Tibet hasn’t looked at the books cited above. I include in that canon the “Gospel of Thomas” from the gnostic gospels - where Thomas claims that during his trip to India, he met with Jesus again at a wedding (years later)…” (https://www.quora.com/Did-Jesus-Christ-ever-visit-or-live-in-India-Tibet-or-Kashmir)
What I like most up there is the line “I am the way and the light.” I like it because it sounds so much like this reference where Christ refers to himself as light in the Bible:

John 9:5: “…I am the light of the world…”

And then Christ and some of his prophets reference him as the light a bunch of times in the BOM:

Mosiah 16:9: “He is the life and light of the world…”
Alma 38:9: …Behold, he is the life and the light of the world…”
3 Nephi 9:18: “I am the light and life of the world…”
3 Nephi 11:11: “…I am the light and the life of the world…”
3 Nephi 18:16: “…Behold I am the light…”
D&C 10:70: “And now, remember the words of him who is the light and life of the world, your Redeemer, your Lord and your God…”

And here’s my favorite – probably because it smells so much more like the 3 Nephi visitation:

Russia

“But I couldn’t take my eyes off of the cover of the phonograph record he had given me as a token of his respect to me for my lecture on free agency and enterprise. The Berlin Wall had fallen, Gorbachev had instituted a radical restructuring (perestroika) and openness (glasnost). As part of this awakening in the USSR I had been invited by the recently retired Deputy Minister of Higher Education to speak some of the leading new businessmen and women in Moscow, Russia.
“To hold that phonograph record and see the painting on the front left me speechless.
““Who painted this,” I asked him.
““A great painter for our church about 1900; Mikhail Nestorov who painted so much canvases of faith,” he smiled so broadly as our translator proclaimed the history. “His Holy Rus is a favorite of all of us and it hangs today in the Russian Gallery in Leningrad.”
““What does it depict?”
““Our Savior visiting ancient Russia or Rus.” The translator didn’t wait for the priest to provide the history. “We all know this story…”

“Later in 1992 I was invited to have lunch with a person they called the Metropole Peterim, the highest authority of the Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow, and chairman of the ruling council of the entire church. This gentleman is similar to president of the quorum of 12 apostles in the LDS church.

“After the lunch and tour of his headquarters, I asked him if he knew of a painting where Christ seemed to be appearing to the ancient Slavic people. He said that he did, that it had been used for a special phonograph record cover and that the original was in their private archives. I asked him where the artist got the idea of such a scene.
“He replied solemnly that it was “inspired by an ancient folk tale that said after Christ’s death he visited the Slavic people, ancestors of the Russians, to bring his gospel. The people who listened to Christ were the humble and lowly in the farms and countryside. They took upon themselves his name which when written phonetically in our characters rather than Cyrillic is Kristiany. The word for peasant in Russian is Kristiany. Those who believed in Him took upon themselves His name.”
“I asked the Metropole if he believed that Christ actually came to the lands of present day Russia and Ukraine. He nodded, stroking his beard.
““It could very well have been…”” (https://ldsmag.com/did-jesus-visit-russia-after-his-resurrection/)

Everyone who has ever lived has an equal shot at heavenly redemption. Christ personally taking his gospel to people all over the world is a piece of that. I can’t vouch for these three specific examples – but I’m willing to bet there’s a real written record somewhere.

Maybe buried in a grassy hill.

Comments

  1. AnonymousMarch 18, 2021 at 11:50 AM

    Thanks for this post. You may find the book He Walked the Americas very interesting. It is a collection of the verbal histories as passed down by the ancient inhabitants of North and South America as well as some of the pacific islands. It also has some allusions to his posible visits to scandinavia afterwards. It goes right along with the sighted scriptures above and is presented by a non LDS author.

    ReplyDelete
  2. MarkJune 25, 2021 at 12:52 PM

    Smells? Well, I hope my odor didn't bother you too much. I did write the article, I did see what is obvious in the painting, and I did interview the Metropolitan Peterim in Moscow and he confirmed the painting from about 1901 was painted by a Russian Orthodox painter, M. Nesterov from a Russian folk tale.
    Mark Stoddard

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousAugust 14, 2021 at 9:07 PM

    There are also other legends/accounts of Christ visiting the Lake Baikal region of Russia.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Baikal#Historical_traditions

    https://archive.org/details/travelsinregion00atkigoog/page/n406/mode/2up

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousJanuary 3, 2023 at 10:46 AM

    Thank you for your very interesting post. I was wondering the same things when I read 3 Nephi 16 and searched the net for further perspectives. Yes, "And did those feet in ancient times, walk upon England's mountains green....." I am English, though now live in Arizona with my family from England!
    Maybe the sealed portion of the BOM will reveal much more on this when it is opened!
    Thank you and best wishes for 2023! My name is Mike Turvey, and I don't want to fiddle around with the Google profile stuff and mess thing up , so it looks like I'm anonymous !!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular Posts!

