According to the book of Joshua, Joshua, who had blocked the Jordan River at its upstream and had sent all the people of Israel to the west bank, including about forty thousand warriors of the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh who had settled on the east bank, ordered everyone to circumcise in Gilgal. (Joshua chapters 3-5) This means that these Israelites converted to Judaism at this point. In fact, all the Jews fled from Egypt with Moses had died while wandering through the Sinai wilderness for 40 years.

However, when Moses conducted a second census of the Israelites, who were over the age of 20 and able to go forth to war, in the plains of Moab by the Jordan at opposite bank of Jericho, the number of each tribes as follows; Reuben 43,730, Simeon 22,200, Gad 40,500, Judah 76,500, Issachar 64,300, Zebulun 60,500, Manasseh 52,700, Ephraim 32,500, Benjamin 45,600, Schham 64,400, Asher 53,400 and Naphtali 45,400. In total, there were 601,730 people. (Nu 26:1-51)

In short, all of invaded the West Bank troops mentioned above were newly recruited on the East Bank. Even though many of them were originally nomads belonged to the Abraham's lineage, they had already settled on the east bank for a long time. So they seem to have worshiped the indigenous gods and forgoten their nomadic lifestyle and Judaism. Therefore, it may have been necessary to circumcise again.

According to Mr. Shlomo Sand, Professor of history at Tel Aviv University, the still-powerful pharaohs (19th Dynasty BC 1293 - BC 1185, 20th Dynasty BC 1185 - BC 1070) ruled the Promised Land Canaan in the thirteenth century BCE when the people of Israel escaped from Egypt and Joshua, the successor of Moses, conquered Canaan. The ancient Egyptians kept meticulous records of every event including in Canaan. Yet there is not a single mention of any "Children of Israel" who lived in Egypt, or rebelled against it, or emigrated from it at any time.

Perhaps, though Moses led a few tribes, which mainly consisted of the Levites and Joseph tribes and were small enough for Egyptian officials to ignore them, and emigrated to the Sinai Peninsula, as described in the Book Joshua 5: 2-6, those escapees seem to have been extinguished almost all, including Moses. However, the legend of Moses' Exodus was handed down among nomads on the eastern bank of the Jordan River. For this reason, Joshua, the leader of the Ephraim tribe, is believed to have organized the nomads on the east bank into a large force that could oppose the city-state of the farmers on the west bank, based on the religious authority of Moses' successor.

More over, Moses was 120 years old when he died within sight of the Promised Land. However, Moses called Hoshea the son of Nun, of the tribe of Ephraim, Joshua (Nu 13:16) and nominated Joshua as his successor before his death. (De 31:3) This name change seems to imply that Joshua converted to Judaism at that point.

After conquering the West Bank, Joshua assembled the tribes at Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal. At that time, the tribes of Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph (Manasseh, Ephraim) and Benjamin gathered at Mount Gerizim and the tribes of Ruben, Zebulun, Dan, Naphtali, Gado and Asher gathered at the Mount Ebal. And a blessing for people obeyed God and a curse for people not obeyed God were recited. (De 27:11-13, Jos 8:30-35)

Thus Joshua and his tribe Ephraim established control over the tribes of Israel, but in contrast, Moses' tribe Levi was banished to the corner and completely locked out from the allocation of the occupied territories on the west bank. After the complaint, the rangelands were allocated to them but they were excluded from the twelve tribes.

Another noteworthy point is the difference between the descriptions in Chapter 26 of "Numbers" and Chapter 3 of "Joshua" regarding the number of soldiers who participated in the conquest of the West Bank. The Book of Numbers states that the total number of troops in each tribe is 601,730, while the Book of Joshua only states that about 40,000 warriors from the Ruben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh crossed the Jordan River at the forefront of other tribes of Israel, and the breakdown of each tribe is not given. The description of Joshua looks to suggest that only about 40,000 warriors of the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh may have actually conquered the West Bank.

