Bible translations into Chinese
Access to the Bible in their own language made it easier for Chinese to develop forms of Christianity not dependent on missionaries and foreign churches.
Translations designed to be read aloud were significant not only for Christian believers, but for Chinese who wanted models for writing in the vernacular.
The Bible, especially the Old Testament, also offered Chinese revolutionaries such as the leaders of the nineteenth-century Taiping Rebellion an apocalyptic vision of social justice on which to base their claims.
In the nineteenth century, missionaries translated the Bible and taught it in churches and colleges, providing a resource to spread knowledge of the Christian religion.
He then published A Memoir on the Importance and Practicability of Translating and Printing the Holy Scriptures in the Chinese Language; and of circulating them in that vast Empire.
[6] The Archbishop of Canterbury recommended that the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge print the Chinese Bible; but, after four years deliberation, the project was abandoned.
The Anglo-Hindoo College, of Fort William, in Calcutta, established in 1800, created a department devoted to the translation of the Scriptures into Asian languages, mainly the Indian vernaculars, but including Chinese.
Professor Hovhannes Ghazarian (Lassar), an Armenian, born and educated in Macau, began by translating the Gospel of St. Matthew, which he finished in 1807.
Before leaving England he had made a copy of the manuscript Harmony of the Gospels referred to above, which he used as the basis of his translation of the New Testament, completed in 1813.
The British and Foreign Bible Society contributed more than 10,000 pounds for the translation, production, and circulation of this and successive editions.
In a letter to the Bible Society, he wrote: "I make it my daily study to correct the Chinese version of the Scriptures; and my brethren of the Ultra-Ganges Mission are requested to note down whatever may occur to them as an error or imperfection in the translation.
The death of Morrison frustrated the plan, for the son, having succeeded to his father's office as Government translator, did not have time to devote to the work.
[6] The American Baptist Board of Foreign Missions requested Josiah Goddard, one of their missionaries, revise Marshman's translation.
At his death it was found that he had made only a little progress with the Old Testament, and his work was continued by William Dean, of the same mission, residing at Bangkok.
A plan was adopted by which the services of every missionary capable of rendering aid were enlisted, and at five stations local committees were formed, to each of which a share of the work of revision was given.
[6] The first meeting of the delegates was held in June 1847, consisting of British and American Protestant missionaries, and was aided by Chinese scholars such as Wang Tao.
The American missionaries Elijah Coleman Bridgman and Michael Simpson Culbertson withdrew from the committee of delegates and prepared a separate final version.
Hong had read parts of the Bible in a tract by Gutzlaff's assistant Liang Fa, but these selections did not give any basis for iconoclasm or rebellion against the Manchu government.
Schereschewsky, the Episcopal bishop of Shanghai, had the benefit of training in Hebrew as a Jewish youth in Europe before his conversion and American seminary study.
Mackenzie, who worked alongside other missionaries such as George Smith and J.C. Gibson, specifically undertook the task of translating the Epistles of John and Jude from the New Testament.
The Bible did not play a primary role in Church preaching in sixteenth-century Europe or in the first Jesuit missions to China; translating scripture was not a major concern.
[17] John C. H. Wu, a Catholic convert, who served as the Republic of China's minister to the Vatican, also made a translation of the New Testament and the Psalms into Classical Chinese in 1946.
[19] An updated version of the New Testament was prepared through the work of Archimandrite Flavian (Gorodecky), the head of the 16th Russian Ecclesiastical Mission (1879–1883).
The third major Orthodox translation of the New Testament was done as part of the 18th Russian Ecclesiastical Mission, led by Innokenty (Figurovsky), Bishop of Pereyaslav, later Metropolitan of Beijing and China.
Again updating the work of Gury, the translation was published in 1910 including more commentaries and using the language closer to vernacular Chinese.
[21] Since regional languages or dialects could not be adequately written using Chinese characters, missionaries and church leaders invented systems of phonetic transcription, syllabaries, or romanizations in order to write and print Christian texts and Bibles.
