Noah's Ark Story Hidden in Chinese Characters

7/22/2019 Noah's Ark Story Hidden in Chinese Characters

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The biblical account of Noahs Ark has attracted world-

wide attention for centuries, especially from archaeologists

searching for evidence of the Ark and wanting to document

this highly signicant worldwide event. The universal

Flood story was recorded in different continents of the

earth by ancient cultures that claimed to have witnessed

the Flood. Although the world has experienced disasters

such as volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and diseases, no

other global calamity has been recorded that threatened

the very existence of mankind. Most ancient non-biblicalrecords, including those of the Indians (Manu), Sumerians,

Egyptians, American Indians, Peruvians and the Chinese

have recorded a universal ood. Some of the stories tell of

one or eight persons on an Ark.1,2An Indian myth from the

6th-century BCtells how the hero, Manu, was advised by a

sh to build a ship as a means of escape from the coming

ood. When the ood came, the sh towed the ship to a

mountain top.3

These myths, however, are fragmented and do not tell a

complete story of the cause, sequence and consequence of

the event. In contrast, the Hebrew text describes a detailed

sequence of the events as recorded in the book of Genesis

from chapters six to nine.4 The Chinese also have a similarstory. Notably, a great ood that occurred as a result of therebellion of a group of people during the legendary period(about 2500 BC). In the text ofHuai Nan Zi(, writtenin 200 BC),5legend states that in ancient times, the poles(north, south, east and west) that supported the roof of the

world were broken. As a result, the heavens were brokenand the nine states of China experienced continental shiftand split. Fire broke out and the water from the heavenscould not be stopped, causing a ood. Shu Jing(, writ-ten 1000 BC) relates how there was grieving and mourningall over the earth, and also describes the extent of the ood;how the water reached the sky, and ooded the mountainsand drowned all living things. In the midst of this globalcalamity, a hero by the name of Nwa () appearedand sealed the ood holes with colourful stones and repairedthe broken poles using four turtle legs. Nwa used earth tocreate humans to replenish mankind after the ood (FengSu Tong Yi, ).6,7 Although the name Nwa (

), in Chinese, may today sound like a female rst name,at that time it was a common surname.7

We have previously shown that the analysis of the an-cient Chinese characters revealed that the ancient Chinesehad the same understanding of the spiritual meaning of theLamb of God as the Hebrews.8 The Chinese story of theFlood is fragmented and parts of it appear far-fetched. Couldanalysis of the ancient Chinese characters help to recoverthe missing pieces of the story? Nelson and colleagues7,9analyzed four Seal and two Oracle Bone characters thatwere associated with a ood, a boat and eight persons,and proposed that the ancient Chinese legend was related

to the Noahs Ark story. In this study, we analyzed all theancient Bronzeware, Oracle Bones and Seal characters thatare associated with the catastrophic Deluge and our ndingsstrongly suggest that the ancient Chinese Flood legend in-deed originated from Noahs family and that Noahs familyand the remnant creatures were on the Ark.

Results

A gigantic flood in ancient China

The ancient Book of Documents (Shu Jing),10writ-ten around 1000 BC,describes a gigantic ood so huge that

it rose to heaven and drowned all the mountains and livingthings. The original ancient Chinese texts were destroyedby various emperors over time when they felt threatened bythem, most notably the emperor Qin Shi Huang () in200 BC. Hence, most ancient Chinese history and legendsare the compilations of peoples recollections by historianssuch as Confucius () and Si Ma Qian (). Ifthe story of the ood recorded in Shu Jingis authentic, wereason that analysis of ancient Chinese characters which canbe traced back to around 2500 BCought to reveal such astory. Indeed, a character for a vast ooddoes exist (gure1). The character consists of three successive wavy lines.The ancient scribes commonly used three lines to represent

Noahs Ark

hidden in the

ancient ChinesecharactersKui Shin Voo, Rich Sheeley and LarryHovee

Legends from ancient China describe a global cata-strophic flood so vast that the waters reached thesun and covered the mountains, drowning all theland-dwelling creatures, including mankind. In themidst of this global calamity, there stood a legend-ary hero named Nwa () who turned back theflood and helped to repopulate the world. Analysisof the ancient Chinese Bronzeware, Oracle Boneand Seal characters that are associated with flood() andboat() led to the present-day discoveryof evidence for Nwas ark in the Chinese charac-ters. Nwas ark housed eight worshippers andthe remnants of the world, and finally came to reston a mountain. After the flood receded, the worldbegan to be repopulated from the eight people onthe Ark. Significantly, the Chinese account of theFlood has been dated to 1000 BC, suggesting that theChinese possess one of the oldest written records

of the Deluge.


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Figure 1.Zai, vast ood. The pronunciation of the character Zai

is taken from Wieger.23The denition is taken from Jia Gu Wen Zi

Gu Lin.11 Interpretation of parts of this character is given in the

footnote. The Oracle Bone characters were classied according

to Phase IV (to ), as dened in Materials and Methods.

