Untitled article by J. L. Baker

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Third-day, August 20, 1867

THE CHINESE AND MOSAIC RECORDS.

By J. L. Baker

[BRO. SMITH: If you think the following facts, showing that infidelity can draw no aid nor comfort from the Chinese records, would be of interest to the readers of the Review, I submit them for a place in the paper.—J. L. BAKER.]

“The Chinese have been supposed to have records that reach higher than the history of Moses; but we find by the best accounts of their antiquities that this is false. Their antiquities reach no higher than the times of Noah, for Fohi was their first king. They pretend to no history or memoirs that reach up higher than his times, and by all their accounts, the age of Fohi coincides with that of Moses’ Noah. Their writers in general agree, that Fohi lived about 2952 years before Christ. The author of Mirandorum in Sina et Europa computes him to reign but 2847 years before our Saviour; and Alvarez Sevedo places his reign not so early, imagining it to be but 2000 years; and all these computations agree well enough with the times of Noah: for Noah was born, according to Archbishop Usher, 2948 years, and died 2016 years, before Christ; so that all the several computations about Fohi, fall pretty near within the compass of Noah’s life.

But we shall hereafter see many reasons to conclude Moses’ Noah, and the Chinese Fohi to be the same person.”—Shuckford, Vol. 1, page 48.

“The first king of China was Fohi; and as I have before observed that Fohi and Noah were contemporaries at least, for there are many reasons, from the Chinese traditions concerning Fohi, to think him and Noah the same person. First, they say Fohi had no father, i. e., Noah was the first man in the post-diluvian world; his ancestors perished in the flood, and no tradition hereof being preserved in the Chinese annals, Noah, or Fohi, stands there as if he had no father at all.

Secondly, Fohi’s mother is said to have conceived him encompassed in a rainbow; a conceit very probably arising from the rainbow’s first appearing to Noah, and the Chinese being willing to give some account of his origin.

Thirdly, Fohi is said to have carefully bred seven sorts of creatures, which he used to sacrifice to the Supreme spirit of Heaven and earth; and Moses tells us that Noah took into the ark, of every clean beast by sevens, and of the fowls of the air by sevens, and after the flood Noah built an altar, and took of every clean beast, and every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings.

Fourthly, the Chinese derive the name of Fohi, from his oblation; and Moses gives Noah his name upon account of the grant of the creatures for the use of man, which he obtained by his offering.

Lastly, the Chinese history supposes Fohi to have settled in the province of Xensi, which is the north-west part of China, and near to Ararat, where the ark rested.”—Shuckford, vol. 1, p. 82 Campbell’s Debate with Owen.