INTRODUCTION
Far beyond the eastern rim of the Roman world, beyond the fields of Parthia, the Ganges Plain, the Central Asian steppes, on the other side of the gigantic intervening mountains and east over the vast Taklimakan Desert, out of reach of the great Phoenician ship masters; after the collapse of Alexander's vast dominion and before the apogee of Rome, were the Chinese. Theirs was the greatest empire on earth, it would be another 1500 years before the Western world would even become aware of it. The Chinese were already in firm control of a vast and populous part of East Asia. Rome's empire had reached more than seven million, the meticulous bureaucrats of China had already counted nearly 60 million for their tax rolls. They were so much more pervasive. Coming out of north China's valleys and plains they spread throughout eastern Asia reshaping the indigenous societies in its image more so than the Greco-Roman culture had in the west. They surpassed the western culture in extent and wealth cultivating a stability and uniformity of culture, economy, and social structure without parallel among the ancient empires. Their multilayered bureaucracy would remain through passing ages a constant with remarkable achievements in architecture, engineering, science, manufacturing, outdoing their Western contemporaries in invention and technological progress. This included literature, art, irrigation systems, fantastically elaborate palaces, tombs; a time of power and glory. (McManus p. 139)
EARLY HISTORY OF CHINA
Chinese history is being rewritten due to the discovery of Indo-European and related mummies by the hundreds in the Tarim Basin northeast of Kashgar, at Turpan and Qumui, Kroran and Charchan, on the north and south sides of the Taklimakan Desert. (Mallory p. 274) Some of which reach back into the misty history of the western and northern regions about 3000 BC near Shambabay (Xiangbaobao). (Mallory p. 336) The great desert beginning near Dunhuang extends nearly 1200 miles westward to the borders of the Hindu Kush. (See my CD- Caves of the 1000 Buddhas) Now historians and archaeologists must deal with the evidences of the Andronovo, Afanasevo, Tocharian and other cultures. (Mallory p. 395) But Chinese social and political history starts off at a time nearly 700 years later, the time of the Three August Ones, Fuxi the Founder, who revealed the hidden meanings of the Eight Trigrams and formulated the rules of marriage; Zhennong, the Ploughman, who invented the curved plow blade and who initiated agriculture, and Huangdi the Legislator, who invented rites, music and calendars. These are obscured in the mists of 150 generations before the advent of Yao, the Well Deserving, described by the sage Shujing , who tells of the reign and lives of those who were sovereign or remembered before 2357 BC. In the Hebrew Chronology, this would coincide approximately with the epic account of the Flood which would have been about 2274 BC, with adjustments made depending on the time Adam spent in Eden. (Shulman p. 22) Yao was one of the five emperors of the Golden Age, when the Yellow River burst its banks and caused terrible damage.
Most Patriarchal Blessings of Chinese and Japanese converts identify them as of Ephriam who would be later arrivals in China. Traders and wanderers from any or all of the ten tribes after they were established in their respective territories about 1200 BC could have made it to nearly any distant lands, but most often it is assumed the distribution of Ephriam was after the deportations to the north and the vanishing of the Ten Tribes. Many are told they are descendants of Japheth, son of Noah, and adopted sons of Abraham, who would have arrived earlier. Except for an Archaeological and Prehistoric presence in China dating before the flood, China was essentially populated after the Flood, but some of the new work suggests a pre-flood presence in the western and northwestern area that needs evaluation. The Tarim mummies are really a spectacular discovery, and hint at Indo-European origins for some of the people in early times. Charcoal from an early copper mine at Nurasay (Nulasai) dates 2580, and wood from Qawrigoul (Gumugou) is dated before 2900 BC. (Mallory pp. 335-336)
