Does Sima Tan Write History

There was no such saying before the Tang Dynasty as that Sima Tan used to write history. But between the Tang and the Qing dynasty, some scholars imagined without firm evidence that Sima Tan wrote history. In the Qing period, however, Fang Bao and Yu Zheng-xie proved the above proposition by trying to find out the evidence in Shiji,which initiated a new method to verify the proposition. From then on some other scholars offered more evidence in Shiji to confirm the conviction. This essay argues that the evidence used by the scholars is not as firm as they expected. First, the xianren-the predecessors Sima Qain tried to succeed-in the epilogue of Shiji does not refer to his Sima Tan, but rather to his far ancient ancestors and Confucius, who were historians at that time. Secondly, the saying in Shiji that writing a history starting from Tao and Tang till the end of finding the relics of a strange animal was the very work of Confucius and the Sima's far ancient ancestors, rather than that of Sima Tan. Thirdly, Sima Tan's words are said to appear in the conclusions of some chapters in Shiji. This does not necessarily and definitely verify the proposition, for it is natural in those days that a father s words are quoted by his son in latter's book. So the proposition that Sima Tan wrote history cannot be confirmed for it lacks sufficient evidence.