Eighteenth-century European scholars linked Hebrew writings to Chinese classical texts

Evidence

Toward the end of the eighteenth century, several studies attempted to link the Bible or Hebrew writings to Chinese classical texts such as Yijing and Laozi’s Daodejing. These studies appeared first among some Christian Figurists and were taken up by other European scholars after them. There were also similar claims of a link between the Chinese and Hebrew language or scripts (although they competed with comparisons between the Chinese characters and Egyptian hieroglyphics, as well as between the Chinese and Babylonian civilizations). Some even suggested that the flood during the time of the Great Yu (a legendary Chinese hero) was the same as the flood in the Bible. — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 353

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader theme of Europeans finding their own sacred history in foreign cultures — the same impulse as the claim (elsewhere in this book) that Chinese culture derives from the lost tribes of Israel.