The Successor to Yao was Zhuen, of Exemplary Virtue, succeeded by Yu, the Great, who tamed the river, invented bronze coinage, and founded the Xia dynasty, whose seventeen emperors ruled from 2205 to 1766 BC. In 1959 they may have found the capital of Yu the Great at Yangzheng with a treasure of bronze and Jade. (Meyer p. 161) I was privileged to see some of these treasures and acquired some replicas of ancient coinage. The Chinese invented written history, from the time of the Shang dynasty, 1566 to 1122 BC. The Pangeng Archives (1401-1374) made a record of this on a "hundred thousand tortoise shells and divinatory bones carrying inscriptions." (Meyer p. 161) The Zhou succeeded the Shiang and ruled 874 years. But from the northern steppes came nomadic invaders, the empire was split into rival and warring kingdoms, covered by the 'Spring and Autumn Annals' of the Hegemons (722-481) and that of the 'Warring States,' (475-221), a time when they developed iron casting, administrative rules, taxes, mathematics. It was the era of Lao Tsze (604 BC) the elder contemporary of Confucius (551-470) , and Zhuagzi or Tchouangtseu (370-300) , Mencius and other great thinkers. (Meyer p. 162) Lao Tsze left a little book of aphorisms, the Tao Teh King, enough to recognize a powerful mind and enlarged by a devoted disciple Chwang Tsze. Tao means 'way,' path, road, or course. Its modern form, degraded by alliance with divination and magic, shows little connection to the ancient Great Tao (Taoism, Doaism). Confucius developed a system of practical ethics and filial piety, a prominent feature in Chinese ideals. From that ancient era the Yao and Miao people still exist as one of ten larger minority groups in China.
THE ANCIENT SILK ROAD
By the fourth century BC, silk, jade, and luxury goods from China were reaching India, the Middle East, and as far west as Rome along a northern and a southern route, together called the Silk Road. Regular trade along the Silk Road developed during the Han Period. I have stood at the Red Gate in Xi'an and looked northwest along the road towards the Jade Gate, then the road extends west over the Taklimakan Deseret, into Turkestan, Kashgar, Afghanistan, Persia, to the Mediterranean and the Roman Empire, some 7000 miles. Going westward, the caravans hauled a vast selection of goods, mostly silk wares. Gold, Silver and Gems among other things, religious ideas and philosophies moved eastward back over the Road. (Sivin p. 80) I had planned a trip with my youngest son along the central portion of the Road. (See my CD,s Adventures in China and the Caves of the 1000 Buddhas). But the uproar at Tiananmen Square cancelled our trip. As a guest of the Soviet Government, I had spent some time in Samarkand and visited ancient Sogdiana in Tajakistan, the source of many caravaners, my guide was a professor from the University of Samarkand. I enjoyed the ancient ruins of Sogdiana. I spent some time in Tashkent, these were three of the main cities of destination on the northern loop of the Silk Road, coming in from the west end of the road, about the half way mark, and I had looked forward to seeing more. (see my journal Journey to Samarkand). I have pondered the years of trade the Silk Road represents in the Samarkand square in Usbekistan, prayed in Istanbul's Blue Mosque, stood at the Nara Gate in Japan, and marveled at the Basilica of San Marco in Venice, and many other places; most of them cities and places of destination of those who traveled that road.
From out of the Warring States came the first emperor, the King of Qin, who imposed his rule on all neighboring states and found the great unified empire of which in 221 BC, he proclaimed himself Shi Huangdi; First August Sovereign. This great Tyrant centralized, established state control over all, organized, standardized, legislated, built the Great Wall [killing hundreds of thousands through forced labor]. He constructed palaces, roads, canals, crushed the nobility and the scholars [burying alive hundreds of them, because he wanted to start a new nation from scratch] and tradesman, all in eleven years. (Meyer p. 161) In the west, the ruler was Qujin (Ts'in), the probable source of the name China. A son of Qujin lasted just three years, then a peasant army under Liu Bang took power and he became the Emperor Ganzu founder of the Han dynasty in 202 BC, becoming the most populated, advanced and richest in the world until the usurpation of Wang Mang with the revolt of the 'Red Eyebrows'. In 184 BC, the 'Yellow Turban' rebellion took over ending that dynasty. The next four centuries included the Three Kingdoms (220-265 AD),then the Jin for the next forty years, after it fell apart; in the north, the Sixteen Kingdoms of the Five Barbarians, Tibetans, Mongols, Turks, and other invaders, competed with the Southern Dynasties of the Gong, Qui, Liang, and Chen. In 589 AD, the Sui unified some of this chaos. Finally, in 618, the great Tang initiated an era of splendor and influence of a classical civilization reaching an apogee in arts, poetry, sciences, engineering, religious thought and so on, spreading into western and central Asia for the next three centuries.
