Did Christianity arrive in India in 52AD ?

 

Did Christians arrive in India( Kerala) in  52 AD in the form of St Thomas?

By Vinod Hariharan

The claim by Xtians is that St. Thomas visited India( kerala) in 52 AD and converted few Brahmins, established 8 churches , fixed 7 crosses and eventually he was killed by Brahmins in 72 AD:. Xtians hv been using this claim to drive their point that Xtianity in India is as older and existed much before colonisation by British .

When was Christianity religion formed:

We know that jesus was born around 2000 years ago in present day Israel ( no clarity though) meaning around 6-10 AD( or CE) and at the age of 30, he claimed to be the God mentioned in holy book of Jews and that would have been around 35 AD/CE . Surprisingly, nothing much is known about early life of Jesus till 30 years of age . But many people claim that he lived in India, Himalayas till then and returned to Israel .

Busting this Myth:

a) St Thomas , if ever was born, was a twin brother of Jesus as was mentioned in Gospel of Thomas which was never accepted by Vatican as it goes against their doctrine that Jesus was the only son of God.

b) His full name was Didymus Judas Thomas. Didymus is a greek word meaning Twin and Thomas is Aramaic meaning Twin

c). Assuming he visited kerala in 52AD, it was not possible to preach Xtianity bcos Xtianity religion was formed by Roman Emperor Constantine in 325 AD alongside New testament. And Cross was borrowed from Egyptians in 4th century and oldest Cross is a Pagan persian symbol

https://www.cgg.org/index.cfm/library/article/id/471/cross-christian-banner-pagan-relic.htm

refer wikipedia- list of oldest churches : Oldest churches were in jerusalem and Syria which were in the period of constantine in 3rd-4th century

d) Brahmins ( namboodiris) reached kerala by 6th-7th century AD only and there was no way Thomas could have converted Brahmins in 52 AD. In 52 AD, kerala was something of an Amazon forest with very few tribes living there.

e) In 2006, Pope Benedict declared at Rome that Thomas never visited kerala .Later he was forced by believers to retrace his statements

f) Father Heras -Director of historical research in St Xaviers univ Mumbai , in 1953 examined all the evidence and confirmed that St Thomas Tomb is not there in chennai. He even confirmed that the relics found are elements of forgery. Father Heras was a Jesuit and a Historian

g) Indologist Richard Garbe says that there is no evidence of Xtianity in India before 4th century AD

h) Portuguese who arrived in India in 16th century found it extremely difficult to gain easy acceptance and hence they created this story of visit & martyrdom of St Thomas in Chennai . This can be true as few decades before, Portuguese invaded Africa in search of Gold as desired by King Louis 1 and in 16th century Portugese invaded India in search of spices and other valuables.

i)Father Paul Thelekat of Syro malabar church said that Thomas never came to kerala in first century at all

j)As per Konraad Elst - a Belgian scholar ( he is there in twitter even now, alive and kicking), catholic universities in Europe have stopped teaching St Thomas kerala visit Myth already

This was how they built history of Xtianity in India to show that Christianity existed in India long before Britishers Colonised it and that this faith was not an imported faith,.