¡¡¡¡NANJING, Aug. 16 (Xinhuanet) -- A Chinese scholar has recently discovered a clutch of Eastern Han Dynasty (25-220) stone carvingsin east China's Jiangsu Province that suggest Christianity enteredChina some 500 years earlier than it was thought previously.

¡¡¡¡Wang Weifan, a theologist and member of the China Christian Council, said his study of the stones kept in a museum in Xuzhou city showed some dated back to the year AD 86. Genesis stories andearly Christian artistic designs could be seen on the stones, he added.

¡¡¡¡Before Wang's research, the accepted theory was that Christianity arrived in China in the early Tang Dynasty (618-907).

¡¡¡¡A few scholars once suggested that Christianity arrived in China in the Eastern Han Dynasty, but no written evidence has beenoffered.

¡¡¡¡One by one, Wang, 74, compared the Bible stories with the designs of the carvings, which he said described Christian storiesabout "the Creation of the world" and "Eve being tricked by the serpent".

¡¡¡¡The design in one carving shows the sun, moon, living creaturesin the seas, birds of heaven, wild animals and reptiles -- images Wang linked to the Bible's "Creation of the world" story.

¡¡¡¡In another carving a woman takes fruit from "the tree of knowledge of good and evil" and a snake bites her right sleeve. Italso shows the angel sent by God to guard the tree.

¡¡¡¡"It's similar to the 'Eve tricked by the serpent' story in the Bible," Wang said. ¡¡

¡¡¡¡Wang noted that the designs also illustrated the artistic styleof early Christianity in the Middle East.

¡¡¡¡Some of the carvings have decorative designs of the Arabic number 8, formed by two rare animals crossing their necks. Wang said that was almost the same as designs on Uruk oval seals found in the Euphrates River and Tigris River valleys in the Middle East.

¡¡¡¡Stone carvings were major funeral objects in tombs of the Han Dynasty (BC206-AD220), when cultural exchanges between East and West flourished along the ancient Silk Road, according to Ma Huanli, member of China's Han stone carvings research society.

¡¡¡¡Consequently, those carvings might record a lot of information about religion and theology during that period, Ma said.

¡¡¡¡There are three theories about the arrival of Christianity in China: it was brought by Christians fleeing Roman persecution during the Eastern Han Dynasty, by two Syrian missionaries also during the Eastern Han Dynasty, or it arrived in China during the Three-Kingdom period (220-280).

¡¡¡¡Two strong pieces of evidence support the last hypothesis; a Roman book written in 300 which claims that Christianity was already spreading in China at that time, and the excavation of an iron cross in east China's Jiangxi Province with inscriptions showing it was cast between 238 and 250.

¡¡¡¡"Available history records are too scant to reach any definite conclusions," said professor Xu Rulei, former deputy director withthe Religious Studies Institute at Nanjing University. "But there are signs indicating that Christianity may have been introduced toChina in the Eastern Han Dynasty." Enditem