THE INTREPID MONK, XUANZANG, AND CHRISTIANITY IN EARLY CHINA
One of the great historical figures in China was Xuanzang, born near Luoyang, Henan province in 600 AD, the youngest of four sons. (Watters p. 10) "The Japanese write [his] name Hsuan-ts'ang, but call [him] Gen-jo, corresponding to the Chinese Yuan-ts'ang. In Tibetan books [his] name is given as T'ang Seen-tsang." (Watters p. 6) He was heir to a long line of literati and mandarins, his father, well-versed in Confucianism and a distinguished intellect, brought the boy up at a time when the intellectual vitality of Confucianism was waning. The second son, an older brother, had become a Buddhist monk. At age 12 Yuanzang stood out, a royal mandate selected him along with only fourteen others to be ordained and trained at the monastery in Loyang, the eastern capital of the Sui dynasty. For five years he plunged into the study of Buddhist writings, or scriptures, both the austere early Buddhism and the mystical doctrine of the Greater Vehicle or Mahayana. Two key words in Mahayana irresistibly captivated him: "Emptiness, " signifying wisdom, and "Bodhisattva," or Enlightened Beings who postponed their own salvation for the sake of others. He had a loftiness of mind without being affected by worldly attachments, a profound penetration of metaphysical aspects of the cosmos, an ambition to clarify the universe, and a sense of self-respect, even in the presence of Emperors. (Wriggins pp. 6-7) His studies were interrupted by the collapse of the Sui dynasty with anarchy and civil war. In the chaos, Xuanzang and his brother fled to Chang'an (Xian) where the new rulers, the Tang, had proclaimed their capital, then on to Sichuan, where he studied the different schools of Buddhism. Today there are more than 52 different Buddhist groups or doctrines or 'ways.' The eclectic Chinese Buddhism was the most influential of them. In 622 AD, barely twenty two old, he was fully ordained a monk. He left his brother in Chengdu and returned to Xian, the Capital, the largest city of the Medieval World more than 30 square miles in size- compare this with Rome's only 5.2 square miles. A city of a million, by 742 it was two million with more than 5,000 foreigners. It had become the radiating center of Asian civilization. (Wriggins pp. 6-9) Here he could mingle with the teams of monks translating vast Buddhist literature. With them he perfected his Sanskrit, the language of Buddhist scriptures. At the famous Bell Tower, the gate where the caravans left and entered on the Silk Road, Xuanzang became acquainted with many languages and developed skills in most of them which would serve him well when his desire to learn the ancient doctrines of Buddha as well as doctrines of other religions he was hearing about, would drive him to take to the Road himself. Travelers from Persia, Iran, brought knowledge of Islam, Zorastrianism, Manichianism, Mandian and Nestorian Christianity, a variety of doctrines from India, Hinduism and Buddhism, (see my CD's on Adventures in China and The Caves of the 1000 Buddhas, The Mandians and The Manichians) and dozens of others excited him and stirred his imagination. But he was most obsessed with the original teachings of the Buddha himself. He wanted to know about the original life and teachings of Siddhartha. He learned that the earliest teachings were 'discourses' grouped into two: the life of Siddhartha before his enlightenment and the numerous dialogues (sutta) he had with his disciples and others of his time. (Kalupahana p. v) He was also drawn to the sophisticated works of Asanga, and his brother Vasubandhu, the Yogacara school of Buddhism, but in Xian he only had access to fragments of the huge compendium that had reached China. (Wriggins p. 10) He knew he would have to go to India to satisfy his yearnings. All he had of the great Dharma, or Law, were thousand year old hand-me-downs that had not come down without error. (Ikeda p. 14) What had Shakyamuni really taught? Xuanzang wanted to access the original cannon accepted and taught by those intimate with the original Buddha. (Ikeda p. 13)
