An Epic Tale of the People of the Covenant (The origin of Christianity)
In the region from Mesopotamia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river to Palestine, city states, where agricultural and nomadic people had lived together, have risen and fallen since ancient times. The agricultural people played leading role in the most of these city states. However, the nomads traded not only with Egypt in the west but also with India and China in the east and served as catalysts for cross-cultural fusion.
These nomads include not only tribes of Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Zebulun, Issachar, Dan, Gad, Asher, Naphtali, Joseph and Benjamin, who have cultural backgrounds of Mesopotamia and Egypt, but also Manasseh and Ephraim, who have the Y chromosome gene D, which is characteristic of the Tibetans and the Jomon people (縄文人), the indigenous people of the Japanese archipelago, and seem to have been belonged to the Paleo-Mongoloids. They had also believed in different patron gods. But they formed a union of independent tribes and established the unity of religion and politics based on the covenant of the single founder Abraham and God from 3,000 to 4,000 years ago in Palestine region and appeared on history's center stage replacing agricultural people. Thus the People of the Covenant was born.
St. Thomas traveled to Assyria around 35 C.E., two years after Jesus' ascension, and went on a mission to India, and then evangelized to China via Tibet, reached the present Beijing (北京) in 62 C.E., and seems to have established an organized church (congregation), too. By the way, why did Thomas go to the northern frontier town called Ji Xian (薊県), but not Luo Yang (洛陽) or Chang An (長安), capital cities of the later Han (后漢)?
Come to think of it, on the monument of 'Reconstruction of the Temple of Purity and Truth (重建清真寺記碑)' discovered in Kaifeng city (開封市) of eastern Henan province (河南省) of China, it is said to be written that the Jews first arrived in the city in 231 BC, when General Ben Wang (王賁) of Qin (秦) reduced Wei (魏)'s capital city, Daliang (大梁: current Kaifeng City), and formed a Jewish community. Almost ten years later, in 226 BC, General Ben Wang reduced Yan (燕)'s royal capital, Jicheng (薊城, now the city of Beijing), and Kingdom of Yan was extinguished in 222 BC.
Seen as the mother tribe of Qin (秦), the Qiang (羌) tribe was literally herders that grazed sheep, and was a typical descendants of Manasseh, according to Israeli research agency Amishav, organisation aimed at seeking the Lost Tribes of Israel.
If so, when St. Thomas visited former Yan (燕)'s royal capital Jicheng (薊城), the Jewish community there might have had a close relationship with Yamato Kingdom (大和国), which Nigihayahinomikoto (饒速日尊) had established under the cooperation of the Jewish tribe Ephraim, and Hata clan (秦氏), which was descendants of the Manasseh tribe and had been naturalized in Yamato in the Emperor Ojin (応神天皇)'s reign.
While the descriptions in the Nihon Shoki (日本書紀) and Kojiki (古事記) imply that the Japanese imperial family has blood relations with both Silla (新羅) and Baekje (百済) and it appears that the Ephraim and Manasseh tribes of the ten lost tribes of Israel seem to have acted as mediators of them.
According to the Israeli research agency Amishav, Hata clan seems to have been the descendants of the tribe Manasseh. If the description in "Honchokouinshounroku (本朝皇胤紹運録)" is correct, the current royal family, which belongs to Emperor Keitai's direct line, is likely to be the descendants of the Manasseh tribe.
