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- Title
Biblical Chronology and the Transmission of the Theory of Six "World Ages" to China: Gezhi aolüe ... (Outline of the mystery [revealed through] natural science; before 1723).
- Authors
Dudink, Ad
- Abstract
This article is primarily concerned with the question of what kind of text Gezhi aolüe ... (Outline of the mystery [revealed through] natural science), a unique ms. copy (1820) from the Zikawei Library in Shanghai and published for the first time in 1996, precisely is. Gezhi aolüe appears to be older than 1820 (dating to before 1723), and to be a summary of one of the "Manila incunabula" (as Van der Loon called them), viz. Gewu qiongli bianlan ... (Handy compendium for investigating things and extending knowledge, 1607) composed by the Dominican friar Tomás Mayor for the Minnan-speaking Chinese in Manila, which in turn is based on Luis de Granada's Introducción del Símbolo de la Fe (1583). The article further concentrates on the biblical chronology (Vulgata) embedded in a scheme of six "world ages" (from Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Salomo, and Zerubbabel to Christ) that Gewu qiongli bianlan presents (a chronology not found in the Introducción). Due to the absence, at that time, of a Chinese translation of the Bible and especially of the Old Testament, Gezhi aolüe (as well as the ms. Renlei yuanliu Λ... (The origin of mankind) that seems to be based on Mayor's text too) that was not compiled by Western missionaries reproduces for quite a number of less well-known names in the genealogy from Adam to Christ the Minnan or Hokkien 'transliterations' used in Gewu qiongli bianlan. The article concludes with two appendices: 1) a survey of which biblical chronology Chinese Christian texts of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries use: the Vulgata chronology (the world was created some 4000 years before Christ), or the Septuagint chronology (the world was created some 5200 years before Christ); and 2) a reproduction of the genealogy of Christ (in Chinese and, of course, not using Minnan transliterations) that Carlo di Orazio da Castorano, a Franciscan missionary in Shandong, had printed in 1704 (the only known copy is preserved in the Vatican Library, see frontispiece and attached illustration of this issue of EASTM).
- Publication
East Asian Science, Technology & Medicine, 2012, Vol 35, p89
- ISSN
1562-918X
- Publication type
Academic Journal
- DOI
10.1163/26669323-03501004