Translating the Bible

[Randy W]

from the SCMP

 

The Chinese Bible: how it was translated, and the phrases it introduced to the Chinese language

• When Christians produced a definitive Mandarin translation of the Bible, the Chinese Union Version, they consulted ancient Greek texts as well as editions in English
• Their translations of metaphors and allegories introduced to China phrases such as sacrificial lamb and a tooth for a tooth whose biblical origins are forgotten today

 

 

How did “Jesus” become “Yesu” in Mandarin? How did “James” turn into “Yage” and, most boggling to my young mind, how could “Eve” transfigure into “Xiawa”?

Years later, I learned that the Chinese Bible was not translated solely from the English language, but from various sources. The Chinese names of the aforementioned biblical figures make sense when one realises that they might have been transliterated from “Iesus” in Latin, or “Ya’qob” and “Hawwah” in Hebrew.

. . .

Just as Buddhist scriptures had done centuries before, the Christian Bible introduced neologisms into the Chinese language through its translation. Phrases like yiya huanya (“a tooth for a tooth”) and daizui gaoyang (“sacrificial lamb”) have become part of the Chinese language, to the extent that many Chinese today do not realise they are biblical in origin.

Christians believe the Bible to be written by authors whose pens were guided by the invisible hand of God. We do not know if translators are similarly piloted. The history of biblical translation, and the history of the Bible itself, suggests a surfeit of human involvement in deciding what is divine. But for those who truly believe that the divine governs human history, the uncomfortable questions that arise from flawed translations and textual inconsistencies can be filed away under “faith”, which, in its genuine form, is a beautiful thing.

 

 

 

 

[Allon]

Not the worst of Biblical translations. But always funny. The book and movie Tea House of the August Moon has a lot of really funny parodies of biblical stories in China.

[Randy W]

from the Sixth Tone

 

Noodles for the Messiah: China’s Creative Christian Hymns

A collection of hymns linking Christian doctrine to local customs is just the latest way the faith has taken on Chinese characteristics.

 

 

Images of Guan Yu and Confucius dressed up like Santa Claus are meant to be humorous. “The Baby Jesus,” on the other hand, has deeper social and historical roots. About five years ago, I carried out fieldwork in Nanyang, another city in Henan, where I witnessed performances of a number of Chinese operas similar to “The Baby Jesus.” These experiences opened my eyes to the vibrant forms Christianity has taken at the local level.

 

. . .

 

After the Boxer Rebellion took place at the turn of the 20th century, Chinese Christians began to reflect on how best to balance their national and religious identities. Influenced by the May Fourth Movement of the late 1910s, Christian intellectuals became more institutionalized and sought to make their faith more “indigenous” to China. While their efforts helped Christianity to thrive, the Communist Party’s reunification of China in 1949 and subsequent launch of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement saw Chinese Christians bring their faith in line with state-sponsored goals of self-governance, self-support, and self-propagation — that is to say, relying on indigenous missionary work rather than that of foreigners.

Wherever Christianity takes root, it draws on local customs to survive. Since the 1970s, the faith has flourished in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, even while fewer and fewer people in the developed world identify as religious. Today, the archetypal 21st-century Christian is no longer white, middle-class, and European. They may hail from sub-Saharan Africa, go to church in one of South America’s sprawling cities, or even sing the dynamic, diverse, and quintessentially Chinese hymns written by Henan’s religious flock.

 

[griz326]

...don't know if there was a formal translation, but the Franciscans rattled to the pope that the Jesuits had changed the bible to make it easier to get converts. It started the rivalry between those orders.

 

I believe that predates and Christian translation by many, many years. Historian John Fairbanks made a big deal of that tidbit in his history of China.