XUANZANG THE MAN AND CHINESE BUDDHAISM
When he was twenty nine he was about six feet tall, exceptionally handsome, bright eyes, clear complexion, a noble forehead, very elegant in speech and graceful and wore the ample garments and broad leather belt of the Scholar. Untimely frosts and a famine drove him west to the gorges of Gansu at Liangzhou (modern Wuwei) whose corridor reached the sands of the Taklamakan Desert. I used to offer a cash prize to any student who could tell me where that desert was. I never had to pay. He learned that the emperor had issued an edict for him to return to the capital. But he had committed himself to journey the Silk Road; friends helped him, he hid by day, traveled by night, past the Jade Gate and the five watchtowers in the desert. At Dunhuang Caves, the convergence of the Northern and Southern Silk Roads, he went north. Nearly two decades later he would return on the southern road. While the Caves of the 1000 Buddhas housed galleries of art and substantial libraries that tempted him, it wasn't India. Five hundred years later, a great three story Buddha near the end of nearly a mile of caves and grottos, would house a library of 36,000 scrolls averaging 75 foot in length, mostly assembled and translated by Xuanzang and his team from the 18,500 monks authorized after his return with his own caravan of documents. They included 657 sacred books of Buddhism and other items borne on twenty horses alone. (Watters p, 12) 'Today, the International Dunhuang Project have digitalized a treasure trove of 50,000 manuscripts [and artifacts] ...from the ancient caves and temples on the Silk Road." (Wiggins p. 114) ( See http://idp.bll.uk) Once beyond the Jade Gate he was out of the Tang Empire. He left the fixed features of civilization and entered the unknown of the far, far, far away, and the long, long time ago; a journey of 10,000 miles mostly on foot. He was to suffer, nearly die of thirst, almost assassinated, have grave doubts, hunger beset him often, worn out on foot, lost his horse and his elephant drowned in a river due to an attack by bandits. His was a great succession of trials, complex cultural shocks, language challenges, and extreme difficulties that had to be endured, but his journey was one of immense success. (Wiggins pp. 11-18) The impact on China is yet to be realized. On his return journey, in September 644 AD, Xuanzang stayed in one of the one hundred monasteries with more than five thousand monks, at Khotan now the ruins of Yotkan. Xuanzang recorded the story of how the king of Khotan had married a Chinese Princess who smuggled the silk worms and mulberry seeds out of China in her headdress, about 140 BC, later the silk worms seeds were smuggled into the Byzantium Empire. Xuanzang returned to China on the seventh day of the second month in 645 AD, in triumph, greatly respected and honored. (Wiggins p. 186) He was to spend the rest of his life, nearly twenty years, translating and having translated the documents, religious and philosophical works he brought. (Wriggins pp. 223-227) Details of the routes Xuanzang (Yuan Chwang) traveled are provided in a large fold out of map where the Silk Road begins at Chang An, the ancient Tang Capital, in the back of Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, by WATTERS, showing both the North and South Roads, and a large foldout map of India where he traveled extensively, is also provided. The study by WRIGGINS, The Silk Road Journey with Xuanzang, provides details of his itinerary, especially of his travels in India. This last book is well worth reading.
