1937: Torrance (陶仑斯)
China Inland Mission and American Bible Society
Reverend Thomas Torrance (1871–1959) was a Scottish Protestant missionary with a strong evangelical Church of Scotland background. From 1896 to 1910, he was stationed in western Sichuan by the China Inland Mission (CIM), which was later renamed Overseas Missionary Fellowship (海外基督使团). In 1910, he returned to Scotland due to disagreement with the CIM. Then, he once again moved to Sichuan with the American Bible Society (美国圣经公会), and he was put in charge of their missions in western China.
Qiang people (羌族) descended from Lost Tribes
The Qiang people are an ethnic minority in China. In 2000, their population was around 300,000. They mostly lived in the mountainous area in north-western Sichuan Province, on the eastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau (青藏高原).
Reverend Torrance believed the Qiang peoples' religious rituals resembled Jewish practices, and he was convinced they practised a derivative of Judaism.
Twelve banners of Qiang related to Twelve Tribes
On one of Reverend Torrance's evangelising trips, he met a young man who was later baptised as Isaac Whiteheart. During a Bible study session where the Book of Genesis was read, Isaac interpreted the Qiang custom of hanging twelve white banners in their houses as paying respect to the twelve sons of Jacob. Isaac made the assumption that the Qiang people were the descendants of the Twelve Tribes of Israel (以色列的十二支部落).
Isaac Whiteheart the convert
Reverend Torrance thus baptised Isaac on behalf of his Jewish ancestors. Whiteheart was chosen as the surname because the Qiang people valued purity and holiness. Isaac became an evangelist to the Qiang people, explaining the gospel to his people by comparing the similarities between the Old Testament and the Qiang religion, and elaborating concepts in a way that the locals could understand.
Isaac’s interpretation of the Qiang religion through the eyes of the Old Testament was captured in Father Torrance’s book, China’s First Missionaries: Ancient Israelites.
Rite of Atonement, Qiang High Priest became a convert
In 1925, through the introduction of Isaac, Reverend Torrance met a high priest by the name of Be-bo, who was from a Qiang village called Oir. After much discussion about the religious traditions of the Qiang people, the high priest Be-bo showed Reverend Torrance their most sacred object — a thick roll of paper with hundreds of sheets wrapped around a bamboo stick with a death head on the top to indicate that it belonged to God, or the Redeemer, whom they believed was to come into the world.
Reverend Torrance was also able to witness first-hand the Qiang rite of atonement. When he explained the scriptural rite of atonement from Leviticus, the high priest “jumped off his bench and said that those are the lost Scriptures that had been represented by the white scroll”.
Reverend Torrance then read from the Gospel of John and explained that while the Qiang had been far away from the land of Israel, Jesus Christ came to earth and redeemed humanity. The high priest and his family believed that Jesus Christ was the fulfilment of their religion and was baptised.
China’s First Missionaries: Ancient Israelites
In 1937, Reverend Torrance published China’s First Missionaries: Ancient Israelites (到中国的第一批传教师：古代以色列人).
In this book, Reverend Torrance elaborated that the Qiang people belonged to the Lost Tribes of Israel (失踪的以色列部落). On their physical features, Reverend Torrance wrote that they "retain unquestionable marks of being members of the Israelitish branch of the Semitic race … unmistakable Semitic features." On their religion, they believe in one God and served the Aabbah Molan, reminiscent of the Israelite Malach, Messenger of God; and, as per Reverend Torrance, "people have a moan or cry of a 'Yawei' sound — very suggestive … of the biblical name of God."
According to Reverend Torrance, the Qiang people were the first missionaries to China.