A former Atheist, whom I was chatting over coffee with recently told me he found it quite compelling when studying world religions before realizing the Truth behind Christianity that so many secluded regions of the world have a World-wide flood story among their heritage.
I have been compelled to a literal interpretation of Genesis given it being Historical Narrative in nature, and rejected more liberal Theologians that claim a regional flood would have been interpreted as “worldwide” by observers.
Here is some very strong evidence that the Chinese as a people are in fact descendants of Noah:
Thanks to Kang and Nelson in their book, “The Discovery of Genesis” for this info:
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And just how is this evidence at all for your claim….?
You do realize that there is no flood story in Chinese mythology. Nor in many other cultures. That would seem to be evidence against your claim.
Shamelessly:
There’s not a flood myth in Chinese Mythology? You may want to let the Miao People know, who pass down information via song. Here’s a couple of verses from one:
“Who came to the bad disposition,
To send fire and burn the hill?
Who came to the bad disposition,
To send water and destroy the earth?
I who sing don’t know.
Zie did. Zie was of bad disposition,
Zie sent fire and burned the hill;
Thunder did. Thunder was of bad disposition,
Thunder sent water and destroyed the earth.
Why don’t you know?”
I considered putting Bible verses with the pictures above, but honestly I just got lazy. Here’s some supporting Bible verses:
(Picture 1)Gen 6 talks about 8 people entering the “vessel” known as the “ark”.
(Picture 2)Gen 3 is a recount of Man falling through being tempted by the Devil.
(Picture 3)Gen 1 discusses how man was created (out of the dust).
http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/chinaflood.html
The obvious question is, How old is this particular boat character? Doesn’t Chinese have various character sets? Can you prove this character goes back behind the first Catholic missionaries? Probably not.
Rey,
What you have just done is argued from ignorance which means you are not sticking to a relevancy in your argument. http://www.halleethehomemaker.com/2010/02/ct-fallacies-from-relevance-v/
If it is your premise that the character is a few hundred years old, it is up to you to prove your premise. Their are several dialects of spoken chinese but since their written language is also considered an art form, their letters don’t “evolve” as you suggest and haven’t for thousands of years.
Another side note for you, Rey. This year, Chinese New Year 4708, the Year of the Tiger, begins on 10 February in the year of our Lord 2010 AD. Chinese is the oldest culture on planet earth and, interestingly, their calendar is only as old as the post-flood world. If mankind is millions of years old, why not a culture that is 6 or 8 thousand years old, or 10 or 20 thousand? Hmmm?
Humans are not millions of years old, at least as a modern species, we are about 200,000 years old. Secondly the Chinese culture is not the first culture. Thirdy, if the flood occured at the time designated by the bible 8 people could have not produced a population big enough to include the Chinese culture at the time of 4,708 years ago.
The interpretation of the character is all wrong. The symbol they claim is the chinese symbol for 8, is not the chinese symbol for 8 and the symbol for people is not the symbol for people either.
The first culture known to archeologists dates to about 10,000 years ago. The native americans were here on the amerias as of 10,000 years ago as well.
“How old is this particular boat character? Doesn’t Chinese have various character sets? Can you prove this character goes back behind the first Catholic missionaries? Probably not.”
He had no premise, he was not telling you that the Chinese character was hundreds of years old but asking for proof that it is thousands, the burden of proof is on the claimant.
The Chinese language was around for thousands of years and likewise flavoured drinks have been around for thousands of years. But it does not follow that a single Chinese character has been around for thousands of years any more than it does that Gatorade has.
Creationists are claiming that this character is pre-missionary, Rey was asking them for proof. If they don`t provide any proof then they are just assuming it is true until proven wrong. Asking for proof is not an argument from ignorance because the age of the character is unknown until it is known… I mean seriously, think about that.
If we don`t know the age of the character, then we don`t know the age of the character. If the claim that the Chinese knew about God is premised on the age of the character, then all Rey is doing is pointing out that the claim has an wrongly assumed premise.
OK, here is a simple example.
A: Gatorade was invented 1,000 years ago.
