The Discovery of Genesis (5 page)

The preceding serves to illustrate the purpose of this book in exploring some of the pictographic and ideographic types of Chinese characters in order to unlock what we believe is a parallel account of the fascinating chronicle of beginnings. A feature which makes this hypothesis even more tenable is that the words to be discussed in this book are of themselves very relevant to the stories of Genesis. If the inventor of the written language were seeking to portray such words by pictographs or ideographs, it would be appropriate for him to find the earliest instance in oral tradition bearing an illustration. For example: the words
bring forth, complete
, or
finish
would be expected to refer to the creation week; while
first, perfect, beginning
, and
ancestor
should apply to Adam and Eve; and
warn, covet, naked, hide
,
thorn
, and
sorrow
, are ideas first expressed in the temptation and fall of the original human pair.

There is reason to believe that the Chinese written language bears a testimony to prehistory with emerging details closely resembling the Hebrew portrayal. Some information contained by the ancient characters gives unexpected insights into the little-understood primeval world. The graphic symbols often seem to give specifications referring to the two worlds—either that of Adam and Eve in the mysterious preflood period, or to Noah and his family, the postdiluvian (postflood) common ancestors. Most remarkable of all is that the Chinese characters have survived intact through the intervening thousands of years with very little modification in the meaning of their constituent parts, although the actual written forms have undergone stylistic changes. Today this remarkable language represents the one remaining pictographic and ideographic language in current use in the modern world.

It is the purpose of this book to propose, therefore, that the ancient Chinese people were quite familiar with the same record which the Hebrew Moses is popularly given credit for writing some 700 to 1,000 years
later.
Imagine this information being stored in special characters that were in use hundreds of years before the first page of the Bible was written! Moreover we believe that the Chinese actually employed this historical knowledge as one small facet in the process of building their written language. The significance of this claim is broad. But most important, it appears to us to give support and added acceptance to the often-slandered account of the Biblical Genesis.

How is it that the factuality of Genesis is now universally questioned, whereas a century ago it was generally accepted in large portions of the world? Many people today are evolutionists, having been brought up from childhood accepting this idea. Early, they are taught in school and by the media to think the earth evolved through millions or billions of years. They are frequently unacquainted with the Scriptural explanation of creation except in a fanciful or ridiculing context. This educational influence has left too many closeminded on the subject of origins, accepting only the statements of the scientific world as fact.

Thanks to archaeological finds, the credibility of the Bible is increasing.
⁴
Gradually, archaeologists have been digging up evidence of ancient civilizations mentioned exclusively in the Bible. Inscriptions in clay and rock have been deciphered which describe with conclusive data the very peoples once considered mere Biblical hypotheses. The 1976 find of an entire library of intact clay tablets at Tell Mardikh (ancient Ebla in Syria) by Italian archaeologists is eagerly being deciphered for meaningful associations with the early chapters of Genesis.
⁵
Will the early Hebrew pre-recorded history be clarified by these relic writings? Will a vast Semitic culture from the centuries prior to 2000 B.C. come to light?

There is much discussion about the origin of fossils, petrified forests, and coal and oil deposits. Do these prove evolution, or were they produced by an ancient universal flood with cataclysmic unheavals?
One
observation would meet with universal agreement: these are all remnants of a lush vegetation and vast fauna distributed worldwide, from present-day deserts to icy poles. The process which instantaneously froze, thereby preserving in toto, thousands of mammoths grazing on temperate vegetation,
⁶
encased ripe fruit in ice, petrified giant hardwood trees before the normal course of rotting could ensue, and liquified or carbonized other organic life into fuel for future generations must have involved the whole earth in a rapidly transpiring event.

What was the world like that nurtured these mute but splendid remnants of a former age? Each step in the process of creation is described in the first pages of Genesis as meeting God’s quality-controlled perfection: “And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good” (Genesis 1:31). This primeval planet was so perfect that we can scarcely imagine how different it was from the most idyllic panorama on our present earth. We are pleased today with a much inferior familiar scene—the recovered world following the devastation of a universal catastrophe.

Terrariums have become popular in the last few years, and especially those people who have a hard time remembering to water their house plants appreciate that one can neglect the glass-encased ferns, mosses, or small-leaved plants for months at a time and see them repeatedly utilize and thrive on the meager moisture contained in the system. It has been proposed that our earth was once just such a vast enclosed greenhouse, for the great size and verdure of fossil plants suggest ideal primordial climatic conditions. A very even temperature could have been made possible by a globe-encircling vapor canopy as described in Genesis 1:6–8: “And God said, ‘Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters [originally surrounding the earth], and let it separate the waters from the waters.’ And God made the firmament and separated the waters which were under the firmament [seas] from the waters which were above the firmament [water canopy]. And it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven.” Also in Genesis 2:6 it is stated that a “mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground.”

A water canopy encircling the earth would create an even temperature everywhere, thus eliminating winds and in turn rains. This protective vaporous mantle would also screen out harmful radiation and could conceivably contribute to the early longevity of mankind, as recorded in Genesis.
⁷
Truly the first world was a strangely wonderful place. But again, did it abruptly end with the emptying of the water canopy upon the earth during the universal flood? This possibility is depicted in Genesis when “all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the
windows of the heavens
were opened. And rain fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights” (Genesis 7:11,12). According to the Biblical record, the whole earth was convulsed in a mighty upheaval as these tumultuous waters swept away the first world’s inhabitants and vegetation. Only Noah and his family, together with pairs of animal species, are recorded to have been preserved in a spacious vessel of his own making.

But how can we believe such an idealistic first world ever existed? How can we scientifically accept a “myth?” Is there any real evidence outside of fossils to substantiate the Genesis story? How about Noah’s ark? Would we believe the Bible if the remnants of a mighty wooden boat, equal in dimensions to those itemized in Genesis, were found on Mt. Ararat, where this ancient vessel went aground? A number of inconclusive search expeditions to this mountain range in Turkey have been conducted over the past number of years
⁸
.

We feel confident in presenting the material in this book that there is another reliable record of earth’s beginnings which agrees in close detail with the Genesis writings. The total history of the two vastly different worlds described in Genesis will also be viewed through the eyes and creative thinking of the ancient inventor of the Chinese characters. Adam and Eve were given dominion over a perfect creation of primeval beauty, while Noah’s family of eight survivors struggled to reestablish the human race in a desolate, unrecognizable and devastated land.

It is hoped that as this subject is explored, you will gain a new appreciation for earth’s oldest culture and an excitement in probing the picturesque, graphic Chinese language. How miraculous that it has been preserved with so little change through the intervening millennia! Today it is still used by more of this world’s populace than any other single script. Could the Chinese characters even have been divinely preserved, along with fossil remains, as supporting witnesses to the Hebrew Scriptures, which answer the perplexing question of origins?

We … bring you good news, that you should turn from these vain things to a living God who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them. In past generations He allowed all the nations to walk in their own way; yet
He did not leave Himself without witness
… (Acts 14:15-17).

Chapter 2: Imperial Intrigue in the Chinese Dark Ages