How Can the Chinese Dynasties Extend Back Many Thousands of Years?



by

John D. Morris,

Ph.D.

"For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse" (Romans 1:20)

 

 

I was lecturing on the Biblical and scientific evidence for recent creation to a university audience in Hong Kong, China, when a scholar raised the objection: "The Chinese have a documented history going back many thousands of years, much earlier than your dates for creation and the Flood. We have known dynasties and named rulers. The Bible must be wrong."

 

The solution lies in an examination of the earliest Chinese dynasties. Actually, precisely documented dynasties go back only to about 2000 B.C. The first true dynasty was founded about 4000 years ago by a leader remembered for having "sweetened the waters," making the land habitable after wide-spread flooding. The ten listed dynasties before that, however, were of a different sort, with very long lives and questionable details attributed to them. From a Biblical viewpoint, as did all of humanity, the Chinese descended from Adam, then Noah through the Tower of Babel incident. The amazing "Table of Nations" in Genesis 10, which chronicles the language groups and their destinations, mentions the "Sinite people" in verse 17, which probably became the Asian groups.The Asian people descended from language groups migrating away from the Tower of Babel after God confounded their languages. In all likelihood, the well-documented dynasties date to that event, while the prior ones were faded memories of pre-Flood patriarchs, preserved as legends.

 

Doesn't this "Back to Genesis" history have the ring of truth about it? Biblical chronologies place the Babel incident at 4200 or so years ago. Many of the expelled groups took with them technological knowledge which they put to use in their new homelands. History documents the fact that several major cultures sprang into existence seemingly from nowhere at about the same time—the Egyptians, the Sumerians, the Phoenicians, the Indians, as well as the Chinese—and each possessed a curious mixture of truth and pagan thought, as would be expected from peoples only briefly separated from Noah and his teachings as well as the star worshipping/pyramid building heresy of Nimrod at Babel.

 

Interestingly, each group mentioned above lists 10 patriarchs in their pre-history, just as does Genesis. Individual leaders would guide their growing language groups to a new land, bringing both technology and a history with them. Each had personal knowledge of the Flood and pre-Flood days, having learned from Noah, his sons, or their early descendants. The Asian leader evidently gained prominence when he engineered the draining of swampy land left saturated by leftover flood waters. His following dynasty commenced about the time of Abraham, about 2000 B.C., and the memories of long-lived patriarchs of pre-Flood days became early dynasties.

 

Details in ancient history are necessarily scarce, and proposed origins must be considered tentative. But the fact is, Biblical history is correct. All peoples descended from Adam, then Noah through the Tower of Babel incident. We shouldn't be surprised when we find cultural and historical memories of the "Back to Genesis" truth.

....

Taken from: http://www.icr.org/article/how-can-chinese-dynasties-extend-back-many-thousan/

Chinese Memories of Noah's Flood?

Chinese Flood Character, Nukua
 



- By Robert Goh

.... The International Red Cross in its 1998 world disasters report says that year was the worst on record. Hurricane Mitchell struck in central America, drought in Indonesia, and floods affected 180 million in south China.

Earlier, in 1939 floods in north China from the Yellow River killed 100,000. Prior to that, in 1931 floods killed 3.7 million, and in Manchu dynasty times in 1887, a flood caused 900,000 deaths.

Ancient China must have had a long record of floods, since, like ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, its early civilisation was built near a river.

Consequently, the Chinese must have built boats quite early, and a form of the word must have been written down since early times.

The modern Chinese word for boat or ship ( chuan) is a curious one. It escaped the 1956 character simplification reform in China, but today it is found in two forms.

In both the forms, there is a sailing vessel (zhou) as a radical, and also a character for "mouth" (kou) and finally, one with a component for either "several" (ji) or "eight" (ba) . But which is the correct one?

Assuming that the correct form is that for "several" the word "ship" looks similar to words like the metal lead (qian) , and the word for alongside (yan). However, the pronunciations for all these are rather different, which is very surprising.

Certainly "ship" is not a newly created word. The Japanese know of this word, since around 400AD, Chinese books were first brought into Japan from Korea. They call it fune, and it appears similar to the word for navigate.

