What Does the Bible Say About India?

The Bible gives the origins of the peoples who inhabit the world. What about Asian Indians?

The Bible states:

6 The sons of Ham were Cush, Mizraim, Put, and Canaan. 7 The sons of Cush were Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah, and Sabtechah; and the sons of Raamah were Sheba and Dedan. 8 Cush begot Nimrod; he began to be a mighty one on the earth (Genesis 10:6-8).

Richard Ames of the Living Church of God has observed:

The Hebrew word for Ethiopia is Cush, the eastern branch of which is identified with India. The Hebrew word for Libya is Put (Put was the third son of Ham, according to Genesis 10:6), whose eastern branch, like Cush, is also identified with India (Ames R. The Middle East in Prophecy. LCG Booklet).

By the name “India”, India is mentioned twice in the Bible in the Book of Ester:

Now it came to pass in the days of Ahasuerus (this was the Ahasuerus who reigned over one hundred and twenty-seven provinces, from India to Ethiopia) (Esther 1:1).

So the king’s scribes were called at that time, in the third month, which is the month of Sivan, on the twenty-third day; and it was written, according to all that Mordecai commanded, to the Jews, the satraps, the governors, and the princes of the provinces from India to Ethiopia, one hundred and twenty-seven provinces in all, to every province in its own script, to every people in their own language, and to the Jews in their own script and language (Esther 8:9).

Hence there are several biblical connections with the peoples of Indian ancestory.

Possible Clues in as To Original Christian Influence

It is believed that Christianity came to India in the first century.

Jesus named twelve men to be apostles and commissioned them to take the gospel to the world (Matthew 28:19-20). One of those was Bartholomew, and another was Thomas who was called “the twin” (John 20:24).

In the early third century, Hippolytus wrote about Bartholomew and Thomas:

Bartholomew, again, preached to the Indians, to whom he also gave the Gospel according to Matthew, and was crucified with his head downward, and was buried in Allanum, a town of the great Armenia…

And Thomas preached to the Parthians, Medes, Persians, Hyrcanians, Bactrians, and Margians, and was thrust through in the four members of his body with a pine spears at Calamene, the city of India, and was buried there (Hippolytus. On The Twelve Apostles).

This may be the earliest reference to any form of Christianity coming to India. Thus, apparently at least two of the original apostles made it to India.