The Discovery of Genesis (62 page)

Within the gates of the southern division of the capital, and surrounded by a sacred grove so extensive that the silence of its deep shades is never broken by the noises of the busy world, stands the Temple of Heaven. It consists of a single tower, whose tiling of resplendent azure is intended to represent the form and color of the aerial vault. It contains no image, and the solemn rites are not performed within the tower; but, on a marble altar which stands before it, a bullock is offered once a year as a burnt-sacrifice, while the master of the Empire prostrates himself in adoration of the Spirit of the Universe.
⁸

The public offering of this sacrifice was the chief evidence of the right to rule. Consequently, the practice was strictly observed by the ruling sovereign down through the ages.

The significance of the sacrifice had long since been completely lost. It was merely thought to be an “old custom.” Even Confucius nearly 2,500 years before had been ignorant of its origin, although he researched with keenest interest into the meaning of this sacrifice. He attached so much importance to it as to declare that “the man who could explain the sacrifice to God would be able to rule the Empire as easily as he could look on the palm of his own hand.”
⁹

Although the origin and meaning of this ancient ceremony have been lost sight of by the Chinese, the mere fact of its existence and practice for nearly 4,500 years, together with the miracle of its survival into the 20th century from ancient times as a sacrifice to the Supreme God,
ShangTi
, is indeed incredible!

The marvelous fact is that from the Chinese culture, geographically and ethnically widely separated from the Hebrew nation, similar details of worship were preserved. These may be added as an additional link in the lengthening chain which binds the two peoples and further substantiates and verifies the early chapters of Genesis as revealed truth!

Chapter 9: A Bleak World

That there ever was a universal flood has been all but discounted by modern man. How is it then that nearly every ancient civilization on earth has a flood epic recording a catastrophic deluge? These flood stories, however, have been interpreted as either localized events involving only a small segment of the earth, or as mythological tales. Yet, if all of these widely scattered cultures cite a deluge, the likelihood that the entire world suffered together from the same event is compounded. As the descendants of the survivors again dispersed over the face of the earth, they must have carried the memory of this universal cataclysm with them as a part of their historical past.

Aside from these ancient records, apparent physical evidences, worldwide in scope, can be found, mute witnesses of this destructive upheaval. Petrified forests, coal and oil deposits, fossil remains of now extinct mammoth animals, deep eroded canyons, subterranean caverns, massive folds in the earth’s strata, widespread volcanic residue, and many other phenomena in all parts of the earth indicate a former terrestrial catastrophe, which completely changed the face of this world of ours. Whereas the modern world is probably less than one-tenth habitable because of mighty globe-encircling seas and untenable weather conditions, icy wastes and vast arid deserts, steaming insect-infested jungles and massive sky-high mountain chains, this was not always so, as the various remnants of the former world testify.

Attempts to explain scientifically a flood of such total proportions have been made. One popular theory is a near astral collision with gravitational conflict resulting in heaving oceans, surging tides, and lava movement in the earth’s crust causing violent eruptions with mountain-building.
¹
By whatever causal agents and physical means it might have been effected, the Biblical reason for the flood is given very simply in the Genesis record. “The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. … And God said to Noah, ‘I have determined to make an end of all flesh; for the earth is filled with violence through them; behold I will destroy them with the earth. Make yourself an ark of gopher wood. … For behold, I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life from under heaven; everything that is on the earth shall die. But I will establish my covenant with you; and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons [Ham, Shem and Japheth], your wife, and your sons’ wives with you’” (Genesis 6:5, 13, 14, 17, 18).

We might get a picture of an angry God with patience worn thin, because His creatures failed to obey His every dictate. This is the portrait that Lucifer would paint. However, instead, it was a disappointed God, aghast at the wickedness and violence conjured by the human race, which He had wanted so much to be perfect and holy! For yet another 120 years (Genesis 6:3), God tolerated sinful mankind while Noah and his sons under God’s direction built the mighty ark. Noah was the 10th generation from Adam, and according to the chronology of the genealogies (Genesis 5:3–30), it was about the year 1656 after creation when God allowed the devastating flood to sweep over the earth.

The ark, a tremendous vessel — 450 feet long, 75 feet broad, and 45 feet high, (Genesis 6:15 Moffat), such as no man had ever seen before, was to become a refuge during the terrible storm. The Chinese character for
boat
²
gives this very representation. There are three elements pictured: a
vessel
, eight
, and mouth
, meaning “people.” The word for boat, then, tells the story of this first great ark which, in spite of the years of warning and pleading by Noah to his compatriots, had just eight passengers. “And Noah and his sons [Ham, Shem, and Japheth] and his wife and his sons’ wives with him, went into the ark, to escape the waters of the flood” (Genesis 7:7).

One finds that these original eight people from whom the earth was repopulated after the flood, play a very important and prominent role in many Chinese characters.
It has been pointed out several times that this earth has known two very different worlds, the first a perfect creation extending from the time of Adam and Eve until it was completely destroyed and buried by the devastating flood. Many of the characters which were derived from episodes involving Adam and Eve during the antediluvian times had incorporated in them various symbols representing this first couple, such as
or
. Now as the postdiluvian events are studied, it will be seen that, instead of featuring the original progenitor pair, the eight survivors of the flood are memorialized in the same way. They now become the new ancestors of all future generations, and hence the numeral
eight
becomes as important in reference to the postdiluvian stories as the figure
two
was to antediluvian epics.
Eight
, it will be seen, also takes a variety of forms:
, or
, whichever best accommodates the space, shape, or whim of artistic smartness desired in a character.