According to Japanese teachers of Chinese at the University of Tokyo, the word for navigate (hang) derives from a vessel, and on the right, a pictograph of a man with a raised neck - looking around so as to navigate properly. Did that pictograph of a man's neck become the number eight?

Whether the word for boat derived from navigate or vice versa, (it is more logical to build a boat first, then navigate it) it is clear that in the case of boat, the two components at the right hand side are eight and mouth.

Today there are major dictionaries such as The Chinese-English Dictionary by the Beijing Foreign Languages Institute (1979), Chinese Bibles, and some computer word processing programs such as Chinese Star 2.97 which use the component "several".

However, Cihai, published in Taiwan as late as 1988, and Matthews' Chinese-English Dictionary of 1931 still show the number 8. In fact, an ancient form of the word boat shows it to be eight mouths.

The question is, why should there be eight mouths and not seven, or six or any other number. Obviously they refer to eight people, but which eight?

One possible explanation is that the word derives from an otherwise forgotten Chinese memory of a great worldwide flood in ancient times that is better known to the west as the Great Flood of Noah's day as recorded in the Jewish peoples' Hebrew Old Testament book of Genesis.

According to that account, there were only eight people saved in Noah's day (Gen 7:13): Noah, his three sons Shem, Ham and Japheth, Noah's wife and the three sons' wives.

It was not a nationalistic epic, since the Hebrew account places the survivors as landing on - not on Mt Hermon, the highest mountain in Israel today - but the mountains of Ararat which is presently at the Turkish-Armenian border, far away from Israel.

Moreover, the later New Testament books of 1 Peter 3:8 and 2 Peter 2:5 repeat the number eight who were saved.

In fact, over many parts of the world, there were other ancient peoples who had similar stories. Similar stories come from southern Asia, the South Sea islands, and all parts of the continent of America - but they are very rare in Africa (Ancient Egypt had a flood story) and Europe.

The Greeks had several versions of a myth in which a king Deucalion and his wife Prrrha escaped from a great flood by floating in a chest that finally landed on a mountain. They took refuge on Mt Parnassus (in central Greece not far from Delphi) and, at Zeus' command, cast stones which became a new race of human beings.

An Indian myth from the 6th century BC tells how the hero Manu was advised by a fish to build a ship as a means of escape from the coming flood. When it came, the fish towed the ship to a mountain top.

Excations at Ur in Iraq by Sir Leonard Wooley in 1929 may have confirmed the ancient belief of many nations when he discovered a layer of clay 3m deep which was apparently deposited by a great ancient flood.

It seemed to echo the story of a great worldwide flood as recorded in a Babylonian clay tablet, the Epic of Gilgamesh, written over 2,500 years ago. According to that epic the hero and sole survivor Utnapishtim landed on Mount Nisir (in Kurdistan, upper Iraq).

Today a surviving Chinese legend of an extensive ancient flood vaguely revolves around the person of a goddess Nukua who supposedly ended the flood by patching up the blue sky with five-coloured stones; the details are very different from the Hebrew version.

Only the character "boat" and its eight passengers seems to remain as a constant reminder of what had happened long, long ago.

ENDS




Taken from: http://across.co.nz/ChineseNoah.htm

Noah, Japheth and the Greeks



[Or Pra Japati, in the case of the Far East]

Salverda

Mar 11, 2012 10:35 PM

There is much to be gleaned from this article, especially the inference that the Greek god Ouranos is to be identified with the Hebrew patriarch Noah, and that Ouranos’ castration episode originates with the Hebrew story of Noah’s drunkenness. But the last sentence of this article reveals a chronological bias of the author that it will be difficult for him to overcome; “Japheth, who is absent from all other Near Eastern accounts, may well derive from Hesiod’s Iapetos.” Here the author assumes that the writings of Hesiod are older than the account in Genesis. This is a blatant error and a very unlikely assumption.

