Chinese language based on the Bible?

[Papersock]

I'm having a discussion with someone about ancient Chinese words. I don't know much about the subject and I'm having trouble finding any information on it.
I was told that Chinese is the oldest written language and that many of their words are based on Bible stories, specifically from Genesis. 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.
Does anyone here know anything about it? And what are your thoughts?

 

[vandervalley]

I'm having a discussion with someone about ancient Chinese words. I don't know much about the subject and I'm having trouble finding any information on it.
I was told that Chinese is the oldest written language and that many of their words are based on Bible stories, specifically from Genesis. 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.
Does anyone here know anything about it? And what are your thoughts?

LOL

what a bloody joke!! HAHAA

you'd never find any evidence of monotheism in early East Asian religions

 

[w00t]

I'm having a discussion with someone about ancient Chinese words. I don't know much about the subject and I'm having trouble finding any information on it.
I was told that Chinese is the oldest written language and that many of their words are based on Bible stories, specifically from Genesis. 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.
Does anyone here know anything about it? And what are your thoughts?

Very unlikely, imo!

 

[doppelganger]

I suspect that it puts the interpretation of Nostrudomas and even the most crackpot conspiracy theories to shame in terms of wishful thinking, but for entertainment purposes only,I offer you:

Amazon.com: The Discovery of Genesis: How the Truths of Genesis Were Found Hidden in the Chinese Language: Books: C.H. Kang,Ethel R. Nelson

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

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

And why would you waste your time with such silliness?

 

[Nanda]

And why would you waste your time with such silliness?

Sadly, it was unavoidable.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I wouldn't put much thought into that theory.

 

[Pariah]

Ancient Chinese words probably have a closer relationship to Sanskrit, the ancient Indian language than they do to anything Hebrew.

Today, scientists recognize four independent writing systems - Mesopotamia, Egypt, India, and China.

Genesis, or at least the flood story, is a common story amongst most old religions - this does not prove that it has anything to do with the Bible, primarily, because such stories existed before any form of Christianity.

 

[Melissa G]

I'm having a discussion with someone about ancient Chinese words. I don't know much about the subject and I'm having trouble finding any information on it.
I was told that Chinese is the oldest written language and that many of their words are based on Bible stories, specifically from Genesis. 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.
Does anyone here know anything about it? And what are your thoughts?

I nearly wet my pants...

~Melissa

 

[Papersock]

Fun responses
I thought if there was anything to it I might have heard about it before, maybe in some of the Christian websites I’ve seen.
Then again, maybe not. Here is what AiG has on the subject:

Chinese Characters and Genesis
AiG misrepresents ancient Chinese language?
The original “unknown” God of China

 

[Papersock]

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]

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]

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.

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.

 

[Smoke]

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.

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.

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]

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]

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/Area/Magazines/images/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...

 

[doppelganger]

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.

Well it's kind of a "duh" but "fruit" = genitals. So it's quite possible (even if the analysis of the characters composing modern Chinese is correct) that the Chinese symbol for "naked" merely correlates the idea of clothing with the idea of genitalia, without any need for Chinese to trace it's origins back to Genesis. This whole enterprise is monumentally silly. But I will say this: there are many who have bought into this way of slanting evidence because it suits their purpose (maintaining a peculiarly literal "faith" in the words of the Bible), and studying such a phenomenon sheds a lot of light on the pointlessness of debating "evidence" on such subjects as "Creationism", "the truth of the history of the Book of Mormon", "holocaust denial", "Global Warming" or anything else in which people are emotionally invested to such a degree that "evidence" really doesn't serve any function anymore other than to perpetuate the illusion. If you already have your conclusion and are merely looking for the way to align whatever you encounter with that conclusion, are you even dealing in "evidence" any more? After all, any ontological proposition can be maintained in the face of any amount of apparent "evidence" the contrary. ANY proposition . . . . all one needs is enough determination.