B: Can you prove that Gatorade was around 1,000 years ago?
A: That`s an argument from ignorance. It is your job to prove that it was invented last century.
Here B is not making an argument from ignorance as he is not making a claim. A has made a claim, given it no proof, then declared it to be true until somebody else proves it wrong.
I mean seriously, this is very simple.
Tree has absolutely destroyed you on your side note BTW. As has the most basic science. The vast majority of people who don`t happen to be on the extreme side of your particular religion in your particular part of the world can see this.
P.S. I also happen to read Chinese characters and have a few Chinese friends. Kang and Nelson just straight out lied (see my post at the bottom). Please, please, please find a Chinese person, ANY CHINESE PERSON!!! and ask them about the 田 character which is claimed to mean garden. It is a straight out lie. Don`t believe me now, check for yourself, please just go and check, seriously, right now. You have been lied to.
The whole purpose of the flood was to rid the world of previous inhabitants that corrupted the ways of humanity and only one family was left to re-build human life in the world. Therefore it would make sense that as one of the oldest, if not the oldest, culture existing would begin from the post-flood era, for nothing pre-flood would survive.
As far as culture in comparison to life millions of years old, science says that dinosaurs existed millions upon millions of years ago and people eagerly believe…even though there are other scientists that contest the age-testing methods. Then how can this be proven. One can always dispute that these were genetically altered animals and their remains were altered to appear as if they were ancient. Isn’t that so?
While it is true that there are many, many dialects of Chinese, the written form remains pretty consistent with slight variations. These symbols are in itself ancient but used everyday being passed down for centuries (not speaking of the “simplified” characters, of course). However, the words/symbols/characters still pretty much mean the same, unless you are using the word in a colloquialism or idiom…then it would be like explaining the term “kick the bucket” where a chinese person would envision a person actually lively kicking a bucket versus a person deceased.
Regardless of the time period, you can not deny that the sampled characters here exhibit well how the symbol was formed and its meaning is in the very essence of the symbol itself…one only needs to know how to look for the meaning. The same could be said about other things; wouldn’t you agree?
For any non-believers, unfortunately, things that one may tell them as a believer, you would continually be contested until faith is brought into the picture. Believing means to have faith in something (in this case someone) you can not see but yet feel its existence…it is not as they say “seeing is believeing” but rather believing is feeling. After all, one does not see that they are in love…they feel and believe that they are in love.
BTW, to all reading this, Chinese New Year was on February 14th of the solar calendar this year. “Sun Neen Fai La”, “Gung Hay Fat Choy” and “Sun Tai Geen Haun” to you all.
genetically altered remains to appear ancient? what would genetics have to do with anything when it comes to determining the age of a fossilized organism. You have no idea what you are talking about. There is no debate amongst geologist on the age of the earth, the age of dinosaurs or the various epochs of the earth’s history. Look up some real science.
The interpretation of the chinese symbol is also wrong.
Once again a creationist speaks, not having learned anything true.
You do realize that your interpretation for the chinese symbol of boat is wrong. The part marked vessel is true, the portioned that is said to be the number 8 is wrong, that is a symbole representing the sound the term should be expressed in. Meanwhile the third symbol which he states to be “people” is just a symbol dealing with the nuances of the sound of word, it doesn’t mean people. Anohter eaxmple of creationist lying about the truth. Truly sad.
Tree,
I appreciate your comments. It’s important to note, however, that I was not a primary Author of the book I cited. I also do not speak any form of Chinese. CH Kong was the author, however, and he speaks it fluently and wrote the book from which I took the pictures (as noted above). If you have creditials that rival Kong and would like to provide a CV or even a URL showing work you’ve done in that field that demonstrate how your authority on the issue is more trustworthy than Kong I would be happy to examine your evidence.
Hey guys, I have studied Japanese for 4 years and lived in Japan for 2. I occasionally do translation for my job and in 6 months I will take a test so that I can professionally translate Chinese characters (I can show you a few URLs where I am credited with translation). I have checked all of the stuff below with 2 Chinese friends (cantonese and mandarin), a Japanese friend and an American friend who has studied Japanese for 9 years.