Unless otherwise stated, characters with dates ascribed to them aretaken from the Gu Wen Zi Lei Biandictionary.18

Figure 2. Gigantic global ood. A. Xi, 2493. Formerly, of old, in the beginning. Unless otherwise stated, all the pronunciations are in Pin

Yin and the denitions of the characters are taken from Mathews ChineseEnglish Dictionary.12The number refers to the identication of

the character given in the dictionary. The Bronzeware characters were classied according to the dynasties in which they were found, such

as the Middle Zhou () and Late Zhou (), as dened in Materials and Methods. B. Hong, 2388. Vast ood. These characters were

taken from the Ding Zheng Liu Shu Tongdictionary.19 The dictionary lists the forms of the characters as Gu Wen (). The character

appears to be Seal type. The denition of water stream was taken from Shuo Wen Jie Zi().13 The fork-like structure is a simplied

picture of a hand, where the long line represents the arm and the three distal shorter lines represent the ve ngers. C. Bao, 4957. Violent.

This character is taken from the Ding Zheng Liu Shu Tongdictionary.19 We concluded that the dictionary confused this character with that

for waterfall (, 4959), which has the additional water radical placed on the left side of this character. This Seal character consists of a

water stream, joining hands (), ejecting out(Chu, 338,), andsun().

2A

2B

2C

Noahs Ark hidden in the ancient Chinese characters Voo, Sheeley & Hovee


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Heaven, man and Earth. This character describes the extentand seriousness of the catastrophic ood that reached the

heavens.11The ancient Chinese apparently remembered the

catastrophic event so well that the character for formerlyclearly depicts such an event. Theoodwas so huge that it

reached thesun(gure 2A). The character foroodis writ-

ten above or below the character forsun,suggesting that theood reached a level so high that only the sun was visible.

In the absence of any visible landmark, it is unlikely thatany land animals could have survived for long unless they

were placed on a unique oating structure of substantial

size, able to withstand the strong underwater currents thatcaused the water level to reach the sun.

The ancient scribes used another character for a vast

ood to illustrate the devastating conditions of the ood

(gure 2B). This character has multiple ancient forms.The rst and second forms of the character consist of fourjoined hands placed above the water stream. These joined

hands depict an elaborate picture of the ood. The lower

two hands are joined to form an arch, suggesting that thehuge ood covered a vast region where the waters merged

with the horizon. The upper two hands diverge into oppo-site directions from the top of the arch, suggesting that the

water level continues to expand until it becomes a gigantic

ood.The third form of the character consists of twojoined

handson the top, and looks like a bowl with waterinside,

meaning abyss(a bottomless gulf or pit). The abyssis placed

above a semicircle, or arch. The arch is shown without thetwo hands, in contrast to the rst two forms of the character,suggesting that it is not meant to communicate a combinedaction but instead depicts the bursting out of the object aboveit, which is the word abyss. The two hands above the wordabyssare pointed upwards in two different directions. In

this context, it is likely to depict the bursting out of waterstreams from the bottomless gulf or pit up towards the sky,causing the huge ooda frightening scene. This notionof water bursting upwards towards the sky is further sup-ported by another character meaning violent,which depictsthe combined action of the water stream ejecting out fromunderground and projecting towards the sun (gure 2C).This character for violentconsists of a water stream, twohands, the radical for coming outor ejecting out, andsun.The two hands are shown pointing upwards, suggesting thatwater is moving upwards. The radical meaning ejectingoutis written above the water streamand the two hands,suggesting that the water is ejecting out of the ground and

being projected upwards towards thesun. Thus, these twocharacters suggest a massive underground water movementwhere deep underground water streams merged together andwere projected at high speed towards the sky.

The fourth form of the character depicts theood abovea mountainwith a single peak, and suggests that the oodcovers this peak. The fth form of the character depicts theprofound darknessof the sky associated with a water stream,suggesting that the rain continued to pour down like waterstreams for a long time until a vast ood occurred. Themultiple forms of the character, collectively, thus describethe bursting upwards of deep underground water streams

towards the sky and the continued pouring down of rainfrom the sky until the resulting water streams joined fromthe four corners of the world such that the water level roseabove the mountains until only the sun was visible, killingeverything underneath.

