The Chinese translation of logos in the Chinese Bible is Tao because it serves the same function and is a well known concept in Chinese culture.
to counter those who will say this is sacrilege or whatever
"Canaanite loot as source of richness was strenuously shunned (Joshua 7:1, Genesis 14:23), which seems to suggest that trade should not be conducted in order to accumulate wealth (which lowers entropy) but rather to disperse it (which raises entropy).
The economic engine of every state is its tax system but Israel, uniquely, employed no tax collectors other than anonymous offer boxes in the temple (Luke 21:1-4). Israel's economic engine was based on the Canaanite tradition of voluntary contribution, which Abraham encountered with
Melchizedek (Genesis 14:20, 28:22, Leviticus 27:30-33, Numbers 18:21-24). The latter was a priest of
El Elyon, long before Abraham arrived, and in his priestly order, Jesus would be high priest (Hebrews 5:6). Melchizedek's name means King of Righteousness, and righteousness (צדק,
sadek) was the very same attribute which the Lord ascribed to Abraham on account of his affirmation of YHWH. King Melchizedek's city
Salem became the
Jebusitestronghold of Jerusalem (2 Samuel 5:6), which indicates that Israel's economic engine as well as its political capital hailed from native Canaanite structures.
Moses' primary education was Egyptian but he didn't encounter the Lord until he was in Midian, "shepherding the flocks" of his priestly father-in-law
Jethro (Exodus 3), who also designed Israel's celebrated judicial system (Exodus 18:12-27). Israel's signature tabernacle complex was a near perfect copy of the battle camp of Rameses II. The first temple was built and partly funded by Phoenicians (1 Kings 5:1). The second temple was ordered and funded by the
Persian king (2 Chronicles 36:23, Ezra 6:3-5).
Israel's and later
Judah's royal dynasty (which culminates in the Messiah) was probably more than half foreign: king
David's great-grandmother
Ruth was a Moabite and
Solomon's mother
Bathsheba was almost certainly Hittite (2 Samuel 11:3, see Ezekiel 16:3). The mother of Solomon's son and successor
Rehoboam was an Ammonite called
Naamah (1 Kings 14:21).
When Jesus was born in
Bethlehem, His identity and arrival was independently determined by means of the science of cosmology, by an untold number of Magi (an ethnic group of Babylon, similar to the Chaldeans). Like Israel, Jesus too spent His formative years in Egypt. His story became as infused with responses to
Homer and the Greco-Roman traditions as the
Torah is with answers to Babylonian-Persian stories."
and
"The Hebrew scholars of the kingdom years weren't operating in a cultural vacuum, but lavishly borrowed stories, imagery and terminology from their colleague scholars of neighboring cultures. The same thing obviously happens today, when a
Christian apologist might try to drive the gospel home while using time-bound terms such as
evolution theory, search engine, server (or even: opportunity cost, target audience, swarm intelligence, and so on). The name
Leviathan reflects another example of Yahwism being discussed in terms of Babylonian imagery. And the phrases King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Savior of the World and even Son of God came straight from Roman imperial theology and were hijacked by the apostle
Paul to allow the citizens of the Roman world to discuss the mystery of the
Messiah.
The reader should realize by now that ancient people had completely different feelings when they saw wings or bulls or a statue of a winged bull than do modern people..."
The amazing name Abraham: meaning and etymology
