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Introduction by Guest Editor George Kam Wah Mak The Mandarin Union Version, a Classic Chinese Biblical Translation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 March 2020

GEORGE KAM WAH MAK
GEORGE KAM WAH MAK*
Affiliation:
Hong Kong Baptist Universityggkwmak@cantab.net
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Introduction
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Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 30 , Issue 1 , January 2020 , pp. 7 - 19
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Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 2020

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References

1 Mak, George Kam Wah, Protestant Bible Translation and Mandarin as the National Language of China (Leiden and Boston, 2017)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Eber, Irene, Wan, Sze-kar, and Walf, Knut (ed.), Bible in Modern China: The Literary and Intellectual Impact (Sankt Augustin, 1999)Google Scholar; Gálik, Marián, Influence, Translation, and Parallels: Selected Studies on the Bible in China (Sankt Augustin, 2004)Google Scholar; Lai, John T. P., Literary Representations of Christianity in Late Qing and Republican China (Leiden and Boston, 2019)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Rundle, Christopher, “Classic Translations”, in Encyclopedia of Literary Translation in English, (ed.) Classe, Olive (London and Chicago, 2000), Volume 1, p. 290Google Scholar.

3 Records of the General Conference of the Protestant Missionaries of China, Held at Shanghai, May 7-20, 1890 (Shanghai, 1890), pp. xl-xliii. However, the China Centenary Missionary Conference, which was held in 1907, decided that only one Wenli Union Version of the Chinese Bible would eventually be produced and thus one Wenli Old Testament would suffice. In the first edition of the Wenli Union Version, which was published in 1919, the New Testament is that of the High Wenli Union Version. See Records. China Centenary Missionary Conference Held at Shanghai, April 25 to May 8, 1907 (Shanghai, 1907) p. 660; Minutes of Editorial Sub-Committee, 9th April 1919, the Archives of the British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS Archives), BSA/C17/1/41-46. The archival materials of the BFBS are used with permission of the Bible Society's Library, Cambridge University Library.

4 The names of these missionaries and the missionary societies they represented are listed in Mak, Protestant Bible Translation and Mandarin as the National Language of China, p. 16.

5 Zetzsche, Jost Oliver, The Bible in China: The History of the Union Version or The Culmination of Protestant Missionary Bible Translation in China (Sankt Augustin, 1999), pp. 255-273Google Scholar, 308-310, 315-322.

6 Mak, Protestant Bible Translation and Mandarin as the National Language of China, p. 17.

7 “Revisers’ Preface”, The Parallel Bible: The Holy Bible Containing the Old and New Testaments Translated Out of the Original Tongues: Being the Authorised Version Arranged in Parallel Columns with the Revised Version (Oxford, 1886), p. vii. The Masoretic Text was also adopted by the Old Testament translators of the King James Version as the basis of their work.

8 Mak, George Kam Wah, “‘Laissez-faire’ or Active Intervention? The Nature of the British and Foreign Bible Society's Patronage of the Translation of the Chinese Union Versions”, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 20, 2 (2010), pp. 180-181CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Records of the General Conference of the Protestant Missionaries of China, Held at Shanghai, May 7-20, 1890, p. xliii; “Meeting of the Board of Revisers”, Chinese Recorder and Missionary Journal 23 (1892), p. 25; Mak, “‘Laissez-faire’ or Active Intervention?”, p. 185; Mai Jinhua 麥金華 (George Kam Wah Mak), “Chuantong yu zhengju zhi zheng: Heheben Xinyue Xilawen diben wenti chutan 傳統與證據之爭：《和合本》新約希臘文底本問題初探”, Shengjing niankan 聖經年刊 3 (2014), pp. 1-18; Mai Jinhua 麥金華 (George Kam Wah Mak), Daying Shengshu Gonghui yu Guanhua Heheben Shengjing fanyi 大英聖書公會與官話《和合本》聖經翻譯 (Hong Kong, 2010), pp. 59-132.

10 Records of the General Conference of the Protestant Missionaries of China, Held at Shanghai, May 7-20, 1890, p. xliii. For a brief overview of these Mandarin Bible versions, see Mak, Protestant Bible Translation and Mandarin as the National Language of China, pp. 9-15. For more details, see Zetzsche, The Bible in China, pp. 139-143, 145-160, 170-174.