Construction of the Chinese Ark

Because of the catastrophic ood, a unique oating ob-ject such as an ark would have had to exist in order for theforefathers of the Chinese people to survive. The HebrewScriptures describe the command Noah received from Godto build the gigantic Ark to escape the Flood. Hence, we

sought to determine if the Chinese ark, if it truly existed inthe ancient characters, matched the characteristics of NoahsArk. Figure 3 shows the symbol of a boat in ancient Chi-nese. The word for boat,shipor vessel can be representedby an ancient boat viewed from above. The ancient scribesdid not make a distinction between a small boat and a ship intheir character. Usually, the context of the character withina sentence determines the distinction between a large boator a ship. In this case, the context of the boat lies withina compound character (Zi,). It was only in later timesthat additional characters were added to help with thisdistinction, as seen in the character for a small boat (Die,; means leaf, such as one oating on the surface of

Figure 3. Zhou, 1291. Boat, ship. The undated forms of these

character are ancient ones (Gu Wen) obtained from the Ding Zheng

Liu Shu Tongdictionary,19and are indicated with the author of the

dictionary next to the Gu Wen. The Oracle Bone character represents

an ancient boat viewed from above. The Bronzeware characters are

probably the side view of a boat with a roof.



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the waters) and for a large open boat (Fang,;meanssquare, depicting its large holding capacity).

The word meaning to createor buildconsists of thecharacters forship, big roof,announcementand walk(gure4A). The word for to createindicates that the building of aship was a very important event and that a special announce-ment was made. We note that the second character doesnot have a ship in it but instead a big roof, which suggeststhat the construction of the ship was meant for protectionrather than for transportation. The word meaning to walkor to moveitself consists of two radicals: an upper radicalrepresenting a road,in this case a river, and a lower radi-cal which is a simplied picture of a foot (gure 4B). The

character forfootis a picture of a foot and is represented bysome Bronzeware characters, where the toesin the charac-ter have been simplied and drawn as a long line pointedupwards, with the big toe to the right of the left leg, and tothe left of the right leg. The word for announcement, asused in this phrase can also mean to lay an accusa-

tion or to indict. Thus, the three characters for the word forto create or buildsuggest that the building of the ship wasan unusual event, perhaps as a result of a warning requiringa special announcement, and that it was meant for refugeduring a terric storm. All of this parallels the calling ofNoah to build the rst gigantic boat.

Nwas family and the remnant of the world

According to Taoist stories, there were eight immortalsthat crossed the sea on a ship: two women and six men.12The Hebrew Scriptures describe Noahs family as havingeight members, namely Noah, his wife and three sons, and

three daughters-in-law. They were the only eight personsthat survived the Flood. Interestingly, a story embedded inthe Chinese legendary period preceding the rst Dynasty(2205 BC) describes a person by the name Nwa whoturned back a catastrophic ood that covered the wholeworld.5 Given the very close similarity between the twoaccounts, we believe they represent the same event.

The character for meor Iclearly shows a worshipperon the boat (gure 5A(I)). This character was used to referto the Chinese emperor or ruler at the time. It consists ofashipradical, and a worshipperwith either arms raised upor both hands holding a long, smooth stick. We identify the

person with arms raised to be a worshipper for two reasons.First, the leg is stretched out as in the radical for big or nobleperson (gure 5B(I)), thus suggesting that it is a pictureof an emperor or ruler. Second, the person shown is notexercising his authority because the character meaning togive orderdepicts a person sitting on a chair (i.e. a throne)giving out an order (gure 5B(II)). Hence, we identify theperson as a worshipper or a high priest, which was also therole of the Chinese emperor. Although the identity of thestick is unknown, we argue that the context suggests that itis the incense used by emperors to offer a fragrant aromato ShangDi, the supreme god of China. Firstly, the stick inthe Bronzeware character is the radical for ten, which also

means perfect. The radical for tenlooks like a cross, andin the Bronzeware inscription the shorter horizontal line inthe middle of the straight line is often contracted to a dot.Secondly, the fourth Bronzeware character has a right-handthumb holding a small stick structure. Since the short,smooth stick is joined to the tip of the hand, and not to themiddle of the hand, it suggests that the thumb is pointing upto show approval of the perfect stick, the incense. Thirdly,the emperor was also the ordained high priest who couldoffer sacrice to ShangDi. In this context, it is very likelythat this was an incense stick used for sacrices. Hence, weinfer that the Oracle Bone characters and the two Bronze-ware characters (gure 5A(II & III)) depict the emperor

Figure 4. Construction of Nwas ark. A. Zao, 6730. To create, to

make, to build.B. Zhi, 939. To stop, to rest in.

4A

4B



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Figure 5. The emperor on the boat is the remnant of the world. A. Zhen, 316. I, we, the emperor.BI. Da, 5943. Great, noble. It is a

picture of a person with both arms and legs stretched outward. BII. Zhi, 957. Imperial decree. The character consists of a person sitting

on a chair (although the chair is not shown, but is widely assumed) and a big mouth (giving order; radical 73, not to be confused with radi-

cal 72, the sun). C. Sheng, 5750, Residue orremnant. The earlier form of these Bronzeware characters does not have the shell radical to

communicate the idea of a remnant.24The third form of the character has an additional eight at the top of the character. D. Chuan, 1447.