When the nomads on the eastern bank of the Jordan conquered the west bank, the indigenous people (farmers) are supposed to have become the devoted offering (targets of extermination). However, in fact, the most farmers continued to survive and the symbiotic relationship between nomads and farmers seems to have been maintained despite the reversal of the master-slave relationship. Therefore, it may have been intended to put the brunt of the farmers' grudges on the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh who had been pulled up to the east bank immediately after the conquest of the west bank. This is because the descriptions of myths and history books related to an incident were not written at the time of the incident, but decades or even hundreds of years later, taking into account the political and social environment at the time of writing.

The description in the chapter 5 verse 2-6 of the Book Joshua implies that the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, who have the Y chromosome gene D, which is characteristic of Paleo-Mongoloids such as Tibetans and indigenous people of the Japanese archipelago, reorganized the twelve tribes of Israel and contributed to the birth of the ancient Kingdom of Israel.

According to Professor Takeshi Nakajima (中島岳志) of Tokyo Institute of Technology (東京工業大学), Tenshin Okakura (岡倉天心) says in 'The Ideals of the East' written by him during his stay in India, "China, the country of Confucius, and India, the country of Vedanta (Hinduism), seem to be completely different at first glance, but despite this, based on 'Advaita (non-duality),' which forms the central concept of Vedanta, 'Asia is One' and 'Advaita' is 'Love'."

In the tide of Syncretism (cultural fusion of east and west) arisen after Alexander the Great's eastern expedition, 'Advaita' seems to have been incorporated into Mahayana Buddhism and translated into Chinese as '不二一元 (Not two but One origin)' by Chinese Buddhist monks, so called the philosophers of Hua-yen (華厳僧). Here, too, it can be seen that the Ephraim and Manasseh tribes contributed behind it just like the doctrine of 'Three-One mysterious substance (三一妙身)' in "Daqin Jingjiao Popular Chinese Monument (大秦景教流行中国碑: Nestorian Stele)."

According to "The Original Jesus - Buddhist Sources of Christianity" written by Elmer R. Gruber & Holger Kersten, the name Jesus is nothing other than the Greek translation of Joshua and means 'Jah is redemption.'

On the other hand, according to Professor James D. Tabor, the author of "The Jesus Dynasty," and Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina, Mary, mother of Jesus, named her three sons James, Judas and Simon. These names came from the Maccabean family that had successfully thrown out the Greeks, purified and re-dedicated the Temple in the 2nd century BC. Eusebius of Caesarea (265-339) and Epiphanius of Salamis (315-403) first named James, then Simon, and Judas as leaders of the Jerusalem Church after Jesus' death, and said that these three had commanded the Jerusalem Church as the legitimate David's lineage until 135 AD, when the reign of Emperor Hadrian had ended.

Why did Joseph choose the name after the leader of the Ephraim tribe, rather than the tribe of Judah, to which he belonged, or the tribe of Levi, to which Mary belonged? Is it something to do with Jesus' real father?

According to Professor Tabor, in an anti-Christian work titled 'On the True Doctrine', written by a Greek philosopher named Celsus around 178 AD, Maria became pregnant for a Roman soldier named Panthera and was expelled from her husband as an adulterer. On the other hand, Eliezer ben Hyrcanus, a rabbi around the first century C.E., stated that Jacob of Sikhnin, the grandson of Judas, the youngest brother of Jesus, had healed victims of venomous snake bites through saying "In the Name of Jesus, Son of Panteri." In this regard, the 4th-century orthodox Christian Epiphanius was trying to explain that the 'Panthera' of 'Jesus son of Panthera' was used as part of the family name because Jesus' grandfather (Joseph's father) was known as 'Jacob Panthera.' 'Pantera' is one of the Greek names in the Latin literature. German historian Adolf Deissmann listed literatures around the 1st century in which the name "Pantera/Panthera" had been mentioned in a essay titled "Der Name Panthera" written in 1906, and added that the name had been especially favored by Roman soldiers. Deissmann also introduced the tombstone of Tiberius Julius Abdes Pantera found in 1859 at the Roman Cemetery in Bad Kreuznach along the Nahe River near Frankfurt, Germany.

According to Professor Tabor, Pantera, who belonged to Roman army the first cohort of archers, obtained Roman citizenship by serving in the Roman army, might have a Jewish background based on his name, Abdes which means 'servant of God.' According to the inscription on the tombstone in the Romerhalle Museum, Pantera, who came to Germany from Palestine and died in the middle of the first century, served for 40 years until his death at the age of 62, beyond the usual 25-year military service period. Pantera is the original his surname, and Tiberius Julius is the family name as a Roman citizen.

