The Daodejing of Laozi and Genesis

As a devout Christian, I obviously had many interesting thoughts and opinions regarding both The Daodejing of Laozi, which I had never studied before, and the book of Genesis, which I have read and studied for many years.  Ivanhoe’s translation and compilation of this classic literature exposed me to the world of Chinese thought and philosophy for the very first time, and each of the chapters opened my eyes to concepts of religious understanding that had never crossed my mind before.  I was immediately drawn to the resonant style in which each chapter was written, and this fact shocked as a result of it being an English translation.  Usually, when texts are translated they lose the integrity and emotion of the message that is being conveyed, but in this case I felt as if Ivanhoe was able to retain a good deal of this resonance even in his translation.  The mystery that accompanied the ideas of the Daodejing was something that initially took me off guard when I first started analyzing the text, but as I continued to read I soon realized that this is the very principal that the text is aiming to speak to.  There is a type of wisdom that is so subtle and unclear that it is difficult for ordinary minds to grasp.  The true meaning of the Dao is beyond the limits that words can convey, so the text calls upon the reader to understand the concepts and break the mystery in his own terms in order to grasp the underlying themes and messages that run throughout each chapter.  This was hard and sometimes even frustrating for me to do, but it most definitely challenged my mind to think outside the typical confines of literary analysis by striving to find the true identity and purpose of the Dao.  It was only when my reading concluded that I was able to accept the fact that the Dao holds different meanings to every person who lives by its teachings, and this form of religion does not have the same concrete basis and set of governing principles as the religion of Christianity that I believe in.  While reading Genesis again, I found myself attempting to read the text with the unbiased mindset of a scholar or someone who had never read the Bible before, rather than as a follower of the doctrine that this book speaks of.  As hard as that was to do, it did help me to evaluate some of the basic aspects of Genesis in a different light such as the stories relating to the creation of the world and the accounts of Abraham.  First, I really took the time to pay close attention to the vast amount of binary opposites that present themselves in the early chapters of Genesis such as light and darkness, man contrasting woman, and positive and negative that work to demonstrate how the most unfavorable elements of human life came into being.  In the ensuing chapters, I was humbled to revisit the stories of Abraham and his children and how the Lord gives dramatic rewards for absolute faith and obedience.  God lives through various objects, people, and other beings, and that is why some of the stories are not explained in full detail as He alternates through periods of being seen and unseen.  It is truly this absence that helps to assert his power and supremacy in Christianity, and it also builds upon the entire story that is presented in the book of Genesis.