Boat, ship, orvessel.

5A

5B

5D

5C

noble



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the boat so that the boat is resting on top of the mountain,but the boat is instead just touching the mountain. This isin line with the biblical account which describes the Arkcoming only to rest on the mountains, and not necessarilyon their summits. Unless it is an inscription error made bythe scribe, the evidence suggests that the ship came to rest

on a mountain.The Oracle Bone inscription of this character consists

of afootin the middle of a crossroador movementwhereeverything, or mankind, on the ship stopped (gure 6A).The ship-like structure in the Oracle Bone characters is nota ship because the two long structures are connected by onlyone or two lines. It is rather a symbol for theworldor ev-erything(examples:, to descend into the world;,everything).12 We note that the same symbol is used in thecharacter for the same asor alike, and indicates the worldor everybody speaking with only one language(gure 6D).The crossroad in gure 6A also depicts movement (),suggesting that the world stopped moving or stopped in

the middle of a crossroad where it was accessible from alldirections, a scenario likely to describe that the ship stoppedon the highest peak of the mountain that is accessible fromall directions. The presence of pairs of humans and ani-mals within the Ark is supported by a number of Seal andBronzeware characters. The rst Seal character forformerlyconsists of a ship and a pair of sh-like structures. Thepair of sh-like structures do not represent a sh, however,as the character for a sh has many more components, asshown in gure 6E(I). Rather, they are most likely a pairof animal heads, as shown in gure 6E. The animal headin more ancient form is represented by the head, eyes and

mane of a horse (gure 6E(II)). Since this is a Seal character,the head is simplied using an oval-shaped circle with twolines that are slightly curled in the middle of the head forthe eyes. We can observe the similarity of the blown-uphead as shown in parentheses with that of the hairy headin the footnote that was taken from the third animal (gure6E(III)). The extended curled line, near the distal end ofthe head, is similar to the mane of the horse, suggestingthat this is a large animal with hair at the back of its head.However, it is not a horse, as it only has one line rather thanthe usual three lines. This animal head also lacks the goateeat the proximal end of the head, suggesting that it is not agoat head. The animal head on the left in gure 6A (Seal

character) is smaller than that on the right. We speculatethat this is a pair of animal heads, a male and a female.

The notion of the pairs of land-dwelling creatures onthe ship is further supported by another character meaningwater bursting forth(gure 6F). Since thereand the twoupright hands are drawn above the water stream in the rstSeal character (gure 6F(I)), this depicts the rapid burstingupward of a water stream, as re symbolizes rapid upwardmotion. In this frightening situation, a life-saving boat iscorrectly shown on the left side of the character. This boatwould need to be big enough to withstand the violent burst-ing of the water, otherwise it would capsize. The secondcharacter (gure 6F(II)) shows two human feet on the top of

holding the lower end of the incense stick with both of hisarms; an act of worship.

The Chinese emperor was not only a ShangDi wor-shipper, but also the remnantof some event on a ship. Theearlier word for remnant is the same as that forIand actuallyconsists of either one or eight worshippers on a ship (gure

5C). The lower part of the character is ashell. The shellwas later added to this character to reinforce either the ideaof remnant, to indicate that the eight worshippers were theleft-overs from a former event, or that this remnant wasprecious, since the cowry shells were used as a means ofmonetary exchange. During the spring of 700 BC, two newcharacters appeared that distinguished aship(,) froma boat(). One of the new charactersincluded two newradicals, an eight and a mouth, signifying eight mouths orpersons (gure 5D). The clever association of eight mouths,rather than eight men or women, strongly suggests thatNoahs family, or the eight immortals, were indeed on theship. The description of the emperor or the eight worship-

pers on the ship matches the situation on Noahs Ark, whichalso consisted of a righteous worshipper, Noah, and a totalof eight family members. Noahs family was the remnantof the human race reserved for the preservation of mankind.In contrast, the eight immortals in the Taoist account weremerely eight holy men of unknown origin.

Nwas ark and its cargo rested on a mountain

The Scriptures describe how pairs (or sevens in somecases) of every kind of bird, animal and creature weretaken into the Ark. When the Flood retreated, the Ark and

its cargo settled upon the mountains of Ararat. Figure 6Ashows another character for formerly that consists of theradicals for:ship;foot, meaning to stop;the world, apairof animals; and a mountain. The Bronzeware characterforformerlyconsists of afootplaced in front of theshiptocommunicate that the ship had stopped. The third form ofthe Bronzeware character describes that the ship stoppedon a mountain. The upper part of this character consists ofthree straight lines with the longer middle line projectingoutwards and the shorter two lines joined together at the baseat an angle close to 90, suggesting that this is the radicalfor mountain ora bird-foot. However, this bird-foot-likestructure is not a bird-foot, since a bird-foot is always joined

to the body of a bird, as shown in gure 6B. This radicalalso differs from that ofstop, because the shorter two linesare joined together at the base. The shorter two lines forthe character forstopare never joined together at the base.Furthermore, the radical for mountainis sometimes substi-tuted with that forfoot, as in this case, taking on the meaningof amound, (gure 6C(I)). The middle peak depicted inthis radical appears to be tilted towards the left, rather thanstanding up straight. However, this is permitted because theradical is joined with the character forship. We note thatthe rst form of the character in gure 6C(II) also has theradical mountainjoined with a line from the character forinadequate. The mountain in gure 6A is not placed below