11 Eber, Irene, The Jewish Bishop and the Chinese Bible: S.I.J. Schereschewsky (1831-1906) (Leiden, Boston and Köln, 1999), pp. 186-189CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lihi Yariv-Laor, “Linguistic Aspects of Translating the Bible into Chinese”, in Bible in Modern China, (ed.) Eber et al., pp. 101-121.

12 Thor Strandenaes, Principles of Chinese Bible Translation as Expressed in Five Selected Versions of the New Testament and Exemplified by Mt 5:1-12 and Col 1 (Stockholm, 1987), pp. 87, 90, 92-93, 98-99.

13 Zetzsche, The Bible in China, p. 279.

14 Gálik, “A Comment on Three Western Books on the Bible in Modern and Contemporary China”, in Influence, Translation, and Parallels, pp. 136, 143.

15 Menzies, Robert P., “Anti-Charismatic Bias in the Chinese Union Version of the Bible”, Pneuma 29 (2007), pp. 97-98CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 Lefevere, André, “The Role of Ideology in the Shaping of a Translation”, in Translation/History/Culture: A Source Book, (ed.) Lefevere, André (London and New York, 1992), p. 14Google Scholar.

17 Jost Oliver Zetzsche, “The Missionary and the Chinese ‘Helper’: A Re-Appraisal of the Chinese Role in the Case of Bible Translation in China”, Jindai Zhongguo Jidujiaoshi yanjiu jikan 近代中國基督教史研究集刊 (Journal of the History of Christianity in Modern China) 3 (2000), p. 15.

18 Zetzsche, The Bible in China, pp. 260-264, 319-321.

19 Zetzsche, “The Missionary and the Chinese ‘Helper’”, p. 15.

20 Zetzsche, The Bible in China, p. 260.

21 Strandenaes, Thor, “Anonymous Bible Translators: Native Literati and the Translation of the Bible into Chinese, 1807-1907”, in Sowing the Word: The Cultural Impact of the British and Foreign Bible Society 1804-2004, (ed.) Batalden, Stephen, Cann, Kathleen, and Dean, John (Sheffield, 2004), pp. 143-145Google Scholar.

22 Zetzsche, The Bible in China, pp. 202, 216, 324; Jost Zetzsche, “The Work of Lifetimes: Why the Union Version Took Nearly Three Decades to Complete”, in Bible in Modern China, (ed.) Eber et al., p. 98.

23 Zetzsche, The Bible in China, p. 220; Zetzsche, “The Work of Lifetimes”, pp. 84-85; Mak, Protestant Bible Translation and Mandarin as the National Language of China, p. 52.

24 Zetzsche, “The Work of Lifetimes”, p. 77. Indeed, nowadays the Mandarin Union Version is also widely known as the Chinese Union Version (or in Chinese as Heheben 和合本, which means ‘the Union Version’), since it is the only one among the Union Versions that is still in use. Christie Chui-Shan Chow's article in this special issue uses the term ‘the Chinese Union Bible’ or ‘the Union Bible’ to refer to the Mandarin Union Version.

25 Zuoren, Zhou 周作人, “Shengshu yu Zhongguo wenxue 聖書與中國文學”, Xiaoshuo yuebao 小說月報 12, no. 1 (1921), p. 6Google Scholar.

26 British and Foreign Bible Society China Agency Report for 1921 and 1934, BFBS Archives.

27 Hudspeth, William, The Bible and China (London, 1952), p. 14Google Scholar.

28 Records of the General Conference of the Protestant Missionaries of China, Held at Shanghai, May 7-20, 1890, pp. xliii-xliv.

29 For information about the editions of the Mandarin Union Version published by the three Bible societies, see Cai Jintu 蔡錦圖 (Daniel Kam-to Choi), Shengjing zai Zhongguo: Fu Zhongwen Shengjing lishi mulu 聖經在中國：附中文聖經歷史目錄 (Hong Kong, 2018), pp. 374-412; For statistics on Chinese Bible publishing and circulation in Republican China, see Mak, Protestant Bible Translation and Mandarin as the National Language of China, pp. 90-97.

30 Mak, George Kam Wah, “To Add or not to Add? The British and Foreign Bible Society's Defence of the ‘Without Note or Comment’ Principle in Late Qing China”, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 25, 2 (2015), pp. 341-345Google Scholar.

