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The appeared in the 17th century as a hypothesis which claimed the Japanese people were the main part of the ten lost tribes of Israel. A later version portrayed them as descendents of a tribe of Jewish Nestorians. Some versions of the theory applied to the whole population, but others only claimed that a specific group within the Japanese people had descended from Jews. Tudor Parfitt writes that "the spread of the fantasy of Israelite origin... forms a consistent feature of the Western colonial enterprise",〔Parfitt, p.162.〕 stating, "It is in fact in Japan that we can trace the most remarkable evolution in the Pacific of an imagined Judaic past. As elsewhere in the world, the theory that aspects of the country were to be explained via an Israelite model was introduced by Western agents." Researcher and author Jon Entine emphasizes that DNA evidence excludes the possibility of significant links between Japanese and Jews.〔(Abraham's children: race, identity, and the DNA of the chosen people )〕 ==Origins== During the Age of Discovery, European explorers attempted to connect many peoples with whom they first came into contact to the Ten Lost Tribes, sometimes in conjunction with attempts to introduce Christian missionaries. The first person to identify the lost tribes with an East Asian nation was João Rodriguez (1561-1634), a Jesuit missionary and interpreter. In 1608, he argued that the both the Japanese and the Chinese descended from the Lost Tribes of Israel. He believed that the Chinese sages Confucius and Lao-tse took their ideas from Judaism.〔Ben Ami-Shillony, ''The Jews and the Japanese: The Successful Outsiders'', pp. 134-5 (Rutland, VT: Tuttle, 1991)〕 Rodriguez later abandoned this theory. In his ''Historia da Igreja do Japão'' he argued that Japan was populated in two waves of immigration from the mainland, one group originating from Chekiang, and the other from Korea.〔C. R. Boxer, "Some Aspects of Western Historical Writing on the Far East, 1500-1800" in E. G. Pulleyblank (ed), ''Historians of China and Japan'', Oxford University Press, London, 1961, p.317.〕 According to Parfitt, "the first full-blown development of the theory was put forward by Nicholas McLeod, a Scot who started his career in the herring industry before he ended up in Japan as a missionary."〔Parfitt, p.159.〕 In 1870 McLeod published ''Epitome of the ancient history of Japan''〔McLeod, Norman. subtitle:''Japan and the Lost Tribes of Israel'', Nagasaki, 1876.〕 and ''Illustrations to the Epitome of the ancient history of Japan'',〔An article of this book can be seen at the Rare Books site of National Library of Scotland with search words "Norman McLeod Epitome", (accessed March 09, 2011).〕 claiming that the Japanese people included descendants of the lost tribes of Israel, who formed the aristocracy and traditional priestly castes. Evidence cited for this theory included similarities between the legends of Emperor Jimmu and Moses, the presence of "Portuguese-Jewish" racial features on some Japanese, and similarities between Shinto and Judaism.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Japanese-Jewish common ancestry theory」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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