Even the premise, that Japheth is absent from all other Near Eastern accounts, is an unrealistic assumption. There is a strong possibility that the Persians had a tradition about Japheth. According to Herodotus (VII, 72, 450 BC.), there was a group of People who were known to the Greeks as the, "Leucosyri," or the "White Syrians," they lived in the land, that the Persians called "Cappadocia." Therefore it seems that White People are associated with, this time the Persian form of the name, Japheth. (The Hebrews say, "Japheth," the Latins say, "Gepetto," and it seems as though the Persians used a version of the name that was very much like the Latins, "Cappado,") Japheth is the famous progenitor of the White People, and as it turns out Iapetus has a connection with White People, as well. Iapetus is the father of the earliest known, and arguably the most famous, “Caucasian” who ever lived! Prometheus (As the mythical creator of mankind, we assume these men, must have been Caucasian men, for why are White folks named after the well known mountain of Prometheus, Mount Caucasia?).

Another false assumption, inferred although unstated, is the idea that the Greek Myths did not get the names of their mythological characters from the Hebrews. However, there are dozens of examples that would argue otherwise; “Melamp-us and Phylac-us” as “Balaam and Balak,” “Salmone-us” as “Solomon,” “Sisyph-us” as “Joseph,” “Inach-us” as “Anak,” or “Phorone-us” as “Ephron” Any one of which is at least as compelling as “Iapet-us” as “Japheth.”

A logical question to ask ones self after reading the foregoing is this; Did the writer or writers of the Biblical book of Genesis derive Japheth from the Greek Iapetus, or was it the other way around? I trust that the discerning reader will reach a better conclusion than the author of this article seems to have done.

Reply

AMAIC

Mar 12, 2012 03:21 PM

I am glad that you picked this up, John. I was going to send it to you.

I fully agree with your comments about who influenced whom.

Best regards

Damien Mackey.

Hindu Appropriation of Jesus Christ



 [AMAIC: The following article has biblical errors, but it does show the clear likenesses between

the Lord Jesus Christ and Lord Krishna]

Tuesday, February 1, 2011


Is Jesus Christ derived from Lord Krishna?

Have you every noticed the amazingly coincidental similarity between these two names - Jesus Christ and Lord Krishna - and asked yourselves, why the names of two major religious figures in two major religious are exactly the same? Have you every looked at the evolution of religions and wondered if it's possible that Christianity is actually derived from Hinduism (partly the story of Lord Krishna)? Well, you're not the only one! Many leading experts believe that not only the name Jesus Christ is a derivative of Lord Krishna, but also, the religion of Christianity might be partially and fully derived from Hinduism! [sic, or vice versa]

 

Once we start comparing Christianity and the teachings of Christ with the life and teaching of Lord Krishna (and Hinduism in general), we immediately start seeing glaring similarities in the two. It would be naive to assume that these similarities are purely coincidental/circumstantial and that Christianity evolved all by itself to have the name of it's main deity to be exactly the same as one of the Trinity in Hinduism, among other obvious similarities!

 

Let's analyze some of these similarities -

 

Similarities between Krishna's father Vasudev and Christ's father Joseph - Joseph had eleven brothers (in Matthew's genealogy), meaning they were all 12 brothers. The name "Vasudev" is actually a part of the famous Hindu "12 syllable mantra". Now, this one similarity in numbers might be disregarded by Christian skeptics as a coincidence, but when we start looking deeper into different versions of Bible (yes, Bible has many versions and sometimes contradictory stories), we find that this number 12 is repeated again and again in the life of Jesus. For example, the last time we see Joseph in any of the gospels is also when Jesus was 12 years old (this is found in the story of passover visit to the temple in Luke). Matthew's genealogy also is organized into three tesseradecads and the last of those connects Joseph to Zerubbabel through 12 generations (excluding Joseph because he is a descendent), and we note that this number 12 shows up all over again. Many experts believe that these changes to genealogy are deliberate and there are plenty of contradictions regarding both Joseph and Jesus's genealogy, but one thing that always shows up is this number 12! In Hinduism though there are no contradictions at all and Vasudev always has been associated with the 12 syllable mantra, this has also lead to the use of number 12 in various social rituals as well without any contradictions/confusions. But in Christianity, it's seems as if many attempts have been made to fit this number 12 in relation to Joseph/Jesus at various places over time as Bible evolved from the earliest old testament to today's version. Also, the fact that Joseph is supposedly added in the gospels of Matthew and Luke but not in the early epistles of Paul, has interested many scholars because it shows that the exchange of knowledge (number 12 for example), happened from Hinduism to Christianity and not the other way round. Finally, everyone knows that Jesus dined with 12 apostles in the last supper, which again is intriguing when we see it in terms of so many other such seemingly unrelated Christian stories throughout different versions of Bible. But why were early Christian scholars trying to introduce this number? Where did they learn about this number from? The only answer that prominent experts would agree on is that it originated in Hinduism.Now I ask any Chritian skeptics, do you still disagree? How can you explain this uncanny similarity between the mortal fathers of both Krishna and Jesus?? It's clear as a day that the early Christians took Hinduism and the legends of Lord Krishna and distorted it into their Bible in multiple stories over time.

