L
lightningstrike
Guest
May I introduce a point of view which may at first seem very radical, but I hope it would make sense as you think about it.
Not all of the gentile (non-Jewish) nations of the ancient world worshipped idols and polytheistic gods.
There was one exception.
Of all the "first wave" of great ancient (Gentile) human civilisations, only this one survives to the present day. Of the world's most ancient writing systems, only the written language of this people is still in wide use. This civilisation has endured more than 4000 years of wars and conquests, while countless mighty empires have risen and fallen around her. Today the land allocated to this people by God is still the same land their ancestors lived on more than 4000 years ago. In fact, in ancient times, this nation was known by its people as the "Land of God". But for at least the last three millennia of her long history, this nation has foolishly turned away from the God that protected it and brought prosperity to its ancient sage rulers and hence suffered the consequences. 2500 years ago it entered into a spiritual dark age, which it is only beginning to get out of now. Yet in God's infinite mercy and grace this people was never totally abandoned by God. Therefore among all the Gentile civilisations that arose in the third millennium BC it alone survives to this day.
Which ancient civilisation I am referring to?
The nation of China.
I believe the God of Ancient China (during what I call the "Faithful Age", before the Chinese fell into the spiritual dark age) is identical to the God of Israel and consequently identical to the Christian God. Now this may seem like a very radical and extreme (if not heretical) view, but it is a serious one. There is a lot of evidence going for it. Admittedly the evidence is not directly Biblical, but that is I think due to practical limitations. The Bible is the inspired Word of God, but it was written by Jews who had no physical contact with the Chinese and therefore it is not possible for China to be recorded in it in any detail. (But actually China is mentioned in the Bible at perhaps a quite significant point as the "land of Sinim") The history and the geography of the Bible only concerns a rather limited area of human civilisation centred on the Jews, yet God must have had significant influences on all human cultures throughout the world and this historical detail would not be recorded in the Bible.
However, if we examine the most ancient and authoritative Chinese classics (often referred to as the Five Classics), we find that the Chinese God is virtually identical to the Jewish God but is totally different from the God of all the other polythestic and mystical cultures. Here is just a short list of the reasons to believe that the Chinese God is identical to the God of the Bible. There are many more but a full analysis would probably require a book, which I am not able to write.
1. The Chinese God (the Chinese word for God is Shangdi, a term also used by Chinese Christians, literally it means "Superme Ruler") is never worshipped with idols, images or pictures of any sort. This is very unique among Gentile cultures, especially considering the fact that the ancient Chinese did not have any physical contact with the ancient Jews so China's ancient monotheistic tradition is truly indigenous and not just trying to "copy" the Jews. The ancient Chinese built temples for their God like the Jews did (but this as I said is not trying to copy the Jews for there is no physical contact between Jews and Chinese in the ancient age and the building styles are totally different). An example of this sort of temple still exist in China today. It is the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. If you walk into the temple's main hall, you would find that unlike all the Buddhist, Shinto and Hindu temples of all the other Asiatic cultures, there are only abstract patterns but no idols or pictures of any kind. The Chinese God Shangdi is only represented very abstractly by a plaque on which it is written in Chinese ideographs: "The God of Heaven and Earth".
2. The Chinese God as shown in the Five Classics is monotheistic. Now as far as I am aware ancient China was the only Gentile nation that worshipped a monotheistic God. It is true that in later periods of Chinese history, after China's spiritual fall, this monotheism has not been strictly adhered too (especially since the infiltration of Buddhism from India into China), but in China's most authoritative classics, Shangdi is the only God of the Chinese nation. Even in today's fallen age, many Chinese still subconsiously follow this tradition. They may "worship" foreign idols in a very utilitarian manner (if they are superstitious) but Shangdi is the only truly Chinese God they would respect and take seriously in any way (admittedly after a spiritual fall of three thousand years, today's Shangdi is quite "humanised"). Even modern Chinese atheists rarely speak of Shangdi with disrespect.
