davidH

Y.B look at post one and then post 3 where i told you exactly what i was going to be discussing in this thread - what do you think i posted up the quotes for, flip what did you think the whole point of this discussion was - that i was just interested in chinese history?

And if written history predated the flood it would obviously pass through it!! :banghead: :banghead:

Y.B

Well, in that case you do have a point about there apparently not being an "unbroken written history" before and after the alleged flood.

But then again, there is no reason to assume the written record is "broken" because of Noah's flood.

Mageth

How do examples of what may be proto-Chinese written language symbols predating the alleged flood date, which are similar to, and are arguably precursors of, known examples of Chinese written language after the alleged date of the flood, not "pass through" the alleged flood date?

It may not be "written history" per se, but at a minimum it appears that it may be indicative of a continuous history of the Chinese written language that "passes through the flood."

Flint

What a strange thread. If we have the slightest respect for evidence, then there was no global flood. Period. Now, we have to specifiy exactly when something that never occurred, actually "happened". Since it didn't happen, we pull some date straight out of our ass, why not? What else can we do? Next, we look at Chinese written history. This stuff isn't always that easy to date with any precision, so we might be off by hundreds of years. Not unusual, though -- even Egyptian history seems to be of by hundreds of years back in Biblical times; our dating schemes aren't that precise. They can NEVER be precise enough to date something that never happened, anyway.

But if we decide to abandon any and all respect for evidence, and place a flood sometime in the past, why should we switch tacks and suddenly *respect* evidence for Chinese history? We are either making stuff up or we are not. If we're making stuff up, then we can make up whether or not a made-up Chinese history does or does not span a made-up flood. And the answer to THAT question is, gee, whatever. Flip a coin. If we are NOT making stuff up, then there was no flood and the original question is no longer meaningful.

Clearly, either way we look at it, the answer is 42.

buckshot23

Thanks for the links.
This is a site telling you why you should learn mandarin. I think I need more documentation than this. Lets look at the rest.
Hmm more of the same this time with more instruction on speaking the language.
Not sure what you are trying to show with this link. :huh:
Now this is better. This struck me as interesting.
Then they were like they can't be related because the shells are too old for the characters to be similiar to the more modern characters. My guess is they are related but they got the date wrong.
Gonna disregard this one. There aren't any references to check out here. Plus they are trying to sell me something.

wei.

You are not?
I was just about to help you.
Well, Chinese written records do not predate 2304 BC.
There is other evidence of early civilization in China that do predate 2304 BC though.
So I don't really see the significance of whether written records predate 2304 BC.

Oww... Someone has a sense of humour.

buckshot23

The significance is that there are no written chinese records that predate 2304 BC.

Monad

The language site links were to demonstrate that there is a cultural tradition that extends back over 8,000 years - it may not be documented (and in that sense I suppose it is not a fully developed historical record but history does not just appear one day - it evolves too in fits and starts and clearly that is what happened in china) but the point it there is evidence of a culture that emerged and developed over this period and that was not wiped out by a flood and then miraculously recreated. Whether you see the Henan pictograms as early predecesors of Shang script or not this is evidence of early chinese writing that predates any supposed flood

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ht/02/eac/ht02eac.htm

I agree that this is more correctly pre-history rather than history - it's not unbroken in terms of written historical records but there is continuity of culture in the form of writing and pictographs, pottery, medicinal traditions, art etc.

Monad

Well presumably the Henan writing records something even if we can't translate it yet.

Monad

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articl...1/ai_n10297975

A bit more depth in this one.