31 Noorda, Sijbolt, “New and Familiar: The Dynamics of Bible Translation”, in Bible Translation on the Threshold of the Twenty-first Century: Authority, Reception, Culture and Religion, (ed.) Brenner, Athalya and van Henten, Jan Willem (London and New York, 2002), p. 14Google Scholar.

32 Lee, Joseph Tse-Hei and Laamann, Lars Peter, “Christianity and Community Governance in Modern China”, in The Church as Safe Haven: Christian Governance in China, (ed.) Laamann, Lars Peter and Lee, Joseph Tse-Hei (Leiden and Boston, 2018), pp. 2, 7-8Google Scholar.

33 Kim-Kwong, Chan (Jianguang, Chen 陳劍光), “Chinese Churches and Communist State: The ‘Patriotic’ Churches”, in Handbook of Christianity in China, Volume Two: 1800 to the Present, (ed.) Tiedemann, R. G. (Leiden and Boston, 2010), pp. 873-874Google Scholar.

34 Strandenaes, Thor, “The Bible in Twentieth-Century Chinese Christian Church”, in Reading Christian Scriptures in China, (ed.) Starr, Chloë (London and New York, 2008), pp. 69, 71Google Scholar; George Kam Wah Mak, “Building a National Bible Society: The China Bible House and the Indigenization of Bible Work”, in The Church as Safe Haven, (ed.) Laamann and Lee, pp. 233-234.

35 This Bible version is also known as Heheben er ling yi ling ban 和合本 2010版 (Chinese Union Version 2010).

36 See footnote 3 for information about the Wenli Union Version.

37 For information on Catholic Bible translation in twentieth-century China, see Choi, Daniel K. T. and Mak, George K. W., “Catholic Bible Translation in Twentieth-Century China: An Overview”, in Catholicism in China, 1900-Present: The Development of the Chinese Church, (ed.) Chu, Cindy Yik-yi (New York, 2014), pp. 105-123CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

38 Goodrich, Chauncey, “A Translation of the Bible for Three Hundred Millions”, Chinese Recorder and Missionary Journal 43 (1912), p. 589Google Scholar; Mak, Protestant Bible Translation and Mandarin as the National Language of China, pp. 128-130.

39 McGrath, Alister, In the Beginning: The Story of the King James Bible and How It Changed a Nation, a Language, and a Culture (London, 2002), pp. 254-258Google Scholar; “The Translation to the Reader”, in Translation That Openeth the Window: Reflections on the History and Legacy of the King James Bible, (ed.) David G. Burke (Atlanta, 2009), pp. 230, 238.

40 McGrath, In the Beginning, p. 255.

41 Goodrich, “A Translation of the Bible for Three Hundred Millions”, p. 589. See also Goodrich, Chauncey, “The Union Mandarin Bible”, Chinese Recorder and Missionary Journal 49 (1918), p. 552Google Scholar.

42 See chapters 3, 4 and 5 of Mak, Protestant Bible Translation and Mandarin as the National Language of China.

43 Lai, Literary Representations of Christianity in Late Qing and Republican China, p. 123; Mak, Protestant Bible Translation and Mandarin as the National Language, p. 221.

44 Zhou, “Shengshu yu Zhongguo wenxue”, p. 7.

45 Zhou, “Shengshu yu Zhongguo wenxue”, pp. 4-6.

46 Zhou, “Shengshu yu Zhongguo wenxue”, p. 6; Zhou Zuoren, “Guanyu jindai sanwen 關於近代散文”, in Zhitang yiyou wenbian 知堂乙酉文編 (Shijiazhuang, 2002), pp. 56-57.

47 Irene Eber, “Introduction”, in Bible in Modern China, (ed.) Eber et al., p. 21.

48 Eber, “Introduction”, p. 21; Gálik, “Mythopoeic Warrior and Femme Fatale: Mao Dun's Version of Samson and Delilah”, in Bible in Modern China, (ed.) Eber et al., pp. 301-320; Yu, Cao 曹禺, “Wo de shenghuo yu chuangzuo daolu 我的生活与创作道路”, Cao Yu zizhuan 曹禺自传 (Nanjing, 1996), pp. 19-21Google Scholar; Yu, Cao, Richu 日出 (Chengdu, 1985), pp. 1-3Google Scholar.