3. This I believe is the most important aspect. The character and attributes of Shangdi is totally different from the gods of polytheistic cultures. The Egyptian and Greek gods were little more than more powerful versions of sinful human beings. Apart from their power (and they are not all-powerful anyway, humans in fact could potentially challenge them) there is nothing godly about them. In fact, from a moral perspective some of these gods are worse than human sinners. The Chinese God is not like this at all. Shangdi, like the Jewish God, is a moral God, a God of righteousness. Shangdi is also transcedental, all-powerful and did not just sit on a distant throne. He intervened with human affairs and listened to prayers. The Five Classics clearly shows Shangdi's interaction with the Chinese sage kings of old.
The Chinese God is a Good God in every sense of the word. One of the Five Classics, called the Book of Songs, contains a collection of about 300 poems written in the second millennium BC. Many of these poems are personal prayers to Shangdi, many others are praises of Shangdi's goodness and righteousness.
4.The ethical philosophy Shangdi taught the ancient Chinese is very similiar to the ethics found in the Bible, especially in the Old Testament. It is possible to find a Chinese version that resonates with almost all of the Proverbs. The Ten Commandments are not found explicitly in the Chinese classics, (because China did not have Moses) but the ethics in these classics would resonate and agree with all of them. In fact, Shangdi taught the ancient sage kings of China humility before all else. As a result the sage kings of ancient China understood that their power were not their own and came from God, and as recorded in the Five Classics, all of their people lived in bliss under their rule. They did not abuse their power like the later (and modern) Chinese dictators. It seems that the ancient Chinese undertood the essence of democracy (which is to worship God) 4000 years ago, something that their descendants have apparently forgotten. Ancient Chinese ethics was very noble, something the polytheistic and mystical cultures did not have. For example, during a year of extreme draught in ancient China due to the wrath of God as a result of the Chinese's disobidence, the Sage King Shang Tang who ruled China at the time offered himself to God as a sacrifice so that the draught would cease. According to the Five Classics the draught stopped as a result of his faith and willingness to sacrifice himself for the people.
5. The Chinese written language (Chinese ideographs), one of the oldest in the world, apparently shows knowledge of early events as recorded in the Bible. The Chinese ideograph for "greed" is represented by a woman with two trees. (The original sin in the Garden of Eden) The Chinese ideograph for "big boat" literally means "boat with eight people" (there were eight people in Noah's Ark). The Chinese ideograph for "righteousness" is the ideograph for "me" lifting the ideograph for "lamb". Literally this means one is righteous if animal sacrifices are offered to God. There are hundreds of examples like this. Now, all of this may still be a coincedence if the other oldest written languages of the world also show similar things. But among the four most ancient written languages (of which Chinese is the only one still in actual use): Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, Ancient Sumerian cuneiforms, Ancient Indus Valley (not to be confused with India, which is actually a later civilisation) glyphs and Chinese ideographs, only Chinese ideographs demonstrates Biblical origins. The others (well the Indus Valley writings still cannot be understood by anyone today) are all based on polytheistic traditions and demonstrate no connection with Biblical accounts. According to the most authoritative ancient Chinese mythology (not the later debased Buddhist stuff), the human race began with a man and a woman, the man's name is Andeng, the woman's name is Nuwa. This is the phoentically sinified versions of Adam and Eve. Another Chinese legends states that when the Chinese written language was created, the evil spirits cried with shock, as the secrets of Heaven have been revealed to the world of man and coded into the Chinese ideographs, so they could no longer control it easily.
6. The coming of Jesus Christ is indirectly predicted in the Chinese tradition. According to ancient tradition, every 500 years the God of heaven will send a sage to China in order to teach the people the Great Way. The last Chinese sage was Confucius. There is exactly 500 years between his death and the year when Jesus began to preach the Good News. Coincedence maybe? Perhaps. But in addition to this Confucius also commented that a great Holy King will arise in the West who will have perfect virtue. He also said this Holy Man will begin his teachings after thirty years. Jesus was about thirty years old when he began to preach. It seems there is more than just coincedences here.
