Archive
Chronology

Ancient texts differ from modern ones. First, they are part of a public discourse. Second, individual texts have proprietors rather than authors; they are the record of a school of thought. Third, over time, a school may add material to its text, to keep current with rival opinions, to correct its own previous statements, or to take account of changes in the outside world. It is in the interactions of these texts that most can be learned about them. Does Deuteronomy improve on Exodus, or vice versa? Is Laudz older than Confucius, or the other way round? Do the Iliad and the Odyssey exist apart from each other, or is there overlap and influence? Not to know the answer to such questions is to know nothing about that corner of antiquity.

Chronology

Over the last seventy years, the Project has studied four groups of ancient texts: Classical China, New and Old Testament, and Homerica. The chief purpose of this page is to make available two publications: (1) Brief descriptions of some three dozen texts, a list formerly available on a web site hosted by Heidelberg University, and (2) A single chronological list of the dates of authors of ten major texts: Analects (plus Mencius and Sywndz), Sundz (plus Wudz, Szma Fa, and Wei Lyaudz), and Dau/Dv Jing, with mention of Mwodz, Dzwo Jwan, and a few others. This list is an expansion of one originally based on the Dau/Dv Jing, whose annual-accretion format made possible dating of chapters to within a year or two, a sequence which proved to be largely compatible with dates earlier established for the Analects and the other Confucian texts. Here are the two:

• The Heidelberg List (2007), a precedent and complement, describing many texts separately
• An Integrated Chronology of the Major Classical Chinese Texts (2023), the present effort
  

 

Relevant Project Publications

None of which would make much sense without the background in previous researches. Here are some of those:

• Journey Toward the West: An Asian Prosodic Embassy in the Year 1972 (Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 1975)
• The Present and Future Prospects of Pre-Han Textual Study (SPP #46,1994). Examples of text growth in Han and Warring States
• The Original Analects (1998), Complete analysis of the growth of that text, with references to contemporary texts and events
• Alexandrian Motifs in Chinese Texts (SPP #96, 1999)
• Heaven, Li, and the Formation of the Zuozhuan (Oriens Extremus, 2003/2004) Its development over the entire 04th century
• Warring States Papers v1 (2010). Our Sinological journal. Entire contents available on JSTOR
  • Distancing Ji in the Chun/Chyou
  • The Reader in the Text
  • The Mician Ethical Chapters
  • The Formation of the Dau/Dv Jing
  • The Interviews of Mencius
  • Dual Authorship in Shr Ji 63
  • From Point State to Area State
  • Military Capacity in Spring and Autumn
  • The Syi-gung Transition
  • The League of the North
  • The History and Historiography of Jyw
  • Sun Wu
• The Emergence of China (2015). Brings together the major Chinese texts, in chronological order, to clarify military and economic history
• Alpha (2017). Our Biblical journal. Entire contents available on JSTOR
  • The Reader in the Text
  • Arguments From Silence
  • The Two Ways
  • The Didache
  • Time Depth in Mark
  • Insidious Agreement
  • Acts-Luke
  • Luke's Sermon on the Way
  • Apostolic Alignments
  • Thomas A
  • Yohanan ben Zakkai
  • Pliny at Pontus
• Jesus and After (2017). Brings together separate studies in an account of the growth of that tradition, over eighty years
• David and Before (expected 2024). Does the same for the major Old Testament texts, over eight hundred years
• From Confucius to Confucianism (expected 2024). The development, survival, and ultimate contribution of that tradition
• Homer and Others (expected 2025). The Homeric tradition, put back together from its present fragments

 

19 Nov 2023 / Contact The Project / Exit to Home Page