 

Krishna means "of darker color" and Christ means "covered in dark/olive oil" - Now, this one is obviously almost exactly the same and makes even the most skeptic Christians wonder how can even the names have exactly the same meaning! Some Christian skeptics have gone on to claim that Christ doesn't mean dark and rather, it means "anointed", which is a valid point because "anointed" indeed is one of the old translations of the word "Christ". But then we ask the simple question: How would an "anointed" person look like? Would he look somewhat discolored? Would he look darker? The answer to these questions is a resounding yes! Just think about it for a second, if I cover myself with any anointments, would the color of my skin change to darker? Yes, it would. If someone is still skeptic, we went deeper into the Hebrew language and found that the word "Chrism" actually refers to anointment by Olive oil! A person covered with olive oil will certainly look darker and can be thought of as "of darker color" or in other words - "Krishna"! The similarity in both the name Krishna and Christ but also the very meaning of the names - "Dark color" and "Covered with dark (Olive) oil" - are uncanny and can't be refuted. It's not hard to surmise that the early Christians were aware of the name "Krishna" and it's meaning and significance and they modeled the name "Christ" exactly after "Krishna" both in the meaning and the intent.

 

Both Christ and Krishna were known to be threatened by the local ruler when they were young. Both have very similar stories - In Krishna's case, it was Kansa (also known as Kamsa) who wanted to kill him. He tried to imprison Krishna's parents but they were able to flee and survive in time. Surprisingly, Jesus Christ has a very similar story as well in which the evil king Herod actually issued a royal decree to warrant Christ's death. Further, Kansa killed all offsprings of Devaki trying to ensure that Lord Krishna would also die as one of the children; this same story also shows up in Bible as the story of the Massacre of Innocents in Matthew where King Herod ordered that all young children in Bethlehem be killed to ensure Jesus' death. Also, just as in the case of Lord Krishna, Christ's parents (Mary and Joseph) survived in a very similar fashion. Lord Krishna grew up in Vrindavan hidden away from Kansa while Jesus grew up in Egypt in hiding from Herod. Since the stories are so surprisingly similar, it's not difficult to see why the Christian version might be derived from then existing Hindu version.

 

Both Christ and Krishna were divine beings / "sons of God" walking on the earth as mortals - This one is obvious but extremely important because of the fact that Christ is not depicted as an angel or a jinni or some other supernatural creature in the Bible! Instead, Christ is considered the Son of God Himself! This is intriguing because Christian myths are full of all manners of supernatural/divine creatures sent by God to earth for various purposes; but why ONLY Christ is the son of God? Why are not all the angels also sons of God? The answer becomes obvious when we draw parallels with Hinduism: Lord Krishna is an Avatar of Lord Vishnu. This is why He is not same as minor gods, pretas and other creatures. Lord Krishna is a conscious manifestation of God Himself. Now if Christ were to come from Krishna, it's logical to assume that the early Christians took the Hindu story of Lord Krishna and transformed it into their own versions/interpretations, but the main details like being Son/Avatar of God stayed the same.