After his return, Yuanzang spent a year and a half at the new and magnificent Western Brightness Monastery Hsi-ming) in Chang'an where he occupied one of the best of the 4,000 rooms, then he was allowed to move to the Jade Flower Palace which had been made into a monastery in 651, it was in the mountain sixty miles north of Chang'an, where he thought it a better place to work. But everyone had been asking him to translate the monumental work of the Mahayana school: The Perfection of Wisdom Sutra. It was an immense work, eighty-four times the length of the King James Bible. He started to translate this sutra, one of three copies he had brought back with him in 660, he completed the extensive work and compared all his copies and by the twenty-third day of the tenth month in 663. (Wiggins pp. 206-207) He had been translating what he brought back from his travels for twenty years. His legacy is yet to be appreciated. His impact on the future spread of the gospel and the restoration is yet to be comprehended. Li Rongxi recently provided a new translation into English of Xuanzang's biography, and a new translation of Xuanzang's Record of the Western Regions, the first in 100 years, is not available. (Wiggins p. 226)
EARLY CHRISTIANITY COMES TO CHINA
While Xuanzang was on his great journey, in 635 AD an impressive-looking delegation of foreigners arrived in Chang An, the Tang Dynasty capital, their leader, dressed in long flowing white robes, attended by followers carrying among other artifacts and images, the crucifix, had come from Persian. Alopen (Aluboben) had come over the well-traveled trade route of the northern ancient Silk Road. As far as the courteous Tang court was concerned, Alopen had simply come from da qin (the West), west of China's long reach into Central Asia to Persia, where there was a large and vigorous Christian community. (Aikman p. 21) A two-ton stone stele had been inscribed at the order of the Emperor Dezong in the year 781 AD, with an official account of this first major Christian mission to China. It had been successful and for more than two hundred years there was a flourishing Christian presence in China, then it vanished, and for eight and a half centuries, the stele lay mysteriously buried in the earth outside Xi'an. In 1623 workers digging the foundation of a house came across the stele. Jesuit Priests identified from rubbings sent them that it was an authentic account of Alopen's mission. In 1981, while in Xian, China, I looked on that stele which now stands upright incased in glass upon the back of a carved stone tortoise in the Forest of Steles Museum, the oldest continuously established museum in China. A cross rises out of lotus lilies at the top, below, the heading reads: "The Record of the Transmission of the Religion of Light to the West in China." The stele sets forth the theology of those early Christian travelers from Sassanid Persia bringing Nestorian Christianity (jingjiao) to China. (Aikman pp. 20-21) Along with this history and the documents brought back by Xuanzang and tediously translated, now found among the scrolls of Dun Huang, there will be confirmation of the presence in China of doctrines of the restoration. Evidence for the restoration is in and has been in China for 1400 years. (See my CD: Adventures in China)
ISLAM AND CATHOLICISM COMES TO CHINA
Islam appeared under the Tang when an envoy of the third Caliph arrived in Chang An on 25 August 651 nearly four years before the death of Xuanzang. Diplomatic exchanges multiplied, merchants from Bagdad and the Persian Gulf traded in the trading port of Guangdong (Canton). (Blunden p. 148) Chinese and Arab armies even confronted each other in the Kashgar district of far western China, and central Asian nomads began to embrace Islam. Islam is now one of the largest of the Minority Groups with its own autonomous region, more than 30 million strong and with more than 2000 mosques. (Meyer p. 172)
Catholicism was brought in by the Franciscans in the thirteenth century but claimed very few souls. The Jesuit mathematicians M. Ricci and A. Schall were popular with the Chinese in the sixteenth century. The Jesuits identified and confirmed the content of the Nestorian Stele following its discovery. Under the protection of western powers, mainly Britain and France, foreign missions made great impressions in the last half of the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century. (Meyer p. 172) Everything calculated to prepare China for the restoration had been in the process of being assembled and put in place for centuries.