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6A 6B

6C

6D

6E

6G

Oracle Bone



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a roof-like structure. This roof-like structure is not exactlya roof, since a roof usually has the two lines extended downlike an inverted U. This structure is commonly used inmultiple characters to communicate the highest point. Forexample, when it is associated with a shirt, it represents thecollar; when it is associated with a container, it is the lid;

when it is associated with a house or a building, it is theroof; or when it is associated with cloud, it is the mountain.In this context, this character suggests that the human feetare unsafe even when they are on the top of a high struc-ture, unless they are on a big ship. We note that the twofeet belong to two persons, as they are both left feet. Thepresence of two left feet does not communicate multitudeeither, since ancient scribes used three feet to communicatethe idea of many. Thus, these Seal characters, collectively,further support the notion of the pairs of humans and animalson the Ark during the Deluge.

The second Seal character (gure 6G) has additionalradicals for knife, on the right side of theship, andstop. A

knife, when used in a compound character and especiallyon the right side of a character, can mean a weapon usedfor punishment, as seen in the character for punishment(gure 6G). Taken together with the multiple forms of thecharacter for formerly, this depicts a story of a judgmentthat occurred in the past, and which resulted in a ship, lled

with many creatures, resting on a mountain.

Origin of the Chinese people

The Scriptures describe the repopulation of the worldafter the Deluge from the four original progenitor pairs.Figure 7A shows that the word meaning common to allandjustconsists of eight heads or mouths. This characterneeds careful examination as it is often confused with thecharacter for wetland. Figure 7B shows that ancient Oracleand Bronzeware characters for wetlanddo not exist, andthat the Seal character for wetland is different from thatfor common to all. The upper part of all the forms of this

character is the radical for eight. We can see that the samesymbol was used in the radical for eightand in the charactersfor eight hundredand eight thousand(gures 7C and D).Although the radical for eightrepresents the numeral eight,it also means division(Shuo Wen Jie Zi).13

The second Oracle Bone inscription for the lower part ofthe character for common to allis the radical for mouth. Aclue to the identity of the lower part of the Bronzeware andLesser Seal characters can be obtained from an analysis ofthe combined character foryoung gentleman(gure 7E(I)).This combined character is a hybrid of the characters forcommon to allandson. We point out that both charactershave a head as a common feature. The head in young

man(gure 7E(II)) and young gentleman is also similarto that in commonto allin gure 7A. Consistent with thisinterpretation, some forms of the Seal character feature acircle with a dot in the middle and/or a tail-like structure.The dot-like structure at the centre of the circle most likelyrepresents a hair-knot tied on top of the head. The long lineor a curve above the circle could represent long hair tied-upin a knot (on top of the head) with a long piece of cloth, asshown in the picture for head in parentheses (gure 7A).Since a mouth or a head can represent a man or a woman,the scribes later changed the mouth/head to a charactersignifying an unspeciedpersonin the Lesser Seal and LiZi characters.

In another Seal character meaning to continue(gure7F), the eight heads are represented above a stream of wa-ter. The placement of the eight heads on top of the streamsuggests mankind originated from the eight persons on aship. The character forpraise/commendapparently refers toeight mouths, and signies a new page in a story or in his-tory (gure 7G). Two additional characters associated withthe eight mouths, demand justiceandgrief(gures 7H andI), likely refer to eight righteous persons who experiencedtremendous grief due to their losses from a ood. Takentogether, these characters describe the postdiluvian eventswhere eight survivors of the Flood became the new ances-tors of all future generations.

Figure 6. The remnants of the world and the boat stopped on a

mountain. A. Qian, 919. Formerly, before, in front of. The identi-ties of the parts of the Oracle Bone characters are taken from the Jia

Gu Wen Zi Gu Lindictionary under character number 2299.25 We

dened the identity of the mountain. The rst Seal character meaning

formerlyis taken from the Ding Zheng Liu Shu Tongdictionary.19B.

Niao, 4688. Bird, side view of birds. CI. Kang, 3269. Ridge of a

hill, mound. This character is also taken from the Jin Shi Da Zi Dian

dictionary. CII. Fu. Although the real meaning of this character

is unknown, a possible meaning can be found in Shuo Wen Jie Zi.13

This character is taken from the Jin Shi Da Zi Diandictionary.17D.

