Ancient Chinese Character Examination: Create

Ancient Chinese character for 'create'

Now here's an interesting one. Turns out, contrary to popular belief, the ancient Chinese weren't evolutionists, but actually creationists! I'm just kidding, evolutionism in ancient China was certainly not a popular belief. But the character above is another great example that the primitive Chinese believed the events written in the book of Genesis were factual, or at least that's what we're led to assume.

The ancient form of the character meaning 'to create' is depicted at the top of the post, and then just below it, it is broken down a little. The majority of the character is a depiction of being able to 'speak'. Within the speak character are three lesser ones. I mentioned a few days ago that the 'mouth' was another way to say human. The next character, in the center of speak is used to describe 'dust', or 'mud'. The small character just to the right of dust is the simple stroke that meant 'life' or 'movement' in some translations. Those three characters create speak, but the last one, underneath speak, means 'to walk'.

So what does this all mean, and why am I comparing it to the events is Genesis? Well, interestingly enough, this character for creation depicts just what the Hebrew scriptures says about how God breathed the breath of life into man, whom he created from the dust of the ground, and he "became a living soul", capable of walking and speaking.