moved across to Kashmir in India, where he eventually died at the age of 120.
That message is contrary to the Bible which says Jesus, also described as "God’s only begotten Son" in John 3:16, died for the sins of mankind and resurrected from death on the third day so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but has everlasting life.
The Telegraph, a daily published from Kolkata, also known as Calcutta and the capital of West Bengal state, said Kolkata-based Shubhrajit Mitra gave his 100-minute film on the life of Jesus in India the title ‘The Unknown Stories of the Messiah.’
Christian leaders fear the project will add to religious tensions in predominantly Hindu India, which saw a series of violent incidents against Christians in 2005.
BENGALI ACTOR
In his film, Mitra featured a well-known Bengali actor Soumitra Chatterjee, who plays the role of an archaeologist and renowned actress Aparna Sen, a novelist researching Jesus. The film, which is dubbed as being in "a fiction format", evolves around a discussion between Chatterjee and Sen about the “alternative theory” regarding the life of Jesus in India.
However Babu Joseph, the spokesperson for the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India, told BosNewsLife, that "for a lack of any credible historical evidences to corroborate it, serious scholars of history and the Bible have dismissed this theory as non-serious and fictitious."
He said that "Jesus Christ is the center of the Christian faith and a lot of credible historical documentation is available on his life, work, death and resurrection. And if the available material on Jesus is reliable, another version of his life, as alleged by the film maker, seems to be redundant and even uncalled for."
"ACCEPTABLE PARAMETERS"
Joseph admitted that "freedom of expression is extremely important for the growth of any art form," but also said "it has to be exercised within certain acceptable parameters so that unnecessary provocation of someone’s religious feelings can be avoided."
The Indo-Asian News Service (IANS) quoted engineer-turned-film-maker Mitra as defending his
film. "Neither the Bible nor the mainstream ‘gospels’ give credence to such theories but… there is evidence in Hindu, Muslim, and Buddhist scriptures of Jesus staying in India."
He claimed that a "Jesus-like man" finds mention "in the holy books of Jerusalem, Alexandria, Turkey, Persia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tibet and India."
Mitra also told IANS that he would submit the film to National Geographic or Discovery Channel as he is also a scriptwriter-director for the two channels.
RUSSIAN AUTHOR
He said he was inspired by Nicolai Notovitch and Holger-Kersten, proponents of the alternative theory. Notovitch, a Russian and the author of the alternative theory, wrote a book, ‘The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ’, after his visit to Ladakh region in Jammu and Kashmir state in 1887. Influenced by Notovitch, Kersten also wrote a book, “Jesus lived in India: His Unknown Life before and after the Crucifixion”.
The alternative theory says Jesus visited Ladakh and Kashmir valley, which are now in the northern-most state of Jammu and Kashmir as well as Varanasi city, which is in today’s north-central state of Uttar Pradesh, parts of the southern state of Kerala and Puri in the western state of Orissa.
It alleges that Jesus was buried in an ancient tomb built in Kan Yar area of Kashmir’s Srinagar district. The story also suggests that Jesus first came to India as a child to learn from Hindu gurus, and later taught what He studied in His country Israel.
"MERE SPECULATION"
But Neil Vimalkumar, an Indian apologist from the Ravi Zacharias International Ministries India, told BosNewsLife that the theory was based on mere speculation. “These are fanciful stories and make an interesting read. It is only when historical status is asserted that they fail miserably. Claims about ‘evidences’, ‘scholarship’ and ‘historical works’ are made big-heartedly to give these stories an authentic flair, similar to [author] Dan Brown’s recent bestseller, ‘Da Vinci Code’.”
He said similar sounding names or activities in Kashmir or Afghanistan "at best" suggest some connections, "but to say that because we have similar names, Jesus must have been in India is an overstatement. For then we have to go against the overwhelming historical record we have of Jesus in the New Testament.”
Vimalkumar stressed that Notovitch "was just a traveler, and not a scholar by any right."
“As regards Kersten, it is ironic that while the Bible is supported by strong historical basis, he would like to build his case by reading it ‘between the lines’ and then use Gnostic documents literally as though they were historical," he added.
CHRISTIANS CONCERNED
Christian workers say Hindu fundamentalists and sections of Hindu priests in India use the alternative theory to discredit the relevance of the Gospel for Hindus. “Some years ago, I met a Hindu priest in Varanasi who said Hindus did not need to listen to the Gospel because Jesus came to Varanasi and learnt about God from Hindu scriptures,” Reverend Ashok Singh, presently director of Shechem, a Christian ministry based in North India, told BosNewsLife.
Author Dr. Ron Rhodes of ‘Reasoning from the Scriptures Ministries’ said on a website that there was "No evidence" that Jesus studied in India. "Though the Gospels [of the Bible] do not directly address Jesus’ childhood, there are convincing indirect evidences that He remained in Palestine. Luke 2:52 summarizes Jesus’ life from age 12: ‘And Jesus kept increasing
in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man,’" he recalled,
(Also on the web the commentary ‘Did Jesus go to India as a child and learn from Hindu Gurus?’ from author Rhodes. http://www.christiananswers.net/q-eden/rfsm-guru.html )