 

Both Christ and Krishna clearly state that the only way to salvation is through them - Lord Krishna, in Bhagwat Geeta, states that Moksha is attained by those who completely surrender to Him and Him alone. Those who do not surrender to Lord Krishna and rather worship false gods will not attain Moksha/Salvation/Nirvana. In Bible, Jesus Christ again asserts, in exactly the same fashion, that the only real way of attaining salvation is by accepting Jesus as your lord and savior! Please also note that this is a somewhat unique case because it doesn't apply to other Abrahamic religions. For example, Mohammed, in Islamic traditions, doesn't claim that salvation can be attained only by accepting Mohammed as our lord and savior. Only Jesus claims, exactly the same as Lord Krishna does, that we must accept Him as the lord and savior to attain true salvation. The similarities are again obvious!

 

Similarities between Christ's Cross and Lord Krishna's Maharoopa/Vishwaroopa - Now this one would require atleast one full book to fully analyze as the philosophical and religious implications of both are truly immense. I'll probably cover it more completely in later articles but here let me briefly mention that the Cross signifies Christ's willingness to accept all the sins/pains in the world. In other words, Cross implies that the results of all the actions of humans in the world go to the Christ. This is exactly the same as what Lord Krishna implies in the Maharoopa when he says that all results of all actions of all beings go to him. This is just one similarity between the Cross and Maharoopa, but the readers would certainly see more as they look deeper.

 

So we see that the similarities between Jesus Christ and Lord Krishna, and consequently Christianity and Hinduism, are unmistakable from linguistics, philosophical, religious, historical and mythical perspectives! There are hundreds of more similarities that clearly prove that Christianity is simply a distorted or perhaps a misinterpreted version of a facet of Hinduism!

 

....
 
Taken from: http://www.hinduisminfo.com/2011/02/christ-krishna-christianity-hinduism.html

Hesiodic Greek Appropriation of Japheth

Or Eastern Appropriation as Prajapati (see below)

Hesiod and Genesis:

Iapetos and Japheth

Bruce Louden

Each foundational for their respective cultures, each a combination of several of the same genres of myth, Hesiod and Genesis overlap in ways that remain under-analyzed. The tradition preserved at Gen 6:2 and 4, in which “the sons of the gods” (plural in the original, often edited out of translations) mate with mortal women and give birth to a race of heroes, is unexpectedly close to Hesiod’s Bronze Age (Works 155-69; cf. Pindar Olympian 9, 53-56). Scholars have long recognized a number of Near Eastern elements in Hesiod (M. L. West: 1966, 1997), while more recent analyses (e.g., López-Ruiz: 2010) suggest Northwest Semitic ties in particular (Ugaritic, Syrian / Phoenician), the same context out of which Genesis is thought to have evolved (the Biblical Canaanites = Phoenicians). But Genesis also includes specific allusions to Greek culture (Javan) in the aftermath of the Flood myth. Noah's son Japheth, father of Javan, appears to be the same name as the Hesiodic Iapetos, a specific intersection of both traditions.

 

Neither has a speaking part, both serving primarily as genealogical agents, sons of parents who are more significant, who themselves marry and have sons. Genesis 9:27 uses wordplay on Japheth's name, "May God extend Japheth's boundaries," where "extend," is the Hebrew, yapht, much like Hesiod on the name Titans (Theog. 207-9: Τιτῆνας . . . τιταίνοντας). Both characters are linked to their respective Flood myths (Iapetos is grandfather of Deukalion). Pindar, at a fairly early date (468), knows a complete version of the myth (Olympian 9, 40-56), and makes prominent mention of Iapetos. In Hesiod Iapetos’ brother Kronos castrates his father Ouranos. Japheth’s brother Ham sees Noah naked, passed out from drinking, and tells Shem and Japheth. When Noah wakes he curses Ham, but directs the curse at his son Canaan (9:20-27). Here Ham is referred to as Noah’s youngest son, whereas 9:18 suggests Japheth is.