Tong, 6615. Together, all, alike.E. Animal head. This gure shows

the heads of horses, deer and other land animals. Emphasis is placed

on the hairy heads. The head inside parentheses is enlarged to show

the similarity of the eye and the slightly curled hair on the head found

in the Seal character for formerlyto that of animal heads. The fourhorse heads are included to show the progression of the head from

the Bronzeware character to the Seal character. F. Teng 6181. Water

bursting forth.There are two forms of this Seal character. The second

character (II) consists of a boat, a pair of feet (two left feet) and a roof

top (Tou, 6486, above, a roof). G. Fa, 1769. Punishment.

6F



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7A 7B

7D

7C

7E

7F

7G

Unspecifedperson



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Discussion

There are at least 24 characters associated with boat,oodand eight mouths(heads). We did not analyze phoneticcharacters, characters with unknown meaning or those notassociated with the Deluge (gure 8). By analyzing 15 of

the characters and interpreting them in the context of ancientChinese legends and the Hebrew Scriptures, we have shownthat we could recover the missing pieces in ancient Chinesehistory regarding the destruction of the world by the Deluge.Legends suggest that a startling character named Nwa,a name that is similar to Noah, escaped the Deluge. TheDeluge was not a localized ood, since the story describeshow the heavens were broken, the nine states of China ex-perienced continental shift and were split, and water oodedthe mountains and drowned all living things. Analysis ofthe Chinese characters for formerly,of oldand vast ood(gures 12) reveals a story consistent with the legends ofa ood that covered the mountains and reached the sun.

In this context, we argue that the Chinese ancestors couldnot have survived unless animals and humans were placedon a huge ark that could withstand the strong water currentsfor the duration of the ood. Analysis of the charactersassociated withformerly, the emperor, water bursting upandcreate(gures 46) suggests a strong association be-tween the ark and the world, mountain, worshippers, eightpersons and pairs of animals and humans. These ndingsare startlingly reminiscent of the biblical account of NoahsArk. Furthermore, the characters for remnant(gure 5C),common to alland to continue(gure 7A and F) all referto eight persons preserved for the continuation of mankind

after the Deluge. Collectively, these ndings suggest thata large boat existed that housed the remnant of the world,and that this boat rested on a mountain. Thus, with all thesepieces of information in place, the total picture of the Delugein the ancient Chinese characters is amazingly similar to thebiblical story of Noahs Ark.

Some of our interpretations of these characters andradicals differ from those of Chinese scholars for an im-portant reason. The scholars did not put forth a completestory of how the characters originated. Their analyses andinterpretations are also devoted to each individual character.In contrast, we analyzed all the characters that are associ-ated with theood, eight personsand boatin the context of

ancient Chinese and Hebrew stories to extract a completestory behind the origin of those characters.

We concluded that the majority of the ancient Seal char-acters forood in gure 2Band the Oracle Bone charactersfor ood and formerlyall refer to the same catastrophicood for a number of reasons. First, the eruption of deepunderground waters vertically upwards toward the sun is avery unusual event which we believe is connected with acontinental shift, described as the splitting of the nine statesof China. Secondly, the extent of the ood was so huge thatit covered the mountains. Thirdly, none of these forms of theSeal characters is associated with rain but rather with jets ofwater, suggesting that they are referring to a vast ood and

Figure 7. Figures 7A7I represent the origin of the Chinese people.

A. Gong, 3701. Just, common to all. The Oracle Bone characters

consist of an eight and a head, represented by a mouth, and a square

or rectangle. The Bronzeware and the Seal characters consist of the

same radical for eight plus a variation of a circle in the middle of it.

The circle in the Seal character, is the radical signifyingan unspecied

person whose name is unknown(Mou, 4577). These Seal characters

are taken from the Ding Zheng Liu Shu Tongdictionary.19B. Yan,

7353. Marsh, wetland. C. Ba, 4845. Eight. This radical consists of

two identical convex lines. Alone, it can meandivision(Shuo Wen Jie

Zi).13These Seal characters are taken from the Ting Cheng Liu Shu

Tongdictionary.19D. Eight hundred, eight thousand. A compoundcharacter made up of two other characters. When the radical for

eightis placed above the radical for hundredorthousand,it becomes

the number eight hundredor eight thousand, respectively. E. Young

gentleman(I), young man (II). Another compound character, where

the character for headis used in the characters for common to all

and son. F. Yan, 7354. To hand down, to continue. Although this

character is pronounced the same way as characterB, it is not con-

sidered a phonetic character because it has a different meaning. G.

Sung, 5559. To commend.This character consists of eight headsand

the characters forhead,page, andbeginning(Ye, character number

7316 on page 659 of Wieger21under Ye, page 659). H. Song, 5558.

To demand justice.I. Ai, 3. To grieve for. The character consists

of eight mouths wrapped inside a cloth.

