Prof Wang Welfan, a scholar of early Christian history in China, visited the Han Dynasty Stone Relief Museum and saw images of Christian stories on stone carvings dated between AD 100 and AD 220.

[I]n the sixth stone, a woman and man are sitting around what looks like a manger, with three men approaching from the left side, holding gifts, and other men queued up, kneeling, on the right. In that scene, Wang said he saw the first Christmas.

The bas-reliefs followed the artistic style of early Christianity in the Middle East, Wang said. . . .
. . .
If Wang's suspicions are right, the time of Christianity's arrival in China could be as early as the end of the 1st century, more than 500 years before the widely recognized date.

Even though most scholars do not accept Prof Wang’s theory, ancient legends also say that Christianity was brought to China in the first century.

According to the legend, St. Thomas, one of the 12 Apostles, left Jerusalem for Babylon and from there sailed to India. He landed in Cranganore, now called Kodungallur, on the southwestern coast of India, about 1,300 kilometres south of Bombay.

Legend says that after Thomas established a base of operations there, he headed for China. He was killed in India in AD 72 after he returned from the trip.

It is providential that this evidence should come into view just a few days after The Feast Day of St Thomas. The legend is supported by the testimony of two 16th-century Jesuit missionaries to China who claimed to have discovered evidence that Thomas made his way to China.

Read the whole thing for more information on the stone carvings, including pictures, and the controversy among historians of Chinese religion.

via Verum Serum.