cajela

This should probably not even be in E/C. It's pushing people's "there was no flood" buttons, and they're not paying attention to the question. It's a good question - I'd be interested in the answer. I'm aware of the Egyptian history but very ignorant of the Chinese.

Y.B

Google is your friend.

The oldest Chinese writings have been found and dated to the late Dawenkou period (4500 - 2500 B.C). They're approximately 4800 years ago, and they're know as the Dawenkou Pottery Inscriptions.

http://www.chinapage.com/archeology/2000year.html

http://english.people.com.cn/english...421_39442.html

jcsd

Well I think the whole point of this thread is that is that written history is history. If there are no Chinese records before the claimed flood date then it is incorrect to say that Chinese History predates this date.

Valentine Pontifex

buckshot23 has got a point in his posts in this thread. And it might just be justified.

If it is going to be argued that the Chinese history predates the alleged date of Noah story then one must actually produce evidence to support that claim. buckshot23 is asking people justify the claim that Chinese history goes back farther back. In other words just don't say it, document it. It is a very reasonable request. If this can't be documented than the claim needs to be dropped. Of course one can say the same thing about claims that the Deluge happened, but that is another thread.

It might also be useful to expand the scope of the thread a bit to ancient cultures in general. I think that it might be easier to do with ancient Egypt, but I am not familiar enough with the subject to state what the documentation of ancient dates is.

davidH

Thank-you, that is exactly what i found. Now unless people want to further debate or bring up new information showing that the chinese written history passes through the biblical date given for the flood and hence the flood could not have happened, then perhaps people on the E/C forum will stop using this rubbish and leading other people to believe it is true.

Now like i said before 2033 BC–1562 BC is the date Wikipedia encyclopedia gives for the Xia dynasty so that gives approx 300 years after the flood, and written history started in the subsequent Shang dynasty which Wikipedia encyclopedia gives to exist from either 1100BC or 900C till 256BC. Now that means that 1204 years (going by the start date of 1100BC) after the flood the chinese began keeping their records and writing the history of their people (1400yrs if date taken from 900BC).

So i hope never again to see anyone let a person state that the chinese written history passes right through the flood and out the other side - and use it as evidence the flood could not have happened.
And i am more than prepared to understand why 1204 years after a world wide flood - it could be forgotten when they started writing their history.

Y.B

Ahem. See my post above (#38).

Monad

Chinese written language does go back to before the purported "flood"

http://www.msllearningcenter.com/mandarin_writing.htm

http://www.euroasiasoftware.com/english/chinese/learn/

http://www.completetranslation.com/writing.htm

examples of characters close to those used in Shang dynasty script have been found carved into tortoise shell dated to over 8,000 years.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2956925.stm

http://www.abbeville.com/Products/Ex...741Excerpt.htm

Other aspects of chinese culture also date back to this time including discoveries of musical instruments (bone flutes) and medicine.

I would agree that this could not be described as an "unbroken" tradition in the sense that we don't have a clear picture of the intervening years between these early discoveries of writing and the Shang dynsasty but on the other hand there is evidence of a continuous tradition of sign use along the Yellow River, a trend that eventually bore fruit in the development of the Xia and later Shang dynasties.

davidH

Not in this thread we won't, we can start another one. I want this thread to only specifically address this concept people on this forum seem to have understood from chinese history.

davidH

Y.B,

That is not written history which passes through the flood.

Y.B

Ok davidH, so you shifted the goalposts from the OP to now "passing through the flood". Big whoopie.