Author: Johannes Laures
Publisher: Praeger
Published: 1970
Total Pages: 272
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Author: Jennes
Publisher: BRILL
Published: 1973-06
Total Pages: 296
ISBN-13: 9004618481
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Author: Otis Cary
Publisher: Psychology Press
Published: 1995
Total Pages: 372
ISBN-13: 9780700702626
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →First Published in 1995. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Author: Christal Whelan
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Published: 1996-09-01
Total Pages: 156
ISBN-13: 9780824818241
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →In 1865 a French priest was visited by a small group of Japanese at his newly built church in Nagasaki. They were descendants of Japan's first Christians, the survivors of brutal religious persecution under the Tokugawa government. The Kakure Kirishitan, or "hidden Christians," had practiced their religion in secret for several hundred years. Sometime after their visit the priest received a copy of the Kakure bible, the Tenchi Hajimari no Koto, "Beginning of Heaven and Earth," an intriguing amalgam of Bible stories, Japanese fables, and Roman Catholic doctrine. Whelan offers a complete translation of this unique work accompanied by an illuminating commentary that provides the first theory of origin and evolution of the Tenchi. Today, the few Kakure Kirishitan communities still in existence view the Tenchi as strange and flawed, expressing a distorted form of Christianity. It is, however, the only text produced by the Kakure Kirishitan that depicts their highly syncretistic tradition and provides a colorful window through which to examine the dynamics of religious acculturation.