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Ancient Chinese Culture Confirms Genesis; Part 3

Introduction

Continuing from Parts 1 and 2; recorded Chinese history can be traced back to God’s dispersion (confusion) of the languages at Babel and the Chinese knowledge of the events of Genesis before then, which is evident in their ancient culture. Below is part 3 of this three-part series.

Chinese characters

According to tradition, during the reign of the Yellow Emperor Huang Di, the first characters, simple drawings of familiar objects, picture words (pictographs) were invented.[1] Other examples are Sumerian cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphics. A much later development is an alphabet which allowed for pronunciation of the written information. Some ancient forms of writing have evolved, to enable the reader to pronounce what was written. Chinese is such a case whereby phonetic complements were inserted in some characters. Chinese like all languages has changed over its 4,000 years of existence. During with the passage of time over the many centuries, the origin and accurate meaning of these original pictographs were lost or became blurred; and even the true meaning of Shang Di also became misunderstood. Superimposed on all of this is stylistic variations of writing characters. However, a major find has provided an insight into early Chinese writing.

Oracle Bone Writings

The oracle bones were discovered during the 1800s by two Chinese scholars, who noticed inscriptions on turtle shells sold in Chinese medicine shops in Peking. The oracle bones were first excavated and cataloged in 1899 from a site in Anyang, near Yinxu, the ancient capital of the latter part of the Shang Dynasty of China, located in present-day Henan Province. In these and subsequent excavations near Anyang, more than 100,000 oracle bones have been found, inscribed with more than 1.6 million characters.[2] The oracle bone texts are the oldest extant documents written in the Chinese language. They are inscribed on ox shoulder-blades and the flat under-part of turtle shells (as shown). They record questions to which answers were sought by divination at the court of the royal house of Shang 商, which ruled central China between the 16th and 11th centuries BC.[3] These writings go back about 3,500 years.

Genesis in the Oracle pictographs

Dr Ethel Nelson provides six examples in her book God’s Promise to the Chinese.[4] I acknowledge and am grateful to Karen Chin for providing me with all of the Chinese radicals and characters that follow.

Radicals which make up                   Character             Modern

the character                                                                          Character

woman                                  trees                          desire, covet

There were two trees in the Garden of Eden; the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Genesis 3:6, a woman facing one tree, coveting the fruit, with her back to the other tree conveys the idea of coveting or desiring.

      serpent                           trees                    negative, no, not

Genesis 3:1-5. The serpent (Satan) lied about the trees and the negative consequences.

mouth (eating)              tree                               restrain

Genesis 2:16-17. God’s command was “ Don’t eat; restrain yourself!”

    Tree                          enclosure                      difficulty

                                         garden                            trouble

Genesis 3:16-24. Eating of the tree in the garden brought trouble, difficulty.

Noble person             lamb, sheep                    beautiful

When the Lamb covered their sins, they were beautiful in God’s sight. This was fulfilled in Jesus. John 1:29; 1 Peter 1:17-21; c/f Romans 4:1-8.

  Hand              lance                    me                 sheep             righteousness            simplified script

Genesis 3:21. The sheep like a garment covers me. But “me” is composed of a hand and a lance, a weapon, which suggests I am ultimately responsible for the death of the Lamb. The death of the Lamb makes me righteous.

There are many more examples included in the Oracle Bone Writings which support the account in Genesis. These can be found in Dr Nelson’s book already mentioned and Ginger Tong Chock’s book; Genesis in Ancient China, Eastwood Garden Publishing, 2015.

Genesis in modern tradition Chinese

Even Traditional Chinese written today, show elements of Genesis are still present in their characters. Ten examples which are taken from a booklet produced by Great Commission Ministry; www.gcm.org.au, follow:

礻+  一  +  口  +  田   =   福

God                one (first)          mouth (person)        field (garden)              blessing

Blessing is what the first man (Adam) had with God in the Garden of Eden, Genesis 2:8.

土  +  口  +  丿 +    辶   =    造

Dust               mouth (person)          life or motion      person walking          create

God took the dust, breathed into it and created life in a man who walked, Genesis 2:7.

土  +  儿   +   丿   =    先

Dust                son or man                  life or motion                  first

God used the dust to create the first man and he became a living person, Genesis 2:7.

田  + 儿  + 丿 +  厶    =    鬼

garden               man          life or motion        secret or private             devil, spirit

The devil secretly went into the garden and spoke like a man to Eve, Genesis 3:1-6.

木 + 木 +   广  +  鬼   =  魔

tree                 tree               under cover of         devil, spirit       evil spirit, demon

There were two trees in the Garden of Eden; the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The devil (evil spirit) came secretly into the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, Genesis 3:1-6.

木  + 木   + 女   =  婪

tree                          tree                   woman                       greedy

The woman rejected the Tree of Life to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil; she was greedy, Genesis 3:6.

木  +  木  +  示     =     禁

tree                          tree          command or sign post                forbidden

Adam and Eve were forbidden by God to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, Genesis 3:15-17.

舟  + 八   +   口    =    船

Vessel                     eight                         mouth (people)                boat

Obviously, the Chinese knew about the Flood and Noah’s Ark which contained eight people (Noah, his wife and their three sons and three daughters-in-law), Genesis 7:7.

人+ 一 + 口 +  艹 + 土  =  塔

man                 one             mouth (language)    grass        dust or soil             tower

The world had only one language and the people combined to build a very high tower out of mud/clay bricks, Genesis 11:1-9.

羊  +  我   =  義

lamb                             me                  righteousness

The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” John 1:29.

Conclusion

These three blogs concerning the ancient Chinese culture confirm the events recorded in Genesis as real history.

The Bronze Tree of Sanxingdui, is a remarkable representation of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil which Satan used to bring down Adam and Eve. The four thousand years of the Chinese worship of their supreme God, Shang Di and their ritual sacrifice to Him is in accordance with Abel’s and presumably his parents’ sacrifice to God. And finally, the Chinese radicals and characters shown here provide so much confirmation of the Genesis events. All of which combine to support the Hebrew record of biblical history.

Post script

For people who would like to know more on this topic, there are two hour plus youtube videos shown below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLyVAE_JYFQ#t=142.689289; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NotLi2wZ4Sc.

 

[1] Ethel R Nelson and Richard E Broadberry, God’s Promise to the Chinese, Read Books, 2014, page 10, citing: Hsin Cheng Yu, Ancient Chinese History, Taipei, Taiwan Commercial Press, 1963, page 6.
[2] http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Oracle_Bone_Script.
[3] http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/mulu/oracle.html.
[4] Ethel R Nelson and Richard E Broadberry, God’s Promise to the Chinese, Read Books, 2014.

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