7. Many great Christian scholars have also believed in the identity between the Chinese God and the Judeo-Christian God. They include the first Christian missionaries to China from Persia in the 7th century AD, the 17th century great Catholic Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci, who has probably been made a saint by the Chinese Catholic Church (I am not sure about this, once I found a Chinese Catholic site specifically dedicated to him, Chinese catholics are asking him to pray for them on this site, and also to pray for China too. It's quite interesting that although Ricci was Italian, he is seen by some Chinese catholics as a patriotic symbol, perhaps because he was a Confucian scholar as well as a Catholic Christian), the great 19th century Christian missionary and western Confucian scholar James Legge, who translated many Chinese classics into English, and the great 20th century Chinese philosopher Lin Yutang (who was also Christian and was widely learnt in both western and eastern philosophies).
8. Think about your argument that the false gods are actually evil angels. Now if the Chinese God were false, why would the Chinese be monotheistic and not polytheistic like all the other heathen cultures? It doesn't make much sense. Which god is the true one can be decided by signs, but it can also be decided to a certain extent by the ethical attributes of this god. None of the gods in any of the polytheistic cultures that I know of are all-righteous like the Chinese God Shangdi is.
9. I think you are correct when you said that it is not that God only wants one "choosen nation", but it is because the evil angels have blinded most of the cultures of the world. Now the Chinese may not have had a relationship with God that is as initimate as the Jews did, but apparently the Chinese recognition of the true God was enough to spare China from most of the evil influences. True, in China too evil angels have been at work throughout history, but the degree is far less compared with say, ancient Egypt, and they have never been able to become the subject of worship that would replace Shangdi completely. Perhaps this is why ancient Egypt and Babylon were eventually destroyed but ancient China survives today.
I believe the Chinese God is identical to the Judeo-Christian God. But I do not believe the Chinese Five Classics have the same degree of authority as the Bible does. For the Bible is actually God-inspired. (Some of the content in the Chinese classics could have been God-inspired too, there are Chinese Christians who think the Chinese should add these classics, or at least some of it, into the Chinese Bible, but the evidence that supports this action is indirect and not conclusive) But since the ancient Chinese during the Faithful Age did worship the one and only true God, I think the Chinese Five Classics, which resonate with the Bible to a very impressive degree, would have more weight of spiritual authority than the mythologies and legends of polytheistic cultures.
Not all of the gentile (non-Jewish) nations of the ancient world worshipped idols and polytheistic gods.
There was one exception.
Of all the "first wave" of great ancient (Gentile) human civilisations, only this one survives to the present day. Of the world's most ancient writing systems, only the written language of this people is still in wide use. This civilisation has endured more than 4000 years of wars and conquests, while countless mighty empires have risen and fallen around her. Today the land allocated to this people by God is still the same land their ancestors lived on more than 4000 years ago. In fact, in ancient times, this nation was known by its people as the "Land of God". But for at least the last three millennia of her long history, this nation has foolishly turned away from the God that protected it and brought prosperity to its ancient sage rulers and hence suffered the consequences. 2500 years ago it entered into a spiritual dark age, which it is only beginning to get out of now. Yet in God's infinite mercy and grace this people was never totally abandoned by God. Therefore among all the Gentile civilisations that arose in the third millennium BC it alone survives to this day.
Which ancient civilisation I am referring to?
The nation of China.
I believe the God of Ancient China (during what I call the "Faithful Age", before the Chinese fell into the spiritual dark age) is identical to the God of Israel and consequently identical to the Christian God. Now this may seem like a very radical and extreme (if not heretical) view, but it is a serious one. There is a lot of evidence going for it. Admittedly the evidence is not directly Biblical, but that is I think due to practical limitations. The Bible is the inspired Word of God, but it was written by Jews who had no physical contact with the Chinese and therefore it is not possible for China to be recorded in it in any detail. (But actually China is mentioned in the Bible at perhaps a quite significant point as the "land of Sinim") The history and the geography of the Bible only concerns a rather limited area of human civilisation centred on the Jews, yet God must have had significant influences on all human cultures throughout the world and this historical detail would not be recorded in the Bible.
However, if we examine the most ancient and authoritative Chinese classics (often referred to as the Five Classics), we find that the Chinese God is virtually identical to the Jewish God but is totally different from the God of all the other polythestic and mystical cultures. Here is just a short list of the reasons to believe that the Chinese God is identical to the God of the Bible. There are many more but a full analysis would probably require a book, which I am not able to write.