7H

7I



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story of the catastrophic Flood. After God confused thepeoples language at the Tower of Babel, written characterswere developed by the ancient Chinese to represent theirnew tongue, and it is likely that they would have incorpo-rated knowledge of the Deluge into their newly developingcalligraphy. Perhaps this is what Cang Jie had set forth to

do in order to preserve historical records via the charactershe, and others that followed, designed. Signicantly, theChinese account of the Flood has been dated to 1000 BC,suggesting that the Chinese possess one of the oldest writtenrecords of the Deluge.

Materials and Methods

Source of ancient Chinese characters

There are approximately three thousand Chinesecharacters regarded as the most ancient. These are eitherBronzeware characters (characters found on bronze ves-

sels,) or Oracle Bone characters (characters found onanimal bones and tortoise shells,, literally meaningshell and bone script). For background information on theBronzeware and Oracle Bone characters, see ref. 15. Thecharacters used in this analysis are taken from dictionariespublished in Taiwan and China, such as ,16,17,18,11and.19

Definition of characters

The meaning and pronunciation of the Chinese charac-

ters are taken fromMathews ChineseEnglish Dictionary,

12

and (where necessary) fromJia Gu Wen Zi Gu Lin andShuoWen Jie Zi (a book composed by lexicographer Xu Shen()).13Because the meaning of characters changes overtime, special efforts were made to determine the originalmeaning of the characters used in ancient times.

Age of the characters

The age of each character was classied according tothe dynasty in which it was found. Oracle Bone charac-ters were dated as phase I (, 13241266 BC), II ( , 12651226 BC), III (, 1225999 BC), IV (,

998992 BC), and V (, 991923 BC). Bronzeware char-acters were dated as Shang (,1766921 BC), Early Zhou(, 9201002 BC), Middle Zhou (, 1001879 BC),Late Zhou (, 878771 BC), and Spring and Autumn(, 770476 BC). The greater Seal characters ()were written in 800 BCby grand-recorder Zhou, for use bythe ofcial scribes. The greater Seal characters include theBronzeware, Oracle Bone and Stone characters. The Li Zi(), Li Writing, is the current style of Chinese writing inTaiwan, reformed from the Seal characters by the famouscalligrapher named Cheng Miao. For a review of the originand evolution of the Chinese writing style, see ref. 20. Wepoint out that the age of the characters is dened by the

time period of the animal bones or vessels they were foundon. Hence, the assigned age does not necessarily indicatethat the characters were invented only during the periodindicated, but rather that their designs likely preceded theirdiscovery. In fact, most Chinese scholars believe the ancientcharacters are dated prior to the 22ndcentury BC.

Choice of characters for analysis

Xu Shen (), 86 BC, was the rst person who at-tempted to analyze the Seal characters to determine theirtrue meanings. His catalogue, the Shuo Wen Jie Zi(), was published in AD120. However, his analyses wereoften awed because he had no access to the most ancientforms of the characters, namely the Oracle Bone and theBronzeware characters. More importantly, as the ZhouDynasty steadily decayed, studies were neglected and whenthe scribes could not remember a genuine character, theyblunderingly invented a false one. Towards the year 500 BC,

Confucius uttered this complaint, When I was young, I stillknew of some scribes who left blank the characters thatthey could not write. Now there are no more such men.21We thus analyzed the Bronzeware, Oracle Bone and Sealcharacters that were written before 500 BCto determine thecomplete story of Noahs Ark. Another important reasonfor chosing these three types of characters for our analysisis that ancient characters often have more than one form.Furthermore, the Bronzeware and Oracle Bone characterswere written for specic purposes such as divinations andpraises, and were therefore used to communicate the nameof a person or a place. Their restrictive usage suggests that

some characters used at that time might not have made itonto the inscribed objects. Hence, although some Sealcharacters did not correspond to any of the Bronzewareand Oracle Bone characters, they would still be relevant toChinese history. Only by analyzing all of the various formsof these three kinds of characters could we obtain a morecomplete story behind them.

The Chinese characters were classied into two largeclasses: the Wen (), simple pictures, and the Zi (),compound characters. Characters from the rst class areolder and are known as pictograms. The compound char-acters are subdivided into Xing Sheng (), Jia Jie (), Zhuan Zhu () and Hui Yi (). The Hui Yi (

) are ideograms, and are particularly interesting when acombination of pictures or symbols results in a new char-acter with a new meaning. For example, the character forgood() is made up of woman() andson(). It isgood to have a son and a daughter. Only pictograms andideograms were analyzed.

Systematic analysis of Chinese characters

Tradition ascribes that Cang Jie (), the originatorof the Chinese characters, was displeased by some of thecharacters used before his time. He set forth to develop asystem of writing that could be used by the general public



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to preserve Chinese history.22 Chinese scholars believethat more than one person at different times and placeswas responsible for the characters, using the system devel-oped by Cang Jie. Hence, we believe the different formsof characters were designed to convey the same story, andthat a correct interpretation ascribed to a picture or symbol

(Wen,) ought to hold true for all compound characters(Zi,) associated with it.

