[KS] Hananim

[Timsanglee at aol.com]

Dear List:

I’ll second Professor Grayson’s post on John Ross and Hananim, and cite the 
following passage from Ross’s article entitled “Corean New Testament,” 
published in Chinese Recorder and Missionary Journal (November-December 1883): 
 
“It is now about then years since I wrote my first article to the Recorder 
giving an account of my first contact with Coreans at the village called the ‘
Corean Gate’ . . . One of the most important matters to be decided in every 
translation of the Scriptures is the names of the Deity and of spiritual subjects; 
with most of these we had little trouble.  Neither of the terms employed in 
China for ‘God’ is admissible in Corean.  The term [sangje in Chinese 
characters] in Corean Shang-de, is known in its classical sense to scholars only, to 
others not at all, as Taoism, which has adopted it in China, has no following 
in Corea.  The term [sin], in Corean Shin, is never used alone and when 
employed it is invariably as in the Chinese classics [kwisin], pronounced gooi-shin, 
this order of the two terms being constant, and as in China, they are the 
counterpart of the lares and penates of the Romans.  Hence both terms were 
inappropriate for our purpose.  In the Corean-French Dictionary I discovered that the 
Roman Catholics have transliterated their Chinese terms, among other [ch’ŏ
nju] tiun-joo.  Years, however, before the appearance of that dictionary I had 
adopted the name in universal use in Corea, nor have I ever met a shadow of 
objection against it.  Strange to say it is the native Corean for the Roman 
Catholic term.  The Corean for ‘heaven’ is hanal, for ‘lord’ or ‘prince’ nim, 
originally Chinese; and Hananim is the term by which Coreans everywhere 
acknowledge the Ruler above and the supreme on earth.  This term I have tested in 
every way with Coreans and my conviction is that the introduction of a foreign 
term would be a serious mistake.”
 
At the very least, this evidence refutes Gari Ledyard’s speculation that 
Hananim was invented by either Protestants or Tonghaks. It should also be noted 
that the Ch’ŏnju that the Tonghaks/Ch’ŏndokyoists believed in was not a 
transcendent monotheistic God, in that Tonghaks held this deity and humans to be of 
the same essence, as attested by their famous doctrine innaech’ŏn.

Best Regards,

Timothy S. Lee
Brite Divinity School (TCU)
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://koreanstudies.com/pipermail/koreanstudies_koreanstudies.com/attachments/20031212/fc3034e9/attachment.html>