1. The Chinese God (the Chinese word for God is Shangdi, a term also used by Chinese Christians, literally it means "Superme Ruler") is never worshipped with idols, images or pictures of any sort. This is very unique among Gentile cultures, especially considering the fact that the ancient Chinese did not have any physical contact with the ancient Jews so China's ancient monotheistic tradition is truly indigenous and not just trying to "copy" the Jews. The ancient Chinese built temples for their God like the Jews did (but this as I said is not trying to copy the Jews for there is no physical contact between Jews and Chinese in the ancient age and the building styles are totally different). An example of this sort of temple still exist in China today. It is the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. If you walk into the temple's main hall, you would find that unlike all the Buddhist, Shinto and Hindu temples of all the other Asiatic cultures, there are only abstract patterns but no idols or pictures of any kind. The Chinese God Shangdi is only represented very abstractly by a plaque on which it is written in Chinese ideographs: "The God of Heaven and Earth".
2. The Chinese God as shown in the Five Classics is monotheistic. Now as far as I am aware ancient China was the only Gentile nation that worshipped a monotheistic God. It is true that in later periods of Chinese history, after China's spiritual fall, this monotheism has not been strictly adhered too (especially since the infiltration of Buddhism from India into China), but in China's most authoritative classics, Shangdi is the only God of the Chinese nation. Even in today's fallen age, many Chinese still subconsiously follow this tradition. They may "worship" foreign idols in a very utilitarian manner (if they are superstitious) but Shangdi is the only truly Chinese God they would respect and take seriously in any way (admittedly after a spiritual fall of three thousand years, today's Shangdi is quite "humanised"). Even modern Chinese atheists rarely speak of Shangdi with disrespect.
3. This I believe is the most important aspect. The character and attributes of Shangdi is totally different from the gods of polytheistic cultures. The Egyptian and Greek gods were little more than more powerful versions of sinful human beings. Apart from their power (and they are not all-powerful anyway, humans in fact could potentially challenge them) there is nothing godly about them. In fact, from a moral perspective some of these gods are worse than human sinners. The Chinese God is not like this at all. Shangdi, like the Jewish God, is a moral God, a God of righteousness. Shangdi is also transcedental, all-powerful and did not just sit on a distant throne. He intervened with human affairs and listened to prayers. The Five Classics clearly shows Shangdi's interaction with the Chinese sage kings of old.
The Chinese God is a Good God in every sense of the word. One of the Five Classics, called the Book of Songs, contains a collection of about 300 poems written in the second millennium BC. Many of these poems are personal prayers to Shangdi, many others are praises of Shangdi's goodness and righteousness.
4.The ethical philosophy Shangdi taught the ancient Chinese is very similiar to the ethics found in the Bible, especially in the Old Testament. It is possible to find a Chinese version that resonates with almost all of the Proverbs. The Ten Commandments are not found explicitly in the Chinese classics, (because China did not have Moses) but the ethics in these classics would resonate and agree with all of them. In fact, Shangdi taught the ancient sage kings of China humility before all else. As a result the sage kings of ancient China understood that their power were not their own and came from God, and as recorded in the Five Classics, all of their people lived in bliss under their rule. They did not abuse their power like the later (and modern) Chinese dictators. It seems that the ancient Chinese undertood the essence of democracy (which is to worship God) 4000 years ago, something that their descendants have apparently forgotten. Ancient Chinese ethics was very noble, something the polytheistic and mystical cultures did not have. For example, during a year of extreme draught in ancient China due to the wrath of God as a result of the Chinese's disobidence, the Sage King Shang Tang who ruled China at the time offered himself to God as a sacrifice so that the draught would cease. According to the Five Classics the draught stopped as a result of his faith and willingness to sacrifice himself for the people.
