Chinese Jews????

[Daniyel]

Is there any mention of Chinese Jews in the Old Testament?


Yup.



2. In Isiah 49:12....a verse referred to as 'the Restoration of Israel"
11"I will make all My mountains a road, And My highways will be raised up.
12"Behold, these will come from afar; And lo, these will come from the north and from the west, And these from the land of Sinim."



3. Other verses related....

Matthew 8:11
I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.

Isaiah 43:5
Do not be afraid, for I am with you; I will bring your children from the east and gather you from the west.

Isaiah 43:6
I will say to the north, 'Give them up!' and to the south, 'Do not hold them back.' Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth--

Isaiah 45:22
"Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other.

Isaiah 55:5
Surely you will summon nations you know not, and nations you do not know will come running to you, because of the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has endowed you with splendor."

Isaiah 59:19
From the west, people will fear the name of the LORD, and from the rising of the sun, they will revere his glory. For he will come like a pent-up flood that the breath of the LORD drives along.

Isaiah 60:4
"Lift up your eyes and look about you: All assemble and come to you; your sons come from afar, and your daughters are carried on the hip.





"...., and nations you do not know...


Well....I don't know Sinim. Maybe it is China....

Some of the translations mention Aswan while the others Sinim (a Hebrew plural for Chinese folk) which is probably the source of confusion, there is also the claim it comes from "Sinai" as for Korach descendants.
It is definetly a noun.
Sinim - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Side conclusion: The land of Sinim is the land of the Chinese.

3. So.....is the Isaiah reference "Sinim" what we call China today???


Smith's Bible Dictionary

Sinim a people noticed in (Isaiah 49:12) as living at the extremity of the known world. They may be identified with the classicalSinoe, the inhabitants of the southern part of China.


ATS Bible Dictionary

Sinim Isaiah 49:12, a people very remote from the Holy Land, towards the east or south; generally believed to mean the Chinese, who have been known to Western Asia from early times, and are called by the Arabs Sin, and by the Syrians Tsini.




International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

SINIM, LAND OF si'-nim, sin'-im ('erets cinim; ge Person): The name occurs in Isaiah's prophecy of the return of the people from distant lands:

"Lo, these shall come from far; and, lo, these from the north and from the west; and these from the land of Sinim" (Isaiah 49:12). The land is clearly far off, and it must be sought either in the South or in the East. Septuagint points to an eastern country.


Many scholars have favored identification with China, the classical Sinae. It seems improbable that Jews had already found their way to China; but from very early times trade relations were established with the Far East by way of Arabia and the Persian Gulf;...."

I'm not very familiar with ancient China but I can tell that 'the land of the - Sinim -' refers to people by plural, that is the way the OT describes nations and places (sometimes).
Sin is the name of China (I don't know the origin of the term) however, I know that Sinim is a plural term for Chinese, I don't really think Sinim origin from Sinai by the way it's written in Hebrew, and by Old Commentators (Hazal) it was known people inhabited the far east since the day of Abraham so I tend to believe it does means Sinim as Chinese, rather than anywhere else.

 

[PoliticalChic]

In Isiah 49:12....a verse referred to as 'the Restoration of Israel"
11"I will make all My mountains a road, And My highways will be raised up.
12"Behold, these will come from afar; And lo, these will come from the north and from the west,And these from the land of Sinim."




4. Is there evidence that Sinim meant China???


"From the land of Sinim.—The region thus named is clearly theultima Thule [unknown region] of the prophet’s horizon, and this excludes the “Sinites” of Canaan (Genesis 10:17), and the Sin (Pelusium) of Egypt. Modern scholars are almost unanimous in making it refer to the Chinese.


Phœnician or Babylonian commerce may have made that people known, at least by name, to the prophet. Recent Chinese researches have brought to light traditions that in B.C. 2353 (and again in B.C. 1110) a people came from a strange western land, bringing with them a tortoise, on the shell of which was a history of the world, in strange characters “like tadpoles.” It is inferred that this was a cuneiform inscription, and the theory has been recently maintained that this was the origin of the present Chinese mode of writing. (See Cheyne’s “Excursus,” 2 p. 20, and an elaborate article on “China and Assyria” in theQuarterly Reviewfor October, 1882.)



Porcelain with Chinese characters has been found, it may be added, in the ruins of the Egyptian Thebes (Wilkinson,Ancient Egyptians,1st ser., iii. 106-109). All recent discoveries tend to the conclusion that the commerce of the great ancient monarchies was wider than scholars of the sixteenth century imagined. The actual immigration of Jews into China is believed to have taken place about B.C. 200 (Delitzschin loc)."