In short, he served for 40 years as the Emperor Tiberius's vassal, and at some point he was granted Roman citizenship for his service.

Pantera was born in Sidon, a Phoenician colonial city near Galilee. So he may have known Mary and have made friend with Joseph, who too held Roman citizenship. And from such circumstances. Joseph may have taken on Jesus' adoptive father on behalf of Pantera, who was busy with military service.

Joseph traveled from Nazareth in southern Galilee to his hometown Bethlehem Efrata in southern Jerusalem with his betrothed Mary in her ninth month for the mandatory census for Roman citizens. (Lu 2:1-5) He registered Jesus born there as a Roman citizen, in other word his own child. Such identity of Jesus may have been passed on to the governor of Judea and his boss, the Syrian governor, and even the Roman emperor through Panthera.

According to Professor Tabor, Jesus went to Tire and Sidon, Phoenician colonial cities far north for some reason, during his lifetime(Mr 7:24), and Mr. Tabor points out that Jesus may have met Pantera at that time. Because Roman army the first cohort of archers, to which Tiberius Julius Abdes Pantera belonged, then stationed in Sidon

Jesus, who had appeared at the funeral venue of Lazarus, resurrected Lazarus from the grave in front of a large number of mourners. This miracle was reported throughout of Israel by the mourners. The high priest Caiaphas immediately called a meeting of the Sanhedrin and proposed to crucify Jesus as the savior of the Jewish nation. Jesus withdrew temporary to a village called Ephraim, where he stayed with his disciples. (Joh 11:49-54)

Ephraim is a hilly territory north of Jerusalem and it is regarded as the most fertile land of Palestine. There is a tomb of Joshua in Ephraim. Jesus may have gone to report in front of Joshua's grave before being sentenced to the crucifixion. If so, it is possible that Pantera was an Ephraim.

Jesus, who taught in the temple every day until his crucifixion after he had marched into Jerusalem as the King of Israel riding a donkey colt and leading the masses, quoted the psalm (Ps 110:1), and clearly denied that he was a descendant of David, saying, "If David calls Christ 'Lord,' how can Christ be his son? (Mt 22:43-45/ Mr 12:35-37/ Lu 20:41-44)"

However, quoting the scripture; 'He who shares my bread has lifted up his heel against me. (Ps 41: 9),' Jesus implied that he would be betrayed by Judas, one of the Twelve Apostles. (Joh 13:18) This implication is meaningless unless there is an assumption that the Savior would be a descendant of David.

According to Mr. Sasagu Arai (荒井献), author of the Japanese version of 《The Gospel of Thomas》, in verse 53 of the Gospel of Thomas, Judaism and Jewish Christianity's "circumcision in flesh" is criticized and "true circumcision in spirit" is affirmed. Such spiritualization of circumcision itself has been widely recognized in Hellenistic Christianity and Orthodox Christianity since Paul (Description after Romans 2/25, especially 'circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit' at 2/29). However, for Thomas, true circumcision is nothing other than gaining gnosis (enlightenment).

Joshua re-circumcised all the tribes passed the Jordan River from the eastern bank to the western bank at Gilgal in order to solidify their unity as Israelites. Because they forgotten the lifestyle and Judaism of the nomads after Moses and his followers had all died out. Likewise Jesus seems to have tried to give "the true circumcision in the spirit" to all the people in this world through the baptism with the Holy Spirit. ＜To be continued＞

According to the dialectic of the Gospel of John,

【Thesis】"A man can possess eternal life through accepting testimony of the Son of man and being baptized by him." (John 5:24)

【Anti-thesis】But "The one who comes from the earth cannot accept the testimony by one from heaven." (John 3:32)

How then can a man possess eternal life?

【Synthesis】"If you want to be baptized with the Holy Spirit, you can just go back to the word which was with God in the beginning (John 1:1) and certify that God is truthful. (John 3:33)"

When he said, "You are Huichao," Zen Master Fayan thrusted vivid Self in Huichao in front of his eyes.