7 Super Great Legends of 3 Nephite Visits (One’s a First Hand Video!)

Image
I am going to make a bold statement. Ahem. Everyone has a 3 Nephite story. I’m going to take back that statement and replace it with this one – a whole bunch of multi-generation LDS families have a 3 Nephite story hanging from one of the branches in the family tree. My grandmother had a story. She thought one mysteriously stepped in to help when her husband was out of town and she was perusing orphanages with open enrollment for her six kids. All the orphanages were full, FYI. At least that’s what they claimed after the third day of the trial run. Really though, there are loads of 3 Nephite stories. Loads of them!  Just like seer stone stories , angel visitation stories or LDS raising the dead stories – there are 3 Nephite stories a-plenty! Below find just a few. For a ton of them you should check here . This list is comprised of pretty old stories – they happened a long time ago. The last one on the list is a first hand account.
Read more

Have The LDS Prophets Seen Jesus Christ? (12 Yes!)(2 No!)(3 Quite Possibly!)

Image
The absolute #1 question in the Church, according to polls I may or may not have actually conducted, is “Why do the 16 year old priests have to squish the bread so hard when they’re ripping up the sacrament?” It gives the whole thing a very distracting, mashed and rubber-like consistency. If I may, I’d like to suggest a solution. Give everyone in the congregation their own entire slice of bread. Two if it’s thin sliced and a fast Sunday. We would take it right out of the bag ourselves, of course. The only possible squishing then would be in the shopping cart under a bag of apples. Such damage would taste a lot less teenage-fingery. I feel like I could cope with that better. A close second most-asked question, of course, pertains to tithing discounts. I have it on good authority that we all get one of those on our baptism anniversary. (I don’t have that on any authority.) The third-most asked question, according to several internets, is do the modern prophets actually s
Read more

Accidental Reinforcement of Christ's BOM Visit to the Americas (This is Big!)

Image
I’ve been on a kick lately. A blog-relevant kick. I’ve been looking into legends of Christ visitations outside of the holy land. Last week I posted 3 such legends – each specifically mentioning Christ by name. Then I started looking into legends of a bearded god appearing to people. There are loads of legends like that. I was just looking for a nice, even list of 10 to chain together. The tenth one struck so hard crocodiles might get PTSD triggered from the dinosaur extinction.     That tenth find, in my opinion, is more important than #s 1-9 combined. It is an Indian legend of Christ, specifically Christ, visiting their ancestors at the exact time the Book of Mormon says he did. A little background in case you don’t know - a visit from the resurrected Jesus Christ to Indian forefathers in America is, without a doubt, the crowning jewel of the Book of Mormon. It starts like this: 3 Nephi Chapter11: 1  And now it came to pass that there were a great m
Read more

11 Times People Glowed Like Jesus/Moses Outside of Scripture

Image
Occasionally throughout history – when the moment is spiritually profound enough, people have been recorded as emitting light through their own skin. “Glowing” is another way to describe it. For a baseline – here’s a smattering of scriptural references: Exodus 34: 29   ¶   And it came to pass, when Moses came down from mount Sinai with the   two   tables   of testimony in Moses’ hand, when he came down from the mount, that Moses   wist   not that the skin of his face   shone   while he talked with him. 30   And when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone; and they were afraid to come nigh him. That’s Moses lighting up. It happened when he spoke to Jehovah. Jesus lit up too, ironically, when he spoke to an angelic-messenger Moses (and Elias): Matthew 17: 1   And after six days Jesus taketh   Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart, 2   And was   transfigured   before them:
Read more

