scholarly journals The Discovery of the Gold Seal in 1784 and the Waves of Historiography Ever Since

2011 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-32
Author(s):  
Joshua A. Fogel

Abstract According to the Hou Han shu, in 57 B.C.E. an emissary from the land we now call Japan arrived at the court of the Later Han dynasty in Luoyang. Although we don’t know his name or who his sovereign was, he was awarded a seal and ribbon. The seal promptly disappeared from history for the next 1,727 years. It was unexpectedly discovered in an irrigation ditch being repaired by a farmer in Kyushu. For the next 233 years until now, every detail about this golden seal has been the topic of extensive debate with over 350 books and articles devoted to the topic. This essay discusses that lengthy debate and tries to understand it on its own terms.

Author(s):  
Virginia Woolf ◽  
Warner
Keyword(s):  

Nature ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 580 (7802) ◽  
pp. 183-184
Author(s):  
Sabine Hossenfelder
Keyword(s):  

Nature ◽  
1998 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eleanor Lawrence
Keyword(s):  

2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 202-219
Author(s):  
Aminta Arrington

The Lisu are a largely Christian minority group in south-west China who, as an oral culture, express their faith more through a set of Christian practices done as a group and less through bible reading as individuals. Even so, the Lisu practice of Christianity specifically, and Lisu culture more generally, was profoundly impacted by the written scriptures. During the initial evangelisation of the Lisu by the China Inland Mission, missionaries created a written script for the Lisu language. Churches were constructed and organised, which led to the creation of bible schools and the work of bible translation. In the waves of government persecution after 1949, Lisu New Testaments were hidden away up in the mountains by Lisu Christians. After 1980, the Lisu reclaimed their faith by listening to the village elders tell the Old Story around the fires and reopening the churches that had been closed for twenty-two years. And they reclaimed their bible by retrieving the scriptures from the hills and copying them in the evening by the light of a torch. The Lisu bible has its own narrative history, consisting of script creating, translating, migrating, and copying by hand. At times it was largely influenced by the mission narrative, but at other times, the Lisu bible itself was the lead character in the story. Ultimately, the story of the Lisu bible reflects the Lisu Christian story of moving from missionary beginnings to local leadership and, ultimately, to local theological inquiry.


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