{"id":75,"date":"2019-03-04T16:33:12","date_gmt":"2019-03-04T16:33:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/?p=75"},"modified":"2019-07-29T15:14:38","modified_gmt":"2019-07-29T15:14:38","slug":"a-biblical-culture-the-taiping-religious-movement-and-classical-chinese-religion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/2019\/03\/a-biblical-culture-the-taiping-religious-movement-and-classical-chinese-religion\/","title":{"rendered":"A Biblical Culture? The Taiping Religious Movement and Classical Chinese Religion"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2018Our Holy Prelates [say that God\u2019s word] causeth insurrection and teaches the people to disobey\u2019<\/strong>[1]<\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Writing in the 15th<\/sup> century, there is a certain irony in Tyndale\u2019s statements, given the impact of the vernacular bible both at home and abroad. This is particularly true of the Taiping Rebellion, in which over a period of 13 years from 1851 to 1864 twenty million lost their lives. Previous historiography has been quick to stress the alien nature of the Taiping faith as a factor in the eventual failure of the rebellion[2]<\/a>. However, recent historiography has attempted to challenge this view, arguing that it fails to account for the popularity of the Taiping rebellion and its popularity with the \u2018multitude of followers\u2019 that it accumulated throughout its duration[3]<\/a>. Reilly\u2019s work is a notable example of this in which he argues for the centrality of Taiping Ideology as a motivating factor for the rebellion. During his work, Reilly remarks on an interesting comparison between the English revolution and the Taiping rebellion; two radically different rebellions in terms of their origins and yet both were heavily influenced by fresh exposure to the bible. Although according to Reilly this similarity \u2018cannot be applied too strictly\u2019 the comparison provides interesting explanations for the popularity of the Taiping religion at the time[4]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

One of the things observed in Christopher Hill\u2019s The English Bible and the Seventeenth Century Revolution <\/em>was the revolutionary impact of the bible, on sectarian documents at the time, through the transmission of biblical concepts themes and passages. The most notable example of this being Hobbes Leviathan, <\/em>which contained over 657 references from the Bible[5]<\/a>. Hill\u2019s justification for this impact is \u201cthe political and cultural empire of the Bible in seventeenth-century England\u201d[6]<\/a>. Although a similar result can be observed within the Taiping Empire, 19th<\/sup> century China was not exposed enough prior to the rebellion to have its own \u2018political and cultural empire surrounding the Bible\u2019. Although not necessarily comparable with the Leviathan<\/em> in their emphasis on citations, Taiping government documents and reforms are framed with \u2018biblical\u2019 idea, but retain their Taiping influence. For example, the Taiping Economic program states, \u2018If there is a drought there, draw upon the abundant harvest here in order to relieve the distress there. Thus all the people of the country may enjoy the great blessings of the Heavenly Father, Supreme Ruler and Lord God-on-High<\/strong><\/em>\u2019<\/strong>[7]<\/a>. This demonstrates the emphasis on biblical terminology but lacks the citations of biblical texts prevalent within Hobbes\u2019 Leviathan<\/em>. Although a similar result can be observed within the Taiping Empire, 19th<\/sup> century China was not exposed enough prior to the rebellion to have its own political and cultural empire surrounding the Bible. Reilly does little to expand on this explanation, acknowledging the infiltration of the Bible within Taiping Secular literature, but not explaining the discrepancies in cultural influence that have not been accounted for. How then did the bible acquire such weight within the rebellion, without such a cultural empire?<\/p>\n

Arguably the political and cultural empire from which the Taiping drew their support was classical Chinese texts. As Reilly observes, following the religion\u2019s germination under Hong Xiuquan \u2018the Taiping faith, albeit kindled by Anglo- American Protestantism, developed into a dynamic new Chinese religion\u2019[8]<\/a>. Although not explored by Reilly, Taiping Religious and government texts have groundings within classic religious Chinese texts. The Taiping Economic Program uses the nine grades specified in the \u201ctribute of Yu\u201d section of the Classic of Documents (Shujing)[9]<\/a>.\u00a0 Examining the Taiping religious Primer in Verse (Youxue Shi) reveals similar influences, with the familial relationships being expressed in the form of short maxims for prayer, emphasising and extolling relationships previously supported in Confucian Classics[10]<\/a>. Although anti-Confucian, the Taiping rebellion accepted many aspects of Confucianism, allowing itself to not only be recognised and understood by Chinese Confucians, but also present itself as a more appealing than the political and economic upheaval under the decaying Ch\u2019ing state[11]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This then arguably challenges the arguments surrounding the \u2018alien nature\u2019 of the Taiping contributing to the downfall of the period and accounts for the permeation of the Bible within Taiping documents at the time. Taiping\u2019s success and popularity can be seen in their ability to relate an existing corpus of political and cultural influence to the alien, through their use relation of western biblical ideas to the political and cultural empire of China\u2019s classical religions. Although more work may need to be undertaken, there are perhaps greater similarities between the English seventeenth century rebellion than have previously been speculated by Reilly.<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> William Tyndales, The Obedience of a Christian Man <\/em>(1528), in H. Walter (Ed.), Doctrinal Treatises, <\/em>(Cambridge, 1848) p163.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Thomas H. Reilly The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, <\/em>(Seattle, 2014), p3.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Ibid, <\/em>p4.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Ibid, <\/em>p57.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Christopher Hill, The English Bible and the Seventeenth Century Revolution<\/em>, (London, 1993), p20.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Ibid,<\/em> p7.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> \u2018The Taiping Economic Program\u2019 in William, De Bary (eds), Sources of Chinese Tradition Vol 2: From 1600 through the 20th<\/sup> Century<\/em>, (New York, 2000), p225.<\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> Reilly, The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, <\/em>p4.<\/p>\n

[9]<\/a> \u2018Taiping Economic Program\u2019 in De Bary, Sources<\/em>, p224.<\/p>\n

[10]<\/a> \u2018A Primer in Verse\u2019 in De Bary, Sources<\/em>, pp221-223.<\/p>\n

[11]<\/a> Philip A. Kuhn, \u201cThe Taiping Rebellion\u201d in Cambridge History of China <\/em>v10 Late Qing Part 1, pp264-267.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018Our Holy Prelates [say that God\u2019s word] causeth insurrection and teaches the people to disobey\u2019[1] Writing in the 15th century, there is a certain irony in Tyndale\u2019s statements, given the impact of the vernacular bible both at home and abroad. This is particularly true of the Taiping Rebellion, in which over a period of 13 … Continue reading “A Biblical Culture? The Taiping Religious Movement and Classical Chinese Religion”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":143,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75\/revisions\/143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}