 

From these inconsistencies, many assume Genesis 9:20-7 is an abbreviated excerpt from a longer tale. TheTalmud (b. Sanhedrin 70a) suggests that Ham originally committed a much greater offence, that he castrated Noah, or sexually abused him (on the basis of parallels between “and he saw” also at Gen 34:2 of Shechem violating Dinah; if correct, Ham would offer unexpected parallels with the Derveni Papyrus, López-Ruiz: 139-42). In Hesiod Kronos castrates his father, but Iapetos has also committed unspecified offences for which he is punished in Tartaros (Iliad 8.479; cf. his name’s likely derivation from ἰάπτω [Chantraine]). Iapetos and his wife Klymene produce four sons (Theog. 507-616), three of whom are severely punished: Atlas, Menoitios (who seems most like Ham: Theog. 514-16), and Prometheus, referred to eight times as "Son of Iapetos." Not only are there multiple points of contact with Hesiod, but after the flood Japheth becomes the father of Javan (10:2), the same eponym as the Greek Ion (from *Ἰαϝων). Some see “extend Japheth’s boundaries”as a Hellenistic era reference to Alexander’s conquests (Wadjenbaum 101).

 

Based on the congruence of these motifs, the characters' occurrence at similar stages of larger creation myths, and Japheth's specific connection to Greek culture (as father of Javan) we might best see this part of Genesis as having evolvedin a dialogic relation with Hesiod’s account (cf. Louden 2011, which argues that parts of Genesis evolved in a dialogic relation with The Odyssey). There is no evidence external to the Bible for the names of Noah’s sons (Carr 162), and recent scholarship has moved the dates up for Genesis considerably (Carr passim). Elsewhere the Bible several times transposes other cultures’ divine names to human characters (Nimrod: Ninurta; Esther: Ishtar, Mordecai: Marduk). Though the resultant versions lack an exact match between the two characters (they do not occupy the same sequential position in their Flood myths), Japheth, who is absent from all other Near Eastern accounts, may well derive from Hesiod’s Iapetos.

Bibliography

•Carr, David M. 1996. Reading the Fractures of Genesis. Westminster.
•López-Ruiz, Carolina. 2010. When the Gods Were Born: Greek Cosmogonies and the Near East. Harvard University Press.
•Louden, B. 2011. Homer’s Odyssey and the Near East. Cambridge University Press.
•Wadjenbaum, Philippe. 2011. Argonauts of the Desert: Structural Analysis of the Hebrew Bible. Equinox.
•West, M. L. 1966. Hesiod: Theogony. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
•West, M. L. 1997. The East Face of Helicon: West Asiatic Elements in Greek Poetry and Myth. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

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Taken from: http://apaclassics.org/index.php/annual_meeting/143rd_annual_meeting_abstracts/1.3.louden


Prajapati

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Prajapati in Hindu mythology is the primordial lord of creatures, and is mentioned in Vedic, epic and Puranic literature. In Vedic legends he is described in various ways as the creator of the world, and the creator of heaven and earth. He is an androgynous being who impregnated himself by fusing elements of mind and speech. In later epics he is the guardian of the sex organ. Prajapati becomes the name for Brahma in later Hinduism.

 

Prajapati is linked to the sacrificial root of creation "either by continually creating living creatures out of the sacrifices to the gods (Taittiriya Brahmana 1, 8; 2, 1), or as being himself the sacrifice from which life is sustained: 'Prajapati is sacrifice, for he created it in his own self-expression'" (Sarapatha Brahmana 11, 1; 8, 2) In relation to the thirty-three gods in the classical system, Prajapati was considered the thirty-fourth, embracing and including the others.

 

In the beginning, he arose as Hiranyagarbha. When born, he was the one Lord of all that exists. He supported the earth and this heaven. What God with our offering shall we worship?… O Prajapati, you alone have encompassed all these created things: may that for which with longing we have called upon you be ours; may we become lords of wealth. (Hymn to Prajapati, Rg Veda 10, 121)

A.G.H.

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Sources:


Bowker, John, The Oxford Dictionary of World Religions, New York, Oxford University Press, 1997, p. 759 Jordan, Michael, Encyclopedia of Gods, New York, Facts On File, Inc. 1993, p. 208


....

Taken from: http://www.themystica.org/mythical-folk/articles/prajapati.html