Rise of the Shang Dynasty

The event

The Shang Dynasty is the earliest Chinese dynasty confirmed by writing contemporary with its own kings, eventually ruling from a capital near modern Anyang. Shang China mastered bronze casting to a remarkable degree, producing large, intricately decorated ritual vessels used in sacrifices to royal ancestors and to a high god called Shangdi, and its walled cities supported a complex society of kings, nobles, artisans, and a much larger peasant population working the land.

Shang religion centered on the belief that royal ancestors, once dead, continued to influence the fortunes of the living — good harvests, successful hunts, victory in battle — and could be consulted for guidance, a practice that produced China's oldest surviving written records.

The Shang Dynasty rises in roughly the same centuries as Israel's exodus from Egypt and the era of the judges that followed. While the drama of redemptive history was unfolding around a small covenant people in Canaan, an entirely separate and sophisticated civilization was flourishing in East Asia with no knowledge of it at all — a fitting illustration that God's common grace and providential care extend to 'every nation of mankind' (Acts 17:26), even while His saving revelation, in this era, was being entrusted to Israel alone.

Dating

1600 BC is the founding date proposed by China's Xia-Shang-Zhou Chronology Project and is the most widely cited figure, though some scholars favor a slightly later start.