Who is shangdi

You, O Spiritual Sovereign, first divided the grosser parts from the purer. You made heaven. You made earth. You made man. For the Christian, the above recitation sounds strangely familiar. How closely it reads to the opening chapter of the biblical Genesis! Note the similarity with excerpts from the more detailed story as recorded in the Hebrew writings:. The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters called He Seas Heaven ordered the sun, the moon, and the stars to enlighten and guide them.

Heaven ordained the four seasons, Spring, Autumn, Winter, and Summer, to regulate them. Heaven sent down snow, frost, rain, and dew to grow the five grains and flax and silk so that the people could use and enjoy them. How did ShangDi create all things? Here is one further recitation from the ancient Border Sacrifice rite:.

Between heaven and earth He separately placed in order men and things, all overspread by the heavens. Compare this with the way the Hebrew text describes the method of creation by El Shaddai, who, we suspect, is identical with ShangDi, and the similarity in name and role would suggest:. Let us compare this Chinese sacrifice with the instruction given by God to the Hebrews:. He is also associated with the pole star. Oracle bone script, the earliest known form of Chinese.

The earliest references to Shangdi are found in oracle bone inscriptions of the Shang Dynasty in the 2nd millennium BC, although the later work Classic of History claims yearly sacrifices were made to him by Emperor Shun, even before the Xia Dynasty. Shangdi was regarded as the ultimate spiritual power by the ruling elite of the Huaxia during the Shang dynasty: he was believed to control victory in battle, success or failure of harvests, weather conditions such as the floods of the Yellow River, and the fate of the kingdom.

Shangdi seems to have ruled a hierarchy of other gods controlling nature, as well as the spirits of the deceased.

These ideas were later mirrored or carried on by the Taoist Jade Emperor and his celestial bureaucracy. Shangdi was probably more transcendental than immanent, only working through lesser gods.

Shangdi was considered too distant to be worshiped directly by ordinary mortals. Instead, the Shang kings proclaimed that Shangdi had made himself accessible through the souls of their royal ancestors, both in the legendary past and in recent generations as the departed Shang kings joined him in the afterlife.

The emperors could thus successfully entreat Shangdi directly. Many of the oracle bone inscriptions record these petitions, usually praying for rain but also seeking approval from Shangdi for state action.

Shangdi was not just a tribal but instead an unambiguously good moral force, exercising its power according to exacting standards. Nonetheless, the connection of many rituals with the Shang clan meant that Shang nobles continued to rule several locations despite their rebellions and to serve as court advisors and priests.

The Duke of Zhou even created an entire ceremonial city along strict cosmological principals to house the Shang aristocracy and the nine tripods representing Huaxia sovereignty; the Shang were then charged with maintaining the Rites of Zhou.

The Confucian classics carried on and ordered the earlier traditions, including the worship of Shangdi. All of them include references:. The Four Books mention Shangdi as well but, as it is a later compilation, the references are much more sparse and abstract.

LUKE Sunday, November 5, Who is ShangDi? This rite ended in when the last emperor was deposed. However, the sacrifice did not begin a mere years ago. The ceremony goes back 4, years. Thy servant, I am but a reed or willow; my heart is but that of an ant; yet have I received Thy favoring decree, appointing me to the government of the empire. I deeply cherish a sense of my ignorance and blindness, and am afraid, lest I prove unworthy of Thy great favors.