History often gives important insights

[Contemplator]

I felt I must add something to the recent discussion about the similarities between the tradition of the Miao people, who once occupied much of China, and the Genesis account of the flood, Noah and even the Tower of Babel: This thread, Genesis According to the Miao People* has now closed, but the thrust of the initial poster was that the similarities with Genesis, for example in the names of Noah’s family were remarkable and must, in their view, have been based on a common experience of humanity of a world-wide flood, since (it was argued) the Miao’s tradition pre-dated the influence of Christian missionaries. But in this statement I wonder if the full history of Christian influence was known?

Here we may need to look into the missionary influence of the Nestorian church, which according to an entry in Encyclopedia.com reached into China. I quote:

“The Nestorian church generally prospered until the fall of Baghdad to the Mongols in 1258, when the widespread disruption in the [Middle East drained its vitality…

The most detrimental effect of the Muslim conquest on the Nestorian church in the countries lying between Persia and China was that its missionary activity, begun among the Mongols, Turks, and Chinese, was cut off. Eventually the early blossom of Christianity in China died. The inscriptions in both Syriac and Chinese on the stone at Chou-chih, fifty miles southwest of Sian Prefecture, China, containing a long list of Nestorian clergymen, is evidence of the expansion of the Nestorian church in China.”

Extract from Encyclopedia.com

I am not an historian but I just wanted to point out that there is often a less controversial explanation for things which on the surface seem quite amazing.

[Klax (The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)]

Aye, there is nothing that similar in the folk tales of the Americas, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Far East (N. China, Korea, Japan), S.E. Asia, Australasia, the Pacific. N. Europe, the Arctic, Siberia. Deluge myths are common and their commonality intensifies toward the ANE. i.e. Utnapishtim; India, Greece. I.e. cultures connected with Sumerian folk memories of the Burckle Crater formation less than a thousand years before.