In fact, the word "God" does not refer specifically to the Christian word "God", nor is it a Chinese translation of the word "God" in Western Christianity, let alone a transliteration. The word "God" originated from the historical records of ancient civilization in China. The earliest books with the word "God" in history books are Shangshu and The Book of Songs.
Shangshu: "God bless the people, for the monarch is the teacher, but you can respect the gods and pamper them all around."
"The Book of Songs": "The emperor is a god, with a harmonious face, looking around and asking the people for help."
Hao Tianshen (Shangshu) or Huang Tianshen (plaque enshrined in the Forbidden City in Beijing) is the official title of Heaven, Heaven Emperor, Father (as opposed to "Mother Earth"), Emperor Heaven (as opposed to "Houtu") and God. The original meaning of god in Chinese refers to the god who rules the universe, which has existed in Chinese since ancient times. Matteo Ricci introduced Catholicism to China in the Ming Dynasty. In order to facilitate his missionary work, he translated the Latin "Dehousse" into the ancient "God" in China. (Islam in China has a similar word, that is, Allah, which means God. But different beliefs have different meanings to "God".
China's "gods" in pre-Qin and ancient times are called "gods", also known as "Haotian" and "Heaven Emperor", which are different from the so-called "Jade Emperor" in Taoism-the gods refer to the highest gods in the sky who are in charge of all things in the universe; The belief in the Jade Emperor came into being in the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, ranking 30th in the immortal spectrum. According to the religious teachings of Christianity, the belief in God is the cognition and response of China ancestors to the universal revelation of God in the universal grace of God, while the belief in Jade Emperor belongs to idolatry.
Second, God in Christianity.
The early biblical thought regarded God as the god or patron saint of the Israeli nation, while the later biblical thought, represented by the prophet Isaiah, believed that God should treat the world equally and should be worshipped by all mankind. This view of his has been recognized.
In 550 BC, "monotheism" was born. The Lord, the Lord, Savior and Lord of life of Israel, said, "Start with me and finish with me. There is no god except me. "Jewish worship listening articles quoted Deuteronomy in the Hebrew Bible:" Listen, Israel! The Lord is our God, and the Lord is our only God! " This prayer should be after the Lord is established as the only God.
In history, this kind of "monotheism" has been deepened, but we can't ignore that the name "Jehovah" itself has a very obvious "monotheism" color.
At first, when God appeared before Moses, he said, "I am me forever". Jews therefore call God Jehovah. Because Hebrew documents only marked consonants at that time, the word YHVH was expressed in Latin letters. Jews usually pronounce YHVH with the pronunciation of the word "adonai". Only when the high priest enters the most holy place on July 10 of the Jewish calendar every year can the word be correctly pronounced in front of the ark. The temple was destroyed many times in history, and the blood of priests was mixed with other families, so the pronunciation of this word was lost. During the Reformation, Martin Luther translated the Bible from the original text into German, so he wanted to solve the pronunciation problem of yhv, so he imaginatively embedded the vowels of adonai into yhv, which became YaHoVaH, and English was Jehovah. This is the origin of the Chinese word "Yahweh". With the revival of modern Hebrew, biblical archaeology has discovered the correct pronunciation of YHVH and its true meaning-the supreme sole master.
And the Hebrew word "Elohim" is the plural form of the word "God"-Hebrew words are divided into singular, even and plural forms-as the name implies, God is "the great god who created God and God". The Bible holds that God is the creator of all things, the ruler of the universe, the revealer of truth, the savior of voters and the judge of evil. This is also an interpretation of the Bible, so the Bible does not recognize that there were other gods besides Jehovah before everything was created.
According to the allusions in Genesis, God first created light in darkness and chaos, and then created heaven and earth, creatures and people. According to Egyptian and Greek myths and legends, there was only one god in the universe at first, and then many gods were born, creating their own natural things such as heaven, earth, water, wind, clouds, mountains and rivers. The universe existed before all the gods were born, but in another way. Although the gods can decide man and nature, they are only a kind of existence contained in the universe. According to this understanding, the universe will also be regarded by God as something that exists forever. On the contrary, the Bible holds that God is the only creator who transcends nothingness and everything.
The concept of the Bible was also called "very imaginative" in the polytheistic society at that time. We can't deny that the metaphysical color of the statement "creating gods" makes the development of "monotheism" inevitable.
1, China used to refer to the god who ruled everything in the sky.
2. The God worshipped by Christianity is considered as the creator of all things, the ruler of the universe, the revealer of truth, the savior of voters and the judge of sin.
Western gods have two sons: the eldest son Jesus, who founded Christianity, and the second son Hong Xiuquan, who founded the church of God.