If you don`t see Chinese characters below it means your computer doesn`t support them.
Devil: (also means ghost, monster, demon etc…)
田 = Rice paddy/field, not garden, never garden. I have checked this with 9 online translators, 1 Japanese person and 2 Chinese people. All confirmed that translating this as garden is simply wrong. Garden is 园.
I can provide photo evidence (from facebook) of a Christian Chinese person telling me this, please send me your email address if you don`t want to take my word for it.
Otherwise name your standard of evidence, this is very wrong and very provable and everybody (including Kang) who has studied even a semester of Chinese or Japanese at university should be able to tell you that. I am not arguing against his credentials, but his honesty. Again, name your standard of evidence.
The other translations for devil are either very rare or a little bit off… but are closer to the truth.
So the best interpretation you can get for devil is “the secret man in the rice field”.
Tempter:
林 is a grove/forest, not two trees. Contained under the cover it usually means `hemp` or `cannabis`. Makes sense right?!
It is easy to see why Kang lied, as that was his most convincing character.
Boat:
船 is best translated as ship and 舟 is best translated as boat. So a ship is a boat with 8 mouths.
This isn`t very coincidental, it mentions nothing about a flood. Just that a ship is a reasonably big boat, in Chinese the difference is defined by how many people it can hold. Remember Kang had thousands upon thousands of characters to choose from.
(口 is mouth or entrance, but it can be used like people.)
Create:
土 is soil or earth… Not mud… But dust is okay.
Again, even after a bit of twisting this isn`t that co-incidental given that he had thousands of often ambiguous characters to choose from.
It is hard to see why I dismissed the last two as not so co-incidental. So I will show you. I did an experiment and picked 5 words off the top of my head, translated them to Chinese then found the biggest co-incidence.
Of 3 coincidental meanings the biggest was
Michael Jackson
Michael = dance
Jackson = prominent, subdue/capture, small, children.
This translation had nothing to do with his attributes, it is simply a combination of characters which sound like `Michael` and `Jackson` in Chinese. I have not used mistranslations, only direct translations which also come out of online translators. Let me know if you want me to break down the characters for you.
I just looked at 5 words, Kang had thousands. Yet I found something far more co-incidental than 8, mouths, boat or anything else he came up with.
This is no different from me picking new names for acronyms (e.g. NASA = Nibiru Alien Secrecy Association) then using this to say the English had knowledge of Nibiru. It`s a child`s word game exploiting ambiguity, helped along by some apparently deliberate mistranslations of Kang`s.
I hope you have the honesty to look into this yourself or ask a Chinese person. Please let me know what they say.
Just to clarify, those are 2 Chinese people born and living in China.
Not people who caught a bit of Chinese off of their parents.
I fail to see where your versions of the translations significantly change the meaning of the discovery. You said “boat” actually means “ship”. I have never learned nor translated Chinese but I have lived in a Spanish speaking country and I have acted as a translator both in that country and in the US. Translation is not an exact science, you do the best you can and you give the most accurate translation you can find but there is rarely an exact translation. For instance, the phrase “between a rock and a hard place” in English typically means when someone is between two difficult situations and they feel stuck with no good options, if you were to literally translate that phrase into Spanish it wouldn’t have the same meaning as if I translated “between the tip of the sword and the wall” it has the same significance but it is not a literal translation. You can’t get an exact meaning when translating from one language to another, everyone simply attempts to get the most accurate meaning. That same phrase probably wouldn’t mean anything in another Spanish speaking country or even in a different area of the country from where I lived since I was in a very poor, under-developed area. How is boat different enough from ship to call the man a liar and change the meaning. I would also question both to you and to Jedi where the discovery was made and where you are learning your translations from? If the discovery was made in one area of China and you are learning in a different area perhaps Kang’s translation was more appropriate than your own for that discovery. “Forest” versus “two trees” is another example, Kang actually said “trees” you threw in the number, “forest” and “trees” to me do not seem significantly different, the meaning remains the same so again I fail to see where your version of the translation is more accurate and shows Kang to be a “liar” as you stated.