Isaiah 49:12 Commentaries: "Behold, these will come from afar; And lo, these will come from the north and from the west, And these from the land of Sinim."

 

[PoliticalChic]

5. [Wilhelm] "Gesenius supposes that it refers to the Chinese, and that the country here referred to is Sina or China. 'This very ancient and celebrated people,' says he, 'was known to the Arabians and Syrians by the name Sin, Tein, Tshini; and a Hebrew writer might well have heard of them, especially if sojourning in Babylon, the metropolis as it were of all Asia.

This name appears to have been given to the Chinese by the other Asiatics; for the Chinese themselves do not employ it, and seem indeed to be destitute of any ancient domestic name, either adopting the names of the reigning dynasties, or ostentatiously assuming high-sounding titles, as "people of the empire in the center of the world." 'The Rev. Peter Parker, M. D., missionary to China, remarked in an address delivered in Philadelphia, that 'the Chinese have been known from time immemorial by the name Tschin. Tschin means a Chinaman.' When they first received this appellation, cannot be determined, nor is the reason of its being given to them now known.

Sinim—The Arabians and other Asiatics called China Sin, or Tchin; the Chinese had no special name for themselves, but either adopted that of the reigning dynasty or some high-sounding titles. This view of "Sinim" suits the context which requires a people to be meant "from far," and distinct from those "from the north and from the west" [Gesenius]."

Isaiah 49:12 Commentaries: "Behold, these will come from afar; And lo, these will come from the north and from the west, And these from the land of Sinim."




Chinese Jews?

Sure looks like it could be.



And....give him his due: Jennings "took pride in the accuracy of his historical research on everything..." and had every right to!

 

[Daniyel]

Jewish Scene - How Chai from China became a Hasidic Jew just published yesterday, so now it's official.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Jewish Scene - How Chai from China became a Hasidic Jew just published yesterday, so now it's official.

About a week ago, a friend sent me this article about a Korean woman now an Orthodox Jew....

"Seoul Food in the Holy Land
Among the items Ziporah Rothkopf brings home to Jerusalem from her native South Korea each year are locally grown chili peppers,...
...prepare her own kosher Korean food,...

“Kosher really limits you,” said Rothkopf, who has been observing Jewish dietary restrictions since she converted in 1980, after immigrating to the United States.

Raised in an intellectual, elite Buddhist family in Seoul, where her father worked as a journalist, Rothkopf fled to the United States in her early 20s...

She had no idea that this would lead her to a religion that is nearly nonexistent in Korea,....

Shortly after her arrival, Rothkopf flew to New York to visit a childhood friend who had also immigrated and was studying medicine at a Manhattan hospital. Through this friend she met Moshe Rothkopf, an Orthodox ophthalmologist completing his residency. Rothkopf lived in the same apartment building as her friend and—through she calls it divine intervention—the future couple ran into one another in the laundry room, where some kind of spark ignited.

“He was the first Jew I ever met,” Rothkopf said, and he introduced her to the Hasidic, song-fueled synagogue of Shlomo Carlebach, where she found the restoration—if not yet the new identity—she craved."
Ziporah Rothkopf: Israel’s Champion of Korean Cuisine

 

[Syriusly]

I have a pal who teaches in high school, and a while back he told me of a Chinese student with the name 'Shapiro Lee.' He had inquired of the boy's father as to how he picked that interesting name for his son.
The father explained that Jewish folk were good at business...and he thought it would help his son in that endeavor.
But, no....the family was not of the Jewish religion.


But...Jewish Chinese?
Chinese folks who practice Judaism????


1. In the novel "The Journeyer," a tale of the travels of Marco Polo, Gary Jennings describes a meeting between Polo and Kublai Khan's Royal Firemaster, in charge of fireworks. The minister turns out to be a Jew...


Did Jennings simply imagine Chinese folks who were Jewish....or were there actually same?

The NYTimes included this in Jennings' obituary:
"Mr. Jennings took pride in the accuracy of his historical research on everything from Marco Polo's journeys for his novel ''The Journeyer'' (1984), to 19th-century circus life in the novel ''Spangle'' (1987), for which he traveled with nine different circuses. In ''Raptor'' (1992), he described a Goth's adventures during the days of the Roman Empire." Gary Jennings Is Dead at 70; Author of the Best Seller 'Aztec'




Let's pick up with this exchange from the novel:

"Aha!" I crowed. "Now I suppose you are going to tell me that your name is not really Mordecai!"