HAMPTON COURT PALACE CONFERENCE
Of great importance to the religious world and the future restoration was the birth of a boy to Mary, Queen of Scots and Lord Darnley in 1566. About a year later the nobles declared him James VI, King of Scotland and forced his mother's abdication. He was placed under the tutorship of George Buchanan known for his constitutional teaching. But the king espoused the Divine Right of Kings and wanted to rule over all the member states of the Kingdom, but the kingdom was not united until 1707. (Douglas p. 523) James VI's descent from Henry VII made him the heir to the throne when Queen Elizabeth of England died in 1603, then he became James l, King of England. His policy of peace with Spain, attempts to improve the lot of Roman Catholics, and failure to understand the Puritan's point of view, confusing them with Presbyterians, and extravagant expenditures, especially on favorites, led to quarrels with Parliament. But when confronted with the Puritan Millenary Petition which 1000 ministers were said to support, requesting changes to the Church of England, including a new Bible, (Skinner p. 91) and which was presented to in him April 1603 (Douglas p. 659), while traveling from Scotland to assume the throne, a conference among the learned bishops and the Puritans, was set and held in the Hampton Court Palace in January 1604, along the frozen banks of the Thames. This was known a the Hampton Court Conference, intended to discuss the future of the church. (Nicolson p. 42) It lasted four days. There has not been a more important conference before or since.
The new king, son of a Catholic queen, brought up by Presbyterian divines: an uncertain quantity, was surrounded by twenty three bishops and religious leader including nineteen representatives of the Church of England among which were the Lord Bishops of London, Durham, Winchester, Worcester, of St. David's in the far west of Wales, of Chichester, Carlisle and Peterborough, fully robed in the pretentious garments of the church which the Puritans so loathed, (Nicolson p. 43) and four hand-picked moderate Puritan religious leaders. The conference was set for two days in January: Saturday, January 14, and Monday January 16, 1604. (Jackson p. 46) Probably the most important conference ever held that influenced the future of the world for all subsequent centuries. The King appointed himself as the moderator. He tilted the conference in favor of the Church by meeting with 10 senior bishops of the church two days before the conference and told them not to worry, as he was clearly on their side. On Saturday afternoon the conference began with a long speech by James 1, that the church was not in need of any drastic or radical changes. Then James asked each Bishop for his thoughts, the day turned into lecturing the Puritans on the merits of the existing church. (Jackson p. 47) On Monday they got around to the Millenary Petition. (Douglas p. 659) When John Reynolds (also Rainolds) was able to question James about their grievances, almost every request was immediately denied or disputed by James. Near the end of what Reynolds perceived as a lost cause he made a request for a new translation of the Bible, to be declared as authentic and to be read in the church. Bishop Bancroft protested and shouted that if every man's request for a translation was granted there would be no end to the translating. But the King, who had already personally considered it desirable to make a new translation, readily accepted the suggestion having denied all suggestions so far presented. "A simple suggestion by John Rainolds at Hampton Court initiated what would become the most popular English Bible of all time." (Jackson p. 56) But his Highness wished that some special pains be taken for a uniform translation by the best learned of the Universities, to be presented to the Privy-Council and to be ratified by his Royal Authority so the whole Church would be bound unto it and none other.
However, before agreeing to authorize and fund a new translation, he placed a few preliminary stipulations on the project: "A translation be made of the whole Bible, as consonant as can be to the original Hebrew and Greek; and that is to be set out and printed, without any marginal notes and only to be used in all churches of England in time of divine service." (Jackson pp. 46-48) The brightest and the best included forty-seven scholars of an intended fifty-four, divided up into six companies of six each, two each from Cambridge, Oxford and Westminster, selected by Bishop Richard Bancroft who had become the chief adviser for King James who approved them and their appointment by June 30, 1604. At and after the conference, Bancroft in consultation with the King had assembled fifteen rules to be used throughout the translation process. (See Jackson pp. 48-50 for their entirety) The translators utilized the Masoretic Hebrew Bible (McDonald pp. 234-35), Beza's Greek new Testament, all of the English Bible printings indicated in Rule 14 (Tyndale, Matthew, Coverdale, Whitechurch, Geneva), and the 1582 Catholic translation known as the Rheims New Testament. "All of the English New Testament translations from William Tyndale to King James were based on a Greek text tradition commonly called the Textus Receptus, first compiled by Erasmus of Rotterdam and culminating in editions by Theodore Beza." [hence the name Beza] (Jackson p. 113) However, the core text was the work of Tyndale, forty folio-sized unbound 1602 Bishop's Bibles were distributed to the translators to work from. Some 89 % of the KJV is based on the works of Tyndale. The reformers were very much aware of the critical history of the scriptures and the canonical list of scriptures established by the Catholic Church at the council of Trent in 1546, but they could not and would not base their work on the tradition and authority of the Catholic Church. (Barclay p.9) Passages that could not be agreed upon were sent to outside scholars for additional insights and recommendations. If not agreed upon they were noted and left for future reviewers or the general committee for a determination of the final text. (Jackson p. 51) They started work in the fall of 1604. Preliminary results were obtained in three years, then circulated and reviewed for two more years. In 1609 the general committee comprised of one member from each of the six companies met at Stationer's Hall in London for nine months into 1610 to carefully review the whole translation and resolve disputes, often heated and violent when a deadlock needed to be resolved over variant translations. (Jackson pp. 51-52) Dr, John Bois of the sixth company of translators, was chosen to do the final editing of the entire manuscript and prepare it for the press. (SKINNER p. 93) This authorized version was Finally finished and published in 1611!