1) BOAT AND SHIP
I said. “It is hard to see why I dismissed the last two as not so co-incidental.”
and “Again, even after a bit of twisting” (referring to the previous character, boat) and “best translated”.
So I was not saying that boat character was a lie. I was saying it is a small co-incidence, smaller than the co-incidences we`d expect him to find by chance. Please quote me showing where I call it a lie.
Kang did use a minor deception to make it seem more co-incidental. Boat and ship are basically interchangeable (I never claimed otherwise), but Kang chose to use `vessel` instead of `boat`. In English a vessel can be any kind of container. This gives the impression that any boat is represented as a container with 8 people. In reality 8 people only represents the boundary between a boat and a big boat. But this is only a small deception, not quite an outright lie. Whether you accept this was a deception, or simply an exploitation of ambiguity, this character is hardly convincing compared to Michael Jackson.
2) 2 TREES
You said “Kang actually said “trees” you threw in the number”
In Kang`s book he makes the 2 trees connection according to the links below.
http://www.bibleprobe.com/chinese.htm
2 trees is again trying to make it seem more co-incidental than it is.
Every single other character uses 木 to differentiate talking about trees or a forest as an area.
(I actually added the `tempter` section in after and made a typo.
“It is easy to see why Kang lied, as that was his most convincing character.” is referring to the devil, not the tempter.)
So again, he is only using a small deception. But if the forest/trees distinction is so negligible Kang should just translate it as forest and let his readers make the connection.
3) RICE PADDY AND GARDEN
You have not argued the rice paddy/garden character. So I assume you accept that this meets the threshold for a lie as I claimed (if I have translated correctly).
4) MY SOURCES
I have studied Chinese characters (Mandarin) in Japan, Hangzhou (near Shanghai) and Beijing (I also learnt from some Singaporeans in Australia).
My first Chinese friend is from Hong Kong (She speaks Cantonese and Mandarin).
My second Chinese friend is from Beijing.
My American friend studied the history of Chinese Characters.
I also used many types of translators, including ancient Chinese translators and ones which provide many translations based on their use in books .
So I have have looked into this from many angles and not in a region specific way.
5) DIFFERENT AREA
I have never seen a single Chinese character which means something different in a different area of China, different Chinese speaking country or different time period since the Han dynasty (simplified/traditional is basically a font change). Let alone the specific garden/rice paddy character. My sources backed this up for the Characters Kang is using.
There are verbal dialects though.
Either way, Kang makes the point that God made these characters survive in the current most spoken language on earth. He uses simplified Chinese characters which are only 54 years old and extremely standardised by the People`s Republic of China. An extraordinarily obscure dialect would go against this and it would be very strange of him to translate a character using standard Chinese, then switch to an obscure (read non-existent) dialect to translate a part of it, then switch back to standard Chinese.
Furthermore, using an obscure mixed dialect translation would make almost any translation possible. Removing the co-incidence.
6) BURDEN OF PROOF
It is not my job to search for proof of Kang`s claims. He knows that `rice paddy` is the wrong translation. I know this because he has not referenced where he got it from. Even if it were a legitimate translation from some small, obscure village with no TVs/schools Kang would know that even Chinese speakers don`t know this and he would have to show them.
7) SUMMARY
I am only claiming that boat and forest are small deceptions (or at least extreme exploitation of the ambiguity of translation) and that rice paddy is a lie. I am also claiming that the `devil/tempter/boat` characters are less co-incidental than Michael Jackson and that the `rice paddy` character is about the same. This means we would expect to see such co-incidences even if the Chinese knew nothing of genesis. If we allow different dialects (which don`t exist) and/or small deceptions almost any translation is possible.
That is my entire case. Let me know what specifically you disagree with.
@Sadie
8) BEST TRANSLATION
Idioms are nothing like individual words.
While something like `It`s raining cats and dogs” won`t translate well you cannot justify translating `dog` as `cat` with this logic.
demon/tempter and boat can perhaps be justified with extremely selective ambiguity. In this case it is just intellectually dishonest to not mention the far more common translations.
