Local access dig. pdf. [Dudink-Biblical chronology.pdf]
See source text Gezhi aolüe 格致奧略 .

This article is primarily concerned with the question of what kind of text Gezhi aolüe (Outline of the mystery [revealed through] natural science), a unique ms. copy (1820) from the Zikawei Library in Shanghai and published for the first time in 1996, precisely is. Gezhi aolüe appears to be older than 1820 (dating to before 1723), and to be a summary of one of the "Manila incunabula" (as Van der Loon called them), viz. Gewu qiongli bianlan 格物窮理便覽 (Handy compendium for investigating things and extending knowledge, 1607) composed by the Dominican friar Tomas Mayor for the Minnan-speaking Chinese in Manila, which in turn is based on Luis de Granada's Introduccion del Simbolo de la Fe (1583). The article further concentrates on the biblical chronology (Vulgata) embedded in a scheme of six "world ages" (from Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Salomo, and Zerubbabel to Christ) that Gewu qiongli bianlan presents (a chronology not found in the Introduccion). Due to the absence, at that time, of a Chinese translation of the Bible and especially of the Old Testament, Gezhi aolüe (as well as the ms. Renlei yuanliu 人類源流 (The origin of mankind) that seems to be based on Mayor's text too) that was not compiled by Western missionaries reproduces for quite a number of less well-known names in the genealogy from Adam to Christ the Minnan or Hokkien 'transliterations' used in Gewu qiongli bianlan. The article concludes with two appendices: 1) a survey of which biblical chronology Chinese Christian texts of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries use: the Vulgata chronology (the world was created some 4000 years before Christ), or the Septuagint chronology (the world was created some 5200 years before Christ); and 2) a reproduction of the genealogy of Christ (in Chinese and, of course, not using Minnan transliterations) that Carlo di Orazio da Castorano, a Franciscan missionary in Shandong, had printed in 1704 (the only known copy is preserved in the Vatican Library, see frontispiece and attached illustration of this issue of EASTM).

See also accompanying treatise in the same number: Biblical Chronology and the Transmission of the Theory of Six "World Ages" to China: "Gezhi aolüe" 格致奧略 (Outline of the mystery [revealed through] natural science ; before 1723) by Ad Dudink.

Local access dig.pdf. [Standaert-Chinese chronology.pdf]

Abstract: When Jesuit missionaries went to China in the seventeenth century, they discovered that Chinese history was in many regards apparently longer than the history as presented by the Bible. Subsequently, they started to translate Chinese histories, which they sent back to Europe, and which in the eighteenth century were adopted by Enlightenment thinkers for their own purposes. The European side of this story is quite well known, but what about the Chinese side? What sources did the Jesuits use and how did these sources interpret ancient history?

As part of a larger project, these questions about the Chinese sources are answered from an intercultural perspective. The missionaries not only used classical Chinese histories written during the Song dynasty (960-1279), but also numerous newly edited or newly composed works from the seventeenth century. While they themselves originated from a Europe in which the ars historica was in full transition, they met a situation in China where new approaches to history had emerged. They used comprehensive histories, such as the one by the late Ming scholar Nan Xuan 南軒, or the more wide-spread genres, such as gangjian 綱鑑 (outline and mirror) histories, which from the late eighteenth century fell into oblivion. In fact, the sources used by the Jesuits not only throw light on their own compilations that were ultimately sent to Europe, but also on the writing of history in China in the late Ming (1368-1644) and the early Qing dynasties (1644-1911).

Abstract: This article focuses on the Chronology by the Graz Jesuit Joseph Stöcklein (1676–1732), published in 1729. Since late antiquity, intellectuals have been crafting chronological works with a view to making apparent God’s actions in the world. These attempts were primarily based on the Old Testament, which was seen as a historiographical narrative and thus counted as a record of factual truth. New chronographical insights from China, which had been reaching Europe since the beginning of the seventeenth century, contradicted this exegetical tradition, however. Whoever attempted to relate the new findings arriving from China to the Bible had no choice but to give up certain truths in order to save others. Seen in this light, the tight framework of biblical truth led directly to creative hypotheses such as Stöcklein’s Chronology, which demonstrated two main shifts in the conceptualizing of universal history: first, Stöcklein emphasized the significance of the Old Reich and therefore decentred his universal history from western Europe to (mainly) Augsburg and Nuremberg; secondly, he envisaged the Far East rather than the Middle East and Europe as the geographical centre of Christian universalism and of the beginning of universal history. One crucial step was his relocation of Paradise to the immediate vicinity of China. Discussing the manifold Buddhist, Muslim and Christian sources with which Stöcklein was playing, I argue that Stöcklein’s turned the biblical story of salvation into a Chinese story of salvation.

Local access dig. pdf. [Durr-Stocklein Chronology.pdf]
Online at: German History website, or at Academia.edu.

The intercultural weaving of historical texts : Chinese and European stories about Emperor Ku and his concubines / by Nicolas Standaert.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Text in English with some Chinese.

"The European view on history was shaken to its foundations when missionaries in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries discovered that Chinese history was older than European and Biblical history. With an analysis of the Chinese, Manchu and European sources on ancient Chinese history, this essay proposes an early case of “intercultural historiography,” in which historical texts of different cultures are interwoven.
It focusses on the ways Chinese and European authors interpreted stories about marvellous births by the concubines of Emperor Ku. These stories have been the object of a wide variety of interpretations in Chinese texts, each of them representing a different historical genre. They are excellent case-studies to illustrate how the Chinese hermeneutic strategies shaped the diversity of interpretations given by Europeans."--Publisher note.

Part 1. Between Chinese and European Sources: Europeans Writing Chinese History in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries -- 1. Comprehensive Histories in Late Ming and Early Qing and the Genealogy of the Gangjian 綱鑑 -- 2. Jesuit Accounts of Chinese History and Chronology and their Chinese Sources -- Part 2. Between Text and Commentaries: Europeans Reading Chinese History in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries -- 3. Chinese Interpretations of Marvellous Births -- 4. Jesuit Interpretations of Marvellous Births.