A Big Huge List of Tons of People Who Used Seer Stones

Image
Joseph Smith staring into the bottom of a hat to translate a book is a funny picture to some. Perhaps ‘to most’ would have been a better way to end that sentence. This was definitely left out of all my primary classes – but I learned about it in books readily available in the church-owned Deseret Book. It’s not really the secret angrier-corners of the internet would have you believe. Not only that – but Joseph Smith didn’t invent seer stones. He wasn’t the first one to throw a stone into a dark place to better see its stories. No, no – hippies love them too. Hippies and Joseph Smith. That’s the complete list of everyone who cares about seer stones. No more no less. Oh – except Io, the god of the Maoris. And boatloads of other Americans. And according to ancient Jewish lore, Adam, Abraham, Noah, Joseph of Egypt, etc… The list really goes on. It goes on long enough, in fact, that Joseph Smith goes from being a lonely stone-starer to one of alleged dozens. It’s actually a huge
Read more

The Guy Who Watched A Girl Resurrect, A Guy Who Saw the SLC Temple in A Dream, A 3 Nephite-ish Visitor...etc...etc

Image
Oh boy I’ve got 7 good ones for you here. They are 7 stories that don’t have much in common except for their little-known status and their faith promoting possibilities. It also kind of shows that God will go after the one. But sometimes he will also go after the entire tribe:   1) A Dream Leads to the Conversion of the Shoshone Indians "Ten years after the Bear River Massacre of 1863, in which more than 300 Shoshone men, women, and children were killed by U.S. troops, a Shoshone elder had a dream. Chief Sagwitch, a survivor of the 1863 massacre, and other tribal elders felt the dream was inspired and was instructing the tribe to join The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. After discussing the matter in great detail, the went looking for a Latter-day Saint (“Mormon”) man whom they trusted, George Washington Hill, who lived in Ogden, Utah. "After obtaining permission from Church president Brigham Young, Hill travelled to the tribal land
Read more

Some of Joseph Smith’s (Lesser Known) Big, Beautiful Bullseyes

Image
To make a list of Joseph Smith’s greatest prophetic hits isn’t hard. There are a lot of pretty commonly known ones like: ·       The eye popping alters of Nahom ·       The pleasing symmetry of Chiasmus ·       Startlingly accurate predictionsof the civil war ·       Indisputably undeniable proof of horsesin Nephite times Those things are all relatively well known in a lot of Latter-day Saint- circles. They’ve probably been listed on a lot of blogs. A list of Joseph Smith’s best hits isn’t as interesting if you already knew it’s contents. Joseph got loads of shocking things right. These things weren't readily available information in his place or time. These ones below aren’t too well known, by all I can tell. But each one lends incredible strength to Joseph Smith's prophetic claims. It a varied list. It's an unlikely list. It's a surprising list.  Even the most ardent critic would have to at least say ol' JS got really lucky a
Read more

8 Different Miracle-Stuffed Temple Dedications

Image
Eight or nine months ago I was sitting in a fast & testimony meeting. An older woman was up there at the podium. She said something that surprised me. She said it almost as an after thought, and then moved on to the next sentence in less time than it takes an arthritic to pop a knuckle. What she said so matter-of-factly was that she’d seen angels at the Draper Temple Dedication. That’s a powerful comment. I looked around for reactions and although I saw eyes affixed - I heard no gasp. If ever there was a time to gasp that would have been it! The whole congregation took it in stride, though. That could be because angels play such a large part in our history. Joseph Smith used to accurately tell people exactly when they’d see an angel . The two testimonies closing out this piece included full blown angel sightings too. I actually know a handful of people that have angel stories. You probably do, too. Someone you know may share such a story if they think the
Read more

Glowing Stones in the Book Of Mormon and Elsewhere (Lots of Elsewheres!)

Image
We've had stones on here before – seer stones. Everybody should have one. A billion people used them just like Joseph Smith and I have thoroughly chronicled every single one according to name, date, size and whether or not they taste at all salty. They do taste salty, FYI. All of them. Salty like the bottom corner of a bag of Rold Gold . I actually have no insight into the flavor of seer stones. I didn’t categorize anything either, just to clear things up. The previous stone-topic was about using the stones like a seer – gazing into them and seeing whatever you need to see OR want to see. You really should read that post.  It covers so much more. This post, though, is about stones as a source of light. It’s a super strange thing that only Mormons believe can exist - except not only Mormons believe it. There are loads of examples in Jewish Lore where mighty prophets use light-emitting stones to accomplish great works - I found a Chinese reference too. Most
Read more