The Acculturation Strategies Of Kaifeng Jews During The Ming And Qing Dynasties ——A Cross-textual Reading Of The Historical Monuments And The Biblical Torah

The Kaifeng Jewish Community(KJC),a unique case of religious accommodation in China,has finally assimilated into Chinese culture after several hundreds of years of development and left an indelible mark in Chinese history.Some significant efforts have been made by scholars to collect and collate the historical documents and materials of the community,with special attention paid to topics such as its history,assimilation,and religious life etc.,which form a solid foundation for all future research on KJC.This research is to explore KJC's cultural adaptation strategies in China with particular focus on its historical documents from the Ming and Qing Dynasties.The public materials,such as inscriptions,couplets and plaques are of most significance for understanding the community in its public sphere in historical settings.Furthermore,KJC had its prosperous period in the Ming and Qing Dynasties when these Kaifeng Jews constructed their own identity and their religious faith with Chinese characteristics.It was during this period when the government of Ming and Qing Dynasties carried out its assimilation policy,which made it possible for them to formulate their religious traditions with distinctive Confucian characteristics.The historical materials incorporated in the stales were written to introduce KJC's religious beliefs to the outside world and they functioned to demonstrate that their religion was much in line with the mainstream thoughts at that time,reflecting their strategy of adapting to the culture of their host country.On the one hand,the stone inscriptions did not only conform to the traditional Chinese inscription format,but also introduced the Jewish faith to the public.Because the authors and readers of the inscriptions were Confucius scholars,they depicted Judaism in the eyes of Confucianism.This paper follows the approach of "con/textual hermeneutics",focusing on readers' strategies when dealing with the cultural and religious heritage of Asia and the Biblical text in the context of their multiple texts,which are essential in shaping their identity.Readers need to deal with the relationship between their own cultural situation(Text A)and the text they are to read(Text B)to enrich the meanings of both texts in interaction in the reading process,emphasizing the diversity of the two texts,the multiplicity of the contexts,and the interaction between texts and contexts.For KJC,Text A refers to both the historical materials in their social context of KJC,and Text B refers to the Torah.Reading the two texts together will produce fruitful results.The outcome of their cultural adaptation could be seen from the historical materials and the records of their daily and religious activities.The approach of the 4R interpretive strategy,namely,"receiving,rejecting,reversing and reformulating" will be adopted.In the process,Scholars of religious studies and readers of the Biblical text "receive" or inherit some aspects of the local culture and religion,"reject" some local religious customs,"reverse" some of the customs and;"reformulate" some of the received traditions to form "a new text".The KJC did all these to the Torah traditions in the public historical materials according to the Chinese cultural heritages,revealing to the public a revised form of Chinese Judaism,absorbing foreign elements into their own system while also adhering to the Torah traditions.The goal of the cross-textual reading strategy does not lie merely in comprehending the Torah traditions,but more importantly,exploring the factors behind the community's reconstruction of its self-identity through cross-textual analysis.The reason for choosing the Torah as the comparing text to study the contextualization of KJC lies in the significance of the Torah for Judaism and Jewish religious rituals.Kaifeng Jews have also shown respect to the Torah in the historical materials,including inscriptions,couplets,and publicity records of Kaifeng Jews.The monuments review that Kaifeng Jews were in possession of the Torah,which was called "the Great Scriptures",“Scriptures of the Tao",or "Canonical Scriptures"which were read on Sabbaths and other festivals.Thus,it is reasonable to take the Torah as the comparative text in analyzing how KJC has adopted the concepts of Torah to the new historical context.This dissertation will first discuss the approach of "receiving and reformulating"of the Torah traditions in the public historical materials,focusing on how the community understands the traditions of the concepts of God and the practices in the reading and interpreting the Torah and other Torah traditions embodied in the religious etiquette and daily life.The name of God is the primal issue to deal with when facing the Chinese public.The Kaifeng Jews refer to God in the Torah by quoting from the Chinese Classics the various Chinese concepts such as "Tien" and"the Tao".The method of using different names of God coincides with that in the Torah and is in sharp contrast to that of Christian missionaries.The multiple naming methods of the Kaifeng Jews are also in accordance with the diversified religious cultures in China.The inclusive Chinese culture does not emphasize the one exclusive and fixed form of God's name,KJC's naming method combines the Torah tradition and the Chinese cultural tradition.Kaifeng Jews also adhere to the aniconic notion in China where idolatry has seldom been a problem and idol worship is prevalent.Their practice did not only adhere to the Torah tradition but also conforms to the practice of setting up wooden memorial tablets in the Ming Dynasty.KJC also respected the Torah and "the Master" was chosen to interpret the scriptures.All these practices conform not only to the Torah tradition,but also to the Confucian tradition,and KJC perfectly combines the two.In historical narrative,the Kaifeng Jews framed Abraham and Ezra into the orthodoxy system of China and narrated their history from the perspective of Chinese historical chronology in the historical materials.In the approach of "receiving" the legal traditions in the Torah in respect to the religious rituals and daily activities.Kaifeng Jews follow the requirements of the Torah and Judaism on religious etiquettes in respect to worship,fasting,sacrifice and so on and special personnels are appointed to deal with religious affairs,which would ensure proper observance of worship in the community.Some of the festivals and feasts,like Sabbath,Yom Kippur and Passover,are recorded in the stone inscriptions.Secondly,KJC reformulated some traditions of the Torah in the Chinese context and re-expressed its belief in some new ways.It portrayed Moses with certain features of Chinese sages,juxtapose Pangu and Adam,Nvwa and Noah,drawing parallels of the Torah figures with those cultural heroes in the Chinese cultural system,narrating its history in Chinese ways and described its special way of sacrifice."Three cardinal principles and five permanent virtues",the core principles in Confucianism,are portrayed as similar to the ethics in Judaism on the stone inscriptions.The historical narrative,as being a part of the identity expression,is expressed in the way of remembering of the community's ancestors and shaped by the Chinese calendar and Chinese orthodoxy.The tradition of offering sacrifices to the ancestors and to Confucius is not only reflected in their daily practices,but also recored in the historical materials.All these reflect their contextual strategy.Finally,the important Torah traditions "rejected" by KJC are mainly those which are inconsistent with Chinese traditions and would raise conflicts with the public if they are displayed on the stone inscriptions,thus,raising difficulties for the survival and identity construction of Kaifeng Jews.This "rejection" is seen in the omission of certain Jewish core traditions,including Exodus tradition,God's active participating in the Israelite history and some customs,such as circumcision and Levite marriage from the inscriptions.These traditions were believed to be practiced in the community's daily life.What has been depicted in the historical materials is the Judaism interpreted by Confucius scholars from the perspective of the Torah traditions.This dissertation intends to expound the contextualization of KJC in China with the aim to illustrate the accommodation strategies of Jewish diaspora in the Chinese cultural context.