Acknowledgments

We want to express our heart-felt gratitude to EthelNelson for opening our eyes to this research, and to DeanLee, Miguel Medina, John Woodmorappe and JianTingZhang for helpful discussion. Special thanks also go toMarvin England, David Hsu, Sarah Sim and Melody Voofor their encouragement and patience throughout the courseof this study.

References

1. Ng, Z.K., The Ark Found by Satellite Photo, Seed Press, Kowloon, HongKong, China, 1975.

2. Speiser, E.A., Translation of the epic in: Pritchard, J.B. (Ed.), AncientNear Eastern Texts, 2nded., Princeton University Press, NJ, pp. 72106,1995.

3. Goh, R., Chinese memories of Noahs Flood? , 2 November 2004.

4. The Holy Bible, New International Version, International Bible Society,East Brunswick, NJ, 1984.

5. Liu, W.D., Commentary of the Book Huai Nan Zi, Shang Wu Press,Shanghai, China, 1968.

6. Yuan, Z.M., China Soul, China Soul for Christ, Petaluma, CA, 2000.7. Nelson, E.R., Broadberry, R.E. and Tang, M.C., Gods Promise to the

Chinese, Word Publisher, Hong Kong, China, 1997.

8. Voo K.S. and Hovee, L.D., The Lamb of God hidden in the Chinesecharacters, TJ13(1):8191, 1999.

9. Kang, C.H. and Nelson, E.R., The Discovery of Genesis, ConcordiaPublishing House, MO, 1979.

10. Legge, J., The Chinese Classics(Vol III), Shu Zing, Oxford ClarendonPress, Oxford, 1893.

11. Y, S.W.,Jia Gu Wen Zi Gu Lin, Zhong Hua Press, Beijing, China, 1996;Explanation of the ood was given under character 1330, p. 1292.

12. Mathews, R.H.,Mathews ChineseEnglish Dictionary, Harvard Univer-sity Press, Cambridge, MA, 1931; Described in the character for Sien,character 2707, p. 401.

13. Shen, X., Shuo Wen Jie Zi, China Publisher, Beijing, China, 1980.

14. Qian, M.,HuangDi, Tung Ta Press, Taipei, Taiwan, pp. 4752, 1987.

15. Yip, C.C., ChiaKu Wen: The Oracle Bones of the Shang dynasty, , 2 November 2004.

16. Wang Y.L., Chang Yong Gu Wen Zi Zi Dian, Shanghai Press, Shanghai,China, 1987.

17. Wang, R.S.,Jin Shi DA Zi Dian, Zhong Hua Press, China, 1975.

18. Gao, M., Gu Wen Zi Lei Bian, Zhong Hua Press, Beijing, China, 1980.

19. Keng S.Y.,Ding Zheng Liu Shu Tong, Shanghai Press, China, 1987.

20. Wu, H., translated by Harold Siu, L.K., The Origin and Evolution ofChinese Writing Style, , Youth Cultural Enterprises Co. Ltd., Taipei, Taiwan,1985.

21. Wieger, L., Chinese Characters: Their Origin, Etymology, History, Clas-sication and Signication, Dover Publications Inc., New York, 1965.

22. Xia, Y.,Peoples Daily, Overseas edition, Yen Haung History, Shanghai,China, 1992.

23. Wieger, ref. 21, p. 41.

24. Hong, B.J., Jin Wen Bian, Hong Shi Publisher, Taipei, Taiwan, undercharacter number 820, p. 374, 1974.

25. Y, ref. 11; explained under character 2299, p. 2240.

Kui Shin Vooobtained his Ph.D. in genetics from NorthCarolina State University. He has published over ten peer-reviewed scientic papers and is currently an instructor atthe Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas. He hasbeen involved in Chinese Christian ministry for over 20years, and is the co-author of the previously published TJarticle The Lamb of God hidden in the ancient Chinese

character.

Rich Sheeley is International Director for Good NewsProductions, International. He, together with his wife JoAnn, spent 20 years working with the Chinese, and livingin Singapore. He was the visionary behind the evangelis-tic Chinese movie, The Source of Loveand its follow-upproduction called Unveiling the Mystery. Rich has a keeninterest in redemptive analogies, especially those that dem-onstrate past generations knowledge of God.

Larry Hovee studied architecture at the College of Ar-chitecture and Planning, Ball State University, in Muncie,

Indiana, USA, and graduated in 1978. He obtained hisregistration as an architect in 1982, with the state of Indi-ana, and currently practices as a licensed professional withGibraltar Design, Architects & Engineers, in Indianapolis,Indiana.