King James l, astonished the English divines with his theological learning, but failed to understand the Puritan viewpoint. (Douglas p. 5423) The leading participants included Bishops Bancroft and Bilson opposed by the Puritan leaders J. Reynolds and L. Chaderton. Most of the Puritan demands were dismissed. 'The King told them to accept the Church as it was or he would 'hary [force] them out of the land, '" (Skinner p. 91), driving many of them to leave England. (Stratton p. 18) Though the King admitted the justice of some of them. He agreed to allow minor changes in the Book of Common Prayer, to attenuate the power of the High Commission, to improve parish livings and eliminate plurality, and change the methods of suspension and excommunication. None of these ever came to fruition. But one immensely important and positive result of the conference was the planning of the Authorized King James Version of the Bible, for which the conference will be forever famous. (Douglas p. 450) By 1607 most of the Puritans had left England for Holland, and these would soon constitute those who ended up at Plymouth thirteen years later. Reynolds, one the few competent Puritan translators, worked on his assignment of Old Testament texts until his death in 1607. The names of more than 50 translators are known (Jackson p. 52) as well as some of the specialists who received special assignments, most of these are discussed in the books of Nicolson and Jackson. Over a two hundred year period, the most important men were Wycliffe, Tyndale, Luther and Dr. Lancelot Andrewes, master of fifteen languages, dean of Westminster and director of the work.
PART 4, will expand and provide detail on all of the above and continue the search in how China was being prepared for the gospel and the restoration.
BIBLOGRAPHY
AIKMAN, David, Jesus in Beijing, Regnery Publishing, Inc., Washington, DC, 2003
BARCLAY, William, The Making of the Bible, Abingdon Press, New York, 1961
BLUNDEN, Caroline and Mark Elvin, Cultural Atlas of China, Facts on File, Inc., New York, New York, 1983
DANFORTH, Kenneth C., NGS Journey into China, National Geographic Society, Washington D.C., 1982
DOUGLAS, J.D., Gen. Ed., The International Dictionary of the Christian Church, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1974
GEELAN, P. J. M., & TWITCHETT, D. C., The Times Atlas of China, Times Books, 1974
GRAHAM, T., THE RECONSTRUCTION OF POPULAR BUDDHISM IN MEDIEVAL CHINA, University Microfilms International, Ann Arbor, Michigan,1975
HARRIS, Bill, China Land of Eternity, Arch Cape Press, New York, 1989
HOPKIRK, Peter, Foreign Devils on the Silk Road, University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst, 1980
IKEDA, Daisaku, Tr, B. Watson, Buddhism the First Mellennium, Kodansha International Ltd., Tokyo, 1977
JACKSON, Kent P., The King James Bible and the Restoration, RSC, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, 2011
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McMANUS, Jason, Time Frame 400 BC to AD 200, Time Life Book Inc., Morriston, N.J. 1987
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