But ambiguity with non-literal culturally based sayings does not give Kang free rein to change one word with another, in a way nobody has ever done or seen before, and not at least reference how he translated it.
`rice paddy` is not `garden`. Kang is lying.
@Ray,
Even the Bastian of Liberal Naturalism, every Atheist’s oft quoted and watched, “Nova” on PBS calls Rice Paddies “Japan’s Secret Garden”. Is Nova lying? Somehow I doubt you’ll hold them to the same standards as you held Kang.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/satoyama/hillside.html
You said, “a ship is a boat with 8 mouths”. You’re having an Adventure in Missing the Point. There were 8 people on the Ark, that is of significance, who cares if it was a ship or a boat. . To claim someone is “lying” for calling a “Ship” a “Boat” is ridiculous. I grew up in Maine, have been on different “yachts” and “ships”. Every time I talked with someone about my day I always referred to the vehicle I was on as a “boat”. Go to New Orleans and meet the professional fisherman coming back in for the day. Ask them what they were driving out there. When they say, “boat”, I dare you to tell them, “You’re Lying! That’s a ship”. Let me know how it goes.
Also, just because I don’t mention something specific doesn’t mean, “[I] accept that this meets the threshold for a lie as [you] claimed”. You wrote quite a bit and to argue over subtleties like soil vs mud vs dust when neither of us is native or fluent in Chinese seems to be an exercise in futility.
YOU:”who cares if it was a ship or a boat. . To claim someone is “lying” for calling a “Ship” a “Boat” is ridiculous.”
I absolutely agree that it is ridiculous to call someone a liar for calling a ship a boat. Please quote me where I called him a liar for calling a ship a boat. I simply didn`t. Even if you think I did then I retract the point that I never made.
I called him a liar for calling a rice paddy a garden.
I said both of the following before you commented.
ME:”船 is best translated as ship and 舟 is best translated as boat. So a ship is a boat with 8 mouths.”
I`m not arguing with the validity of his translation, I don`t even mention it. I`m Simply stating the difference between boat and ship in Chinese.
ME:”Kang did use a minor deception to make it seem more co-incidental. Boat and ship are basically interchangeable (I never claimed otherwise), but Kang chose to use `vessel` instead of `boat`”
In the above I totally agreed with the point that you made in your middle paragraph before you made it (`but` shows that only vessel/boat is the deception). What are you arguing for?
YOU:”to argue over subtleties”
Again, already covered this (and your previous point… again).
ME:”I am only claiming that boat and forest are small deceptions (or at least extreme exploitation of the ambiguity of translation) and that rice paddy is a lie.”
I repeatedly refer to mud, boat/vessel (not boat/ship) and 2 trees as only minor deceptions.
If you accept that mud, vessel and 2 trees are at least exploitations of ambiguity (not lies) then we are in agreement. Do you?
While these points are futile in themselves they serve to show the way that Kang tries to make the translations as close as possible by using unused translations (which 2 Chinese natives disagree with) at the expense of widely accepted better translations. He should show people the best translation and let them decide how co-incidental it is.
YOU:”“Nova” on PBS calls Rice Paddies “Japan’s Secret Garden”. Is Nova lying?”
Your conclusion has four main problems.
Firstly, please read your own link. The series is called “Japan’s Secret Garden”, the secret garden being the area around lake Biwa. Only one section of the series mentions rice paddies. How is your argument different from taking the series “Cosmos”, picking out the section on memory, then arguing that Carl Sagan is declaring memory to be the cosmos?
Secondly, why did they switch from singular to plural? i.e. Why not say rice paddies are “Japan`s Secret Gardens”. Is this a grammar error? Note that the area around lake Biwa (but not rice paddies as a thing) is also singular.
Thirdly, I haven`t seen the series, so let`s say somewhere NOVA did say rice paddies are “Japan`s Secret Gardens”. This wording is a simile. If I say Mount Fuji is “Japan`s Eiffel Tower” I am not saying that Mount Fuji is the Eiffel Tower, or that Mount Fuji is even a tower. Similarly, IF NOVA says Rice Paddies are “Japan`s Secret Garden” they are not saying rice paddies are literally a garden. You must show that they are saying this, not just that it is a possible interpretation, to make the point that NOVA says “Rice paddies are gardens”.