5. The Chinese written language (Chinese ideographs), one of the oldest in the world, apparently shows knowledge of early events as recorded in the Bible. The Chinese ideograph for "greed" is represented by a woman with two trees. (The original sin in the Garden of Eden) The Chinese ideograph for "big boat" literally means "boat with eight people" (there were eight people in Noah's Ark). The Chinese ideograph for "righteousness" is the ideograph for "me" lifting the ideograph for "lamb". Literally this means one is righteous if animal sacrifices are offered to God. There are hundreds of examples like this. Now, all of this may still be a coincedence if the other oldest written languages of the world also show similar things. But among the four most ancient written languages (of which Chinese is the only one still in actual use): Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, Ancient Sumerian cuneiforms, Ancient Indus Valley (not to be confused with India, which is actually a later civilisation) glyphs and Chinese ideographs, only Chinese ideographs demonstrates Biblical origins. The others (well the Indus Valley writings still cannot be understood by anyone today) are all based on polytheistic traditions and demonstrate no connection with Biblical accounts. According to the most authoritative ancient Chinese mythology (not the later debased Buddhist stuff), the human race began with a man and a woman, the man's name is Andeng, the woman's name is Nuwa. This is the phoentically sinified versions of Adam and Eve. Another Chinese legends states that when the Chinese written language was created, the evil spirits cried with shock, as the secrets of Heaven have been revealed to the world of man and coded into the Chinese ideographs, so they could no longer control it easily.
6. The coming of Jesus Christ is indirectly predicted in the Chinese tradition. According to ancient tradition, every 500 years the God of heaven will send a sage to China in order to teach the people the Great Way. The last Chinese sage was Confucius. There is exactly 500 years between his death and the year when Jesus began to preach the Good News. Coincedence maybe? Perhaps. But in addition to this Confucius also commented that a great Holy King will arise in the West who will have perfect virtue. He also said this Holy Man will begin his teachings after thirty years. Jesus was about thirty years old when he began to preach. It seems there is more than just coincedences here.
7. Many great Christian scholars have also believed in the identity between the Chinese God and the Judeo-Christian God. They include the first Christian missionaries to China from Persia in the 7th century AD, the 17th century great Catholic Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci, who has probably been made a saint by the Chinese Catholic Church (I am not sure about this, once I found a Chinese Catholic site specifically dedicated to him, Chinese catholics are asking him to pray for them on this site, and also to pray for China too. It's quite interesting that although Ricci was Italian, he is seen by some Chinese catholics as a patriotic symbol, perhaps because he was a Confucian scholar as well as a Catholic Christian), the great 19th century Christian missionary and western Confucian scholar James Legge, who translated many Chinese classics into English, and the great 20th century Chinese philosopher Lin Yutang (who was also Christian and was widely learnt in both western and eastern philosophies).
8. Think about your argument that the false gods are actually evil angels. Now if the Chinese God were false, why would the Chinese be monotheistic and not polytheistic like all the other heathen cultures? It doesn't make much sense. Which god is the true one can be decided by signs, but it can also be decided to a certain extent by the ethical attributes of this god. None of the gods in any of the polytheistic cultures that I know of are all-righteous like the Chinese God Shangdi is.
9. I think you are correct when you said that it is not that God only wants one "choosen nation", but it is because the evil angels have blinded most of the cultures of the world. Now the Chinese may not have had a relationship with God that is as initimate as the Jews did, but apparently the Chinese recognition of the true God was enough to spare China from most of the evil influences. True, in China too evil angels have been at work throughout history, but the degree is far less compared with say, ancient Egypt, and they have never been able to become the subject of worship that would replace Shangdi completely. Perhaps this is why ancient Egypt and Babylon were eventually destroyed but ancient China survives today.
I believe the Chinese God is identical to the Judeo-Christian God. But I do not believe the Chinese Five Classics have the same degree of authority as the Bible does. For the Bible is actually God-inspired. (Some of the content in the Chinese classics could have been God-inspired too, there are Chinese Christians who think the Chinese should add these classics, or at least some of it, into the Chinese Bible, but the evidence that supports this action is indirect and not conclusive) But since the ancient Chinese during the Faithful Age did worship the one and only true God, I think the Chinese Five Classics, which resonate with the Bible to a very impressive degree, would have more weight of spiritual authority than the mythologies and legends of polytheistic cultures.
