Chiang Min people

About 250 thousand people called Chiang or Chiang-Min, by the Chinese, live in the mountainous area of northwest China, west of the Min River, near the border of Tibet, in Szechuan. The 1937 book entitled China's First Missionaries: Ancient Israelites by Rev. Thomas Torrance [citebook|editor=Gerald H. Anderson|date=1998|title=Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions|URL=http://www.bdcconline.net/bdcc_stories/china/sichuan/torrance_t.html|accessdate=2008-08-19|publisher=Macmillan Reference USA|isbn=978-0028646046] , who was a missionary in this area. He was the first to write about them and what he believed to be their ancient roots of the Lost Tribes of Israel.Torrance believed that he had found the customs, rituals, modes of thought, domestic and religious practices of the Israelite contemporaries of Amos, Hosea and Elijah within the Chiang. [citebook|author=Rev. T. F. Torrance|date=1937|title=China's first missionaries,: Ancient Israelites|pages=125
Publisher=Thynne & Co
ASIN: B0008712QG]

He was essentially very impressed with the simple monotheism of this people in China in an area where the term God was, supposedly, unknown. [ [http://www5.ocn.ne.jp/~magi9/isracam2.htm] , webpage by Arimasa Kubo.] --this would contradict the term ShangDi, literally "the Supreme God"--the Creator God in the earliest Chinese writings-- however. [Ethel R. Nelson, Richard E. Broadberry, and Ginger Tong Chock. "God's Promise to the Chinese". Read Books Pub, 1997. ISBN 0-937869-01-5. p. 2]

Tension existed between the Chinese and this tribe for a long time and, until the mid-18th century, they lived independently.According to the tradition of the tribe, they are the descendants of Abraham and their forefather had 12 sons. Some of them still look Semitic.They call their single omnipotent God Abachi, meaning the father of heaven, or Mabichu, the spirit of heaven, or also Tian, heaven.They believe He watches over the entire world, judges the world fairly, rewards the righteous, and punishes the wicked, and gives them the opportunity to do repentance and gain atonement. In times of trouble, they call God in the name of "Yawei", the same as Yahweh.Idol worship is forbidden and anyone who offers a sacrifice to another god faces the death penalty.Their priests wear clean white clothes and perform the sacrifices in a state of purity, like the priests in ancient Israel (1 Samuel 15:27). [ [http://www5.ocn.ne.jp/~magi9/isracam2.htm] , webpage by Arimasa Kubo.]

The priests of the Chiang tribe wears a special head turban and is ordained in a special ceremony in which sacrifices are also offered. Unmarried men may not be a priest, which was the same in ancient Israel (Leviticus 21:7, 13). Like the ancient altar of the Torah, which could not be made of cut stones (Exodus 20:25), since the sword or whatever tool to be used to cut the stone was also an instrument of war and harm, the Chiang Min altars are built of earth which is molded into stones which are then laid one on top of the other without being cut of fashioned by any tool of metal. The main part of the Chiang Min service is performed at night, as is done in ancient Israeli tradition. After the 7th day or at the eve of the 40th day of the child's life, a white rooster is slaughtered in the child's honor and he is given a name. [ [http://www5.ocn.ne.jp/~magi9/isracam2.htm] , webpage by Arimasa Kubo.]

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