Remember the Sabbath day by keeping
it holy -Genesis
20:18
I find it really interesting how
many Jews have turn this original commandment into a whole new
level of science. God basically told us to "take a day
off", which I understand implictly to relax and don't work.
It's a gift to us from God (thus it's holy) and it's important
to Him, because it's one of the ten ordinances that was given
to us -also known as the ten commandments. However, hundreds
of rules and regulations (human traditions) have been constructed,
piled on, and institutionalized; I find a bit ironic that in
order to be a devout follower, it amounts to doing a ton of
work (in my opinion) on your day off. Okay, that might be interesting,
but how does all this relate to the Chinese, the Serpent, Adam
& Eve, and Noah? I'll be getting to that soon.
Unless you were around during that
time, what most of us know about the Garden of Eden and the
Flood story comes from the Jews. The story of Adam and Eve,
the Serpent and Noah comes from the Torah, which is the first
five books of the Bible. God would regularly have these pow-wows
with Moses during Jew's long and arduous expedition from Egypt
to Israel. This occurred sometime around 1450BC*. During this
time the laws God wants His people (His children) to live by
along with creation, the fall of mankind, and flood story along
were told to Moses, who then wrote them down. What I find interesting,
bizarre, and logical at the same time is that some type of physical
manifestation (a kin to Jews in our neighborhood) must occur
-especially after encountering God. That evidence was something
I've never seen before, but I believe it occurred.
When Moses came down from Mount
Sinai with the two tablets of the covenant law in his hands,
he was not aware that his face was radiant because he had
spoken with the Lord. When Aaron and all the Israelites saw
Moses, his face was radiant, and they were afraid to come
near him. But Moses called to them; so Aaron and all the leaders
of the community came back to him, and he spoke to them. Afterward
all the Israelites came near him, and he gave them all the
commands the Lord had given him on Mount Sinai.
When Moses finished speaking
to them, he put a veil over his face. But whenever he entered
the Lord’s presence to speak with him, he removed the
veil until he came out. And when he came out and told the
Israelites what he had been commanded, they saw that his face
was radiant. Then Moses would put the veil back over his face
until he went in to speak with the Lord. -Genesis
34: 29 - 35
Aside from the books of Moses is
their any other collaborating evidence that there was really
a Garden of Eden and a worldwide flood? I'd say the answer is
yes and both stories relate to water. There seems to be much
evidence by the number of fossils that are in existence today
that a cataclysmic event occurred where water caused sediment
to quickly buried millions of once living creatures. So far,
I have not heard of any scientist, whether they believe in God
or not, conclude anything contrary to this. What I find interesting
about the Garden of Eden, is Moses provides a watery clue to
its location:
A river watering the garden flowed
from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters.
The name of the first is the Pishon; it winds through the
entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. (The gold of
that land is good; aromatic resin and onyx are also there.)
The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through
the entire land of Cush. The name of the third river is the
Tigris; it runs along the east side of Ashur. And the fourth
river is the Euphrates.
The Tigris and Euphrates are the
name of two famous rivers. For thousands of years, these two
rivers have not changed their names and continue to flow today
in the 21st century. I dislike to disappoint my Mormon friends
(I use to live in Utah when I was a wee lad), but I'd like to
point out that none of these four rivers are called the Mississippi;
so I don't see any strong evidence that the Garden of Eden is/was
located in Missouri.
So aside from these watery examples,
is there any other collaborating evidence that Eden, the Serpent,
and Noah really existed? The answer is yes. It doesn't have
to do with water, but the Chinese. Just like how names like
Damascus, Tigris or Euphrates have not changed for thousands
of years and have been passed down from generation to generation,
there is evidence outside the Torah that Eden, the Serpent (aka
Satan) and Noah really existed. This evidence is provided by
the Chinese and more specifically in their written language.
The written language of the Chinese
is a little sore spot with me. Growing up my parents forced
me to attend Chinese School. And of course it would be on a
Saturday morning. It prevented me from joining many team sports,
because either practices or games would be on weekends. So while
my friends were outside enjoying Utah's fresh air, I sat with
a bunch of other nerdy inmates in a windowless classroom for
day 6 of even more learning.
Chinese writing doesn't use a alphabet
like the English or Hebrew language. So for example the English
language uses 26 letter and the Hebrew language uses 22 letters
in their alphabet. You put these letters together in different
combinations it it forms words. The Chinese use symbols put
together in different combination to form words. With a 26 alphabet
system and letters clumped together on the same line to form
words, a keyboard can easily be used to reproduce English words.
Not true with the Chinese written language. You would need a
keyboard with a minimum of 3000 different keys in order to write
conversational Chinese. You would need a keyboard with 50,000
keys in order to reproduce all the different words. Moreover,
"sounding it out" in order to reconstruct the word
usually doesn't work. Many smaller symbols that the Chinese
use each have a sound, but when put together it has nothing
to do with how the word is pronounced. The reason is because
of the pictographic nature of the Chinese language. Let me give
you an example of what I mean.
The above Chinese word means horse.
It doesn't take too much imagination to see the horses 4 legs
and his tail. Or try this one, see if you can figure out what
this symbol means:
The above means Billy the Kids
is behind those saloon doors. No just kidding, the word above
means door or entrance in Chinese.
One thing that is certain is that
the Chinese culture is one of the largest population groups
on earth. The Chinese culture is one of the most ancient of
cultures where written history going back thousands of years;
at least to around 1500 BC**. Since paper in 1500 BC was in
short supply, because it wasn't invented yet, ancient Chinese
writings are preserved in pottery, in bronze artifacts, carvings
onto turtle shells, ivory and bone. So to try to put this in
perspective, modern English started around the year 1500. So
the language I speak every day is just over 500 years old. But
the Chinese spoken and written language goes back to at least
2500 years. What is also interesting is that many of the written
Chinese characters have not changed in all that time. I guess
this makes sense. Damascus is a cool name. Why change it?
What I find interesting is that
many Chinese words and specifically in their written characters
captures the Garden of Eden and Flood story. Did the Jewish
Torah influence the Chinese writing? I don't know the answer
to this. Something like this is definately above my pay grade.
But my hunch would be to say, "No". I don't think
there was any contact between the Jews and the Chinese when
the Torah first came out and made the best sellers list. Even
when it was translated to the Greek in 3 BC, trade with China
didn't start until around 2 BC (think silk road); We also know
for a fact that the Chinese writing is way older than 2 BC.
Next week, let's look how big events
like the fall of mankind and the flood story are preserved in
ancient Chinese words.
Sources:
* The
Israelite Exodus from Egypt, by Jimmy Dunn
* The
Date of the Exodus: 1446 BC, www.bible.ca
Early
Chinese evidence of the Bible stories, www.bibleprobe.com
Ancient
Chinese Characters Support Genesis, by Truth in Genesis,
www.youtube.com
**Ancient
Scripts: Chinese, www.ancientscripts.com
