Chinese Biblical Anthropology

Persons and Ideas in the Old Testament and in Modern Chinese Literature

Jian Cao

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781532655661, 9781532655678
• eBook ISBN: 9781532655685
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

In this study that is largely intellectual history, Cao Jian observes how Old Testament motifs were introduced by Protestant missionaries and Bible translators, with the help of Chinese co-workers in the beginning, and how those motifs drew attention from local converts and led to discussions among them in light of the norms in Confucianism. Then, Cao demonstrates how Confucian reformists started reacting to missionary publications and showing interest in Old Testament motifs. After the defeat of China in 1894-1895 in the Sino-Japanese War, the response to the Old Testament became more active and influential among China's population. The author shows new interests and tendencies in Old Testament interpretation among educated Chinese with various political ideals at a time of national crisis. He also demonstrates how the vernacular movement in Bible translating and missionary Old Testament education popularized and modernized Old Testament reading and studies in Chinese society. After that transitional period, discussions of Old Testament motifs became even more abundant and diverse. The author concentrates on those regarding the notion of God and monotheism. In China's nationalism, the Old Testament proved no less stimulating. The author deals with Moses and the prophets to understand how they became valid to those active in both religious and secular realms.

1

The Old Testament in Chinese Culture

Slow Beginnings in Turbulent Times

Introduction of Western Learning Together with the Old Testament in the Nineteenth Century

In the West, the nineteenth century was called the “scientific age,” and it was known as a time when knowledge of the natural world grew rapidly. The entire conception of the natural universe was changed by the recognition that human beings are subject to the same physical laws and processes as the natural world. The scientific methods of observation, induction, deduction, and experiment apply not only to the subject matter of pure science but also to nearly all the many and varied fields of human thought and activity.1 As a response to the challenge of the scientific age, nineteenth-century Christianity established so-called “natural theology.” The knowledge of the natural world and recognition of the natural universe were introduced to newly opened China primarily by Protestant missionaries by means of translators, who believed that spreading science also meant spreading the natural theology of Christianity. Despite his ignorance of the Chinese translators’ role, Young John Allen (1836–1907) was basically right to say that, without the missionaries’ work of translation, the Chinese would have known nothing of Western learning.2

Missionaries, in particular, drew from their contact with the Chinese state and society a profound impression of China’s ethnocentrism.3 Already in the first half of the nineteenth century, Protestant missionaries who went to China from the West had made their missions “in larger part a matter of print.”4 The religious tract, which was a principal feature of mission work, was soon found inadequate for such a setting. Narrowly religious and devotional in content, it held no interest because of the vast cultural and historical differences between China and the West. What was needed instead were materials that would show that the West was a highly developed civilization equal to China, that its Christian religious tradition was worthy of respect, and that missionaries were scholar-teachers similar to those found in the Chinese tradition.5 Therefore, dramatic changes in the tract literature of the early Protestant missionary movement included an emphasis on secular learning and the integration of religious ideas into written materials more broadly historical and cultural in nature and intended for use in non-church settings.6

This was more the case in the second half of the nineteenth century, when among Chinese readers the missionaries soon sensed a demand for global knowledge of the world and when the Western worldview was largely composed of the Newtonian universe and the Darwinian world of humanity.7 Isaac Newton, however, provided a materialistic picture of humanity and the universe without denying God in the creation of the cosmos. Nature was a mechanical system functioning automatically and independently, and it was the primary source for human beings to know the will of God, the designer. Western liberalism was the theological response to the new view of humanity and God’s world that developed along with Darwinism and the rise of sciences.8 Liberals called themselves “modernists” in the conviction that the adjustment of religion to contemporary culture was both an admirable and an inevitable process. The nature of the theology preached helped to determine which audience the missionary would reach—which segments or social strata in the recipient society would be most heavily influenced by this particular form of Westernization.9

To eliminate the threat of Darwinism to Christianity and to reconcile the two, missionaries tried hard to find a point of agreement between Christianity and the theory of evolution—with the goal of establishing evolutionary theism. After describing the evolution of the earth on the basis of modern scientific discoveries, Alexander Williamson (1829–1890) attributed the natural process to God’s wisdom and compared God to a garden designer.10 John Gulick (1832–1923) stated that, in contrast to other scientific theories, evolution helps a person understand the magnificent adaptability of the physical and spiritual activities of humankind with the natural order. No matter where they were, surviving living beings managed to adapt themselves to circumstances, because God was with them in these circumstances. Therefore, evidence of evolution demonstrated that rational human beings needed religious faith in God.11

Combining secular knowledge with sacred faith, natural theology legitimized the spread of both secular civilization and Christianity. Moreover, natural theology emphasized the intimate relationship between the two. First, the missionaries spoke highly of the role religion played in the development of modern science. They declared that, in both theory and practice, modern Christian civilization in its essence was closely connected with scientific progress and that science grew from within Christianity and could never be separated from it.12 Timothy Richard (1845–1919) wrote: “The wonderful reforms of Western civilization are enormous; but still these are, comparatively speaking, only branches. Christianity is the greatest source of blessing, producing powerful effects for good in the material, intellectual, political, social, moral and spiritual department of life. True Christianity is never final; the Holy Spirit is given to guide into all truth and to perfect us in love.”13

Second, the missionaries realized that science and religion were mutually beneficial and complementary. Science provided support for the Mosaic account, while God’s revelation offered moral vitality to science. The missionaries believed that, together with faith in Jesus, secular knowledge would make the world whole.14 Among highly rational Chinese people, the missionaries came to realize that interest in Christianity was best supported with arguments of natural theology.15

The Old Testament was part of Western learning because of its importance to Christianity, world history, and Western civilization. According to William Ashmore (18...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Preface
• Abbreviations
• Chapter 1: The Old Testament in Chinese Culture
• Chapter 2: The Old Testament and New Concerns at the End of the Nineteenth and Beginning of the Twentieth Centuries
• Chapter 3: The Vernacular Old Testament, Education, and the New Literature
• Chapter 4: Monotheism and Chinese Intellectuals in the New Culture Movement
• Chapter 5: Moses, the Prophets, and Chinese Intellectuals
• Chapter 6: Concluding Reflections
• Bibliography