Chinese language based on the Bible? (Buddhism, blood, genesis, God)

[Papersock]

Originally Posted by Jay

And why would you waste your time with such silliness?

Well, the person came to my forum with the subject I thought it would be rude just to reject it outright. Especially since I know next to nothing about it.

[MaddLlama]

That's the biggest load of crap I've ever heard.

You might want to pick up a book on Chinese history to find out where the language really came from.

[Papersock]

Originally Posted by MaddLlama

That's the biggest load of crap I've ever heard.

You might want to pick up a book on Chinese history to find out where the language really came from.

I might want to do that. I'll see if the library has some.

[BruceDLimber]

The entire proposition is ridiculous given that the Chinese language is far older than even the oldest parts of the Old Testament!

Bruce

[Papersock]

Originally Posted by BruceDLimber

The entire proposition is ridiculous given that the Chinese language is far older than even the oldest parts of the Old Testament!

Bruce

I think the idea is that ancient Chinese people knew the Bible stories and believed in the god of the Bible before the Bible was even written.

[Fluffy]

The most satisfying thing about this, for me anyway, is that AiG have leant their support to it.

Originally Posted by Jay

And why would you waste your time with such silliness?

I'm curious about what line of reasoning could be used to attempt to justify such a conclusion. It can simply be interesting to see the lengths that people will go to sometimes.

[MidnightBlue]

Originally Posted by Papersock

I was told that Chinese is the oldest written language and that many of their words are based on Bible stories, specifically from Genesis.

If you stop and think about it a minute, it will be obvious that if Chinese is the oldest written language, it's not likely to come from Hebrew, and that the age of Chinese writing would be irrelevant to any loan-words that might have come from Hebrew.

It's hard to say what the oldest written language actually is. We know that people were writing in India and Mesopotamia and Egypt more than 5000 years ago; we don't have such clear evidence of the beginnings of Chinese writing.

Originally Posted by Papersock

This is suppose to be evidence that long before Buddhism and Taoism the Chinese people believed in the same god that Christians now believe in.

I've never heard this before.

With good reason. It's a fantasy. At the time Siddhartha Gautama lived, Christianity (and the Christian concept of a Triune God) didn't exist, Jewish monotheism was still developing. Any "Judaism" that had been exported to China and had time to establish itself among the Chinese would have been a Levantine polytheism, monolatrous or not, and wouldn't have had much in common with the Christian god.

Originally Posted by Papersock

Does anyone here know anything about it? And what are your thoughts?

It's hard to comment, because I'm not sure what the person you're talking to is claiming.

As far as anybody knows, Christianity and Judaism both first arrived in China in the 7th century CE. There are unsubstantiated legends that one or more of the apostles journeyed to China, but no actual evidence.

If your friend is claiming that some Chinese words are similar to Hebrew words, and that that's evidence that the ancient Chinese and the ancient Hebrews worshiped the same god, you can bet that your friend is suffering from a profound misunderstanding of linguistics and the history of religion in China and the history of religion in the Levant. Without knowing more details, it's impossible to say just what misunderstandings those are.

But ask yourself: If there were a universal god who revealed himself to both the Chinese and the Hebrews, why would the Chinese speak and write about him using Hebrew words?

[Papersock]

Originally Posted by Fluffy

The most satisfying thing about this, for me anyway, is that AiG have leant their support to it.

I'm curious about what line of reasoning could be used to attempt to justify such a conclusion. It can simply be interesting to see the lengths that people will go to sometimes.

As far as I can tell, several ancient chinese word symbols are made up of other words that all match up with certain Genesis stories.

Such as the Chinese word for "naked," which is composed of two words: fruit + clothing. The word "fruit" refers to the story of Adam and Eve, or so I've been told.

[Papersock]

Originally Posted by MidnightBlue

If your friend is claiming that some Chinese words are similar to Hebrew words, and that that's evidence that the ancient Chinese and the ancient Hebrews worshiped the same god, you can bet that your friend is suffering from a profound misunderstanding of linguistics and the history of religion in China and the history of religion in the Levant. Without knowing more details, it's impossible to say just what misunderstandings those are.

The claim isn't that Chinese words are similar to Hebrew words, but that Chinese words are made up of other chinese words that coincide with stories in genesis. I don't think I was very clear on this.

Like this one: http://www.answersingenesis.org/Home...203kanji03.gif
The word for "to create" is made by combining the words for "speak," "dust," "life," and "walk."
In one symbol this tells the story of how god created simply by speaking and he created man from the dust. I'm not sure how "walk" fits in with the story, though...