Fourthly, let`s say that NOVA straight out said “Rice paddies are gardens” and that all English speakers agreed. Since other types of garden exist rice paddies are a subset of gardens. So Kang`s translation is still a lie. e.g. watermelons are a subset of fruits. If the character for tempter contained the character for watermelon (rice paddy) and Kang translated it as fruit (garden) that would be a lie to cover up a difference between the story.
As the four points above are not sequential logic but self contained problems with your point you will have to show all of them to be wrong to claim that NOVA is saying this.
If you succeed in dismantling all four points, then… OK, NOVA is wrong, rice paddies are not gardens or a subset of gardens. Even if they are right in English, they are wrong in Chinese as these characters are entirely separate. Again, I have checked all of the characters with native Chinese speakers without hinting at the answer I wanted.
Thanks for the response, I hope you end up successfully rebutting or agreeing with my points.
-Ray
BTW: I`m not a liberal, I just like languages. Freakin` hippies!!!
YOU: “Just because I don’t mention something specific doesn’t mean, “[I] accept that this meets the threshold for a lie as [you] claimed”.”
ME:”So I assume you accept that this meets the threshold for a lie as I claimed (if I have translated correctly).”
This was an assumption that you accept my claim, not a claim that you accept my claim, which is why I started the sentence with “So I assume…”.
`Noun
1. assumption – a statement that is assumed to be true and from which a conclusion can be drawn; “on the assumption that he has been injured we can infer that he will not to play”
`
If he is not injured the assumption is wrong and he might play. If you disagree the assumption is wrong and you might not accept my claim.
You are a person of MANY words….I’ll cut right to the point. I do not accept that “rice paddy vs. garden” is a lie any more than Freeware did. You made the assumption….you were wrong. My point was clearly missed the first time when I used an idiom, so I’ll use a better example. If I’m translating for a doctor and someone comes in with minimal education and I am discussing a hysterectomy they won’t necessarily know what that means, it refers to removing a woman’s uterus, but even the word uterus may not be known if someone doesn’t have an education, so I would translate “they will be removing the area where the baby grows” and then I would be better understood. No, technically I haven’t translated but I have used words that were understood by my listener so I haven’t lied either. The context with which I view the word garden could refer to a flower garden or a vegetable garden due to my understanding of that word, or it could be a field of just corn…if I were living in China it’s unlikely I would have that same mental picture. I only sort of understand what a rice paddy is because I have never seen one in real life and have certainly never worked in one, “garden” would give a much more accurate meaning to me. Kang translated for his audience, I still fail to see where he was dishonest or a liar.
`Hysterectomy` to `area where the baby grows`.
is equivalent to
`Rice Paddy` to `area where rice is grown`
This is fine.
You couldn`t honestly translate `Hysterectomy` as `haircut` because your listener understands haircut. A hysterectomy is not a haircut. Likewise you can`t honestly translate rice paddy as garden for understanding.
Either way, Kang`s goal should be to reflect the co-incidences within the Chinese language (his actual point), not how much more co-incidental it becomes when he translates to English. Garden and rice paddy are both understood in Chinese, and seen as different. So the character is much less co-incidental in Chinese than his translation suggests.
Finally, what about
Michael Jackson = dance, prominent, subdue/capture, small, children?
Do you accept that this is at least as co-incidental as any of Kang`s translations? (if I am allowed to change the words like he has).
Do you accept that this co-incidence is due entirely to chance?
Do you accept that therefore we would expect the level of co-incidences Kang found whether God put them there or not?
*Paraphrasing with hysterectomy
“No, technically I haven’t translated”
Indeed
It`s interesting when a person claiming to be a translator misuses the word `translate`.
This isn`t a mistranslation, just a harmless linguistic error. Anybody can understand your intended meaning. However, it makes me suspect that you have never done professional interpreting as your last post described. Kinda like when all of the `rocket scientists` on the internet confuse `speed` and `velocity`.