"I was not going to tell you anything. Except about my work with the beautiful but dangerous fires. What would you wish to know, Marco Polo?"

"How did you get a name like Shi Ix-me?"

"That has nothing to do with my work. However …" He shrugged. "When the Jews first came here [to China], they were allotted seven Han surnames to apportion among them. Shi is one of the seven, and was originally Yitzhak. In the Ivrit [the Hebrew language], my full name is Shemuel ibn-Yitzhak."

I asked, "When did you come to Kithai?" expecting him to say that he had arrived only shortly before me.

"I was born here, in the city of Kai-feng, where my forebears settled some hundreds of years ago."

"I do not believe it."

He snorted, as Mordecai had done so often at my comments. "Read the Old Testament of your Bible. Chapter forty-nine of Isaiah, where the prophet foresees a regathering of all the Jews. ‘Behold, these shall come from afar, and behold these from the north, and from the sea, and these from the land of Sinim.' This land of Kithai is still in Ivrit called Sina. So there were Jews here in Isaiah's time, and that was more than one thousand eight hundred years ago."

"Why would Jews have come here?"

"Probably because they were unwelcome somewhere else," he said wryly. "Or perhaps they took the Han to be one of their own lost tribes, wandered away from Israel."

"Oh, come now, Master Shi. The Han are pork eaters, and always have been."




I had never heard that there were Chinese Jews....but Jennings "took pride in the accuracy of his historical research on everything..."

I'll check it out in this thread, see if Jennings is accurate or not.

I guess you never have visited the old Jewish synagogue in Shanghai?

 

[PoliticalChic]

I have a pal who teaches in high school, and a while back he told me of a Chinese student with the name 'Shapiro Lee.' He had inquired of the boy's father as to how he picked that interesting name for his son.
The father explained that Jewish folk were good at business...and he thought it would help his son in that endeavor.
But, no....the family was not of the Jewish religion.


But...Jewish Chinese?
Chinese folks who practice Judaism????


1. In the novel "The Journeyer," a tale of the travels of Marco Polo, Gary Jennings describes a meeting between Polo and Kublai Khan's Royal Firemaster, in charge of fireworks. The minister turns out to be a Jew...


Did Jennings simply imagine Chinese folks who were Jewish....or were there actually same?

The NYTimes included this in Jennings' obituary:
"Mr. Jennings took pride in the accuracy of his historical research on everything from Marco Polo's journeys for his novel ''The Journeyer'' (1984), to 19th-century circus life in the novel ''Spangle'' (1987), for which he traveled with nine different circuses. In ''Raptor'' (1992), he described a Goth's adventures during the days of the Roman Empire." Gary Jennings Is Dead at 70; Author of the Best Seller 'Aztec'




Let's pick up with this exchange from the novel:

"Aha!" I crowed. "Now I suppose you are going to tell me that your name is not really Mordecai!"

"I was not going to tell you anything. Except about my work with the beautiful but dangerous fires. What would you wish to know, Marco Polo?"

"How did you get a name like Shi Ix-me?"

"That has nothing to do with my work. However …" He shrugged. "When the Jews first came here [to China], they were allotted seven Han surnames to apportion among them. Shi is one of the seven, and was originally Yitzhak. In the Ivrit [the Hebrew language], my full name is Shemuel ibn-Yitzhak."

I asked, "When did you come to Kithai?" expecting him to say that he had arrived only shortly before me.

"I was born here, in the city of Kai-feng, where my forebears settled some hundreds of years ago."

"I do not believe it."

He snorted, as Mordecai had done so often at my comments. "Read the Old Testament of your Bible. Chapter forty-nine of Isaiah, where the prophet foresees a regathering of all the Jews. ‘Behold, these shall come from afar, and behold these from the north, and from the sea, and these from the land of Sinim.' This land of Kithai is still in Ivrit called Sina. So there were Jews here in Isaiah's time, and that was more than one thousand eight hundred years ago."

"Why would Jews have come here?"

"Probably because they were unwelcome somewhere else," he said wryly. "Or perhaps they took the Han to be one of their own lost tribes, wandered away from Israel."

"Oh, come now, Master Shi. The Han are pork eaters, and always have been."




I had never heard that there were Chinese Jews....but Jennings "took pride in the accuracy of his historical research on everything..."

I'll check it out in this thread, see if Jennings is accurate or not.

I guess you never have visited the old Jewish synagogue in Shanghai?

No.

Actually, the whole concept was quite a surprise.

 

[aris2chat]

probably around 25,000 or so Kaifeng. Their history goes back more than 1000 yrs