When the plan to translate the Union Version in Guanhua (Mandarin) was announced at the 1890 Conference in Shanghai, it was decided that all three existing Mandarin versions—the 1856 Nanking Version, the 1872 Peking Version, and Griffith John's translation of 1889 - were to be equally used as the Chinese base texts of the new version. The decision was part of an overarching effort of appeasement and compromises, in order to secure the general agreement of the Protestant communities deeply divided over the issues of bible translations since the early days of Morrison and Marshman. In reality the Nanking Version and Griffith John were scarcely consulted, and the Peking Version would be the primary Chinese base text used by the committee. What is not always apparent to scholars and readers of the Mandarin Union Version is the extent it has been modeled after the Peking Version, not only because of the high regard the committee members had for this early Bible translation in Mandarin Chinese, but also as a direct result of the manner by which the Mandarin Union Version was completed in a committee setting. By examining the historical context surrounding the translation of the Mandarin Union Version, and the textual features of it in comparison to the Peking Version, this article calls for a stronger emphasis on the role and influence of the Chinese base text on this widely-used Chinese Bible translation, as its popularity and scholarly interests persist, 100 years after its completion.

The influences of Chinese traditional culture, especially the traditional Three Teachings and folk religion, on the Mandarin Union Version of the Chinese Bible (first edition, 1919) and the resulting complications are explicit in some contexts but implicit and subtle in other contexts. Some influences are helpful for Chinese people's proper understanding of biblical truth and theology in a Chinese context, but other influences can be misleading. In this paper, I will examine three translated Chinese phrases in the Mandarin Union Version that show evidence of Ruist influences: (1) “xūxīn de rén” “虛心的人”, in Matthew 5:3, (2) “tiānguó shì nǔlì jìnrù de﹐nǔlì de rén jiù dézháole” “天國是努力進入的﹐努力的人就得著了”, Matthew 11:12, and (3) “lǎoliàn” “老練”in Romans 5:4. Ruist influences is explicit in the first two cases but implicit in the third case, I will first analyze the verses and argue that they reflect the dominant Ruist ideology of moral self-cultivation instead of the biblical vision of transformation by “gracious moral cultivation”. Then I will demonstrate how Chinese readers might respond based on the context of each verse: Some Chinese readers might detect the inconsistenices between the Ruist emphasis on moral self-cultivation and a more general biblical theology, especially in an intertextual context of other Bible passages that explicitly teach the total depravity of human beings (e.g. Romans), as well as reconciliation and redemption by the free gift of Christ's grace for salvation and sanctification (e.g. Ephesians). Other Chinese readers might be misled by Ruist suggestions that they pursue sanctification and transformation only by means of moral self-cultivation that relies solely on their willpower. I will conclude by arguing how mistranslating and misinterpreting these verses can cause possible complications, especially negatively masking behaviour, in the personal and interpersonal spiritual transformation and ecclesiological development among Chinese Christians.

In the nineteenth century, the translators of the Bible in to Chinese were heavily dependent on their “native assistants” or “Chinese co-translators”. The importance of the contributions of these co-translators has long been underestimated. In Fujian, the missionaries adopted a co-translator model which allowed the assistant to take an equal and full role in the task of translation. The intention was that the local Christian community should take over full responsibility for all aspects of Christian ministry and mission. The translation process included the adoption of an easy-to-learn system of Romanisation of the Southern Min vernacular so that the resulting translation was accurate and easily read and understood. This essay looks at these developments in Fujian and on Taiwan, notably the co-operation between Reverend Iû Sūn-ióng, (楊士養牧師) and Reverend Thomas Barclay. In contrast, during the translation of the 1919 version of the Mandarin Bible, the “native assistants” played a lesser role in the production of the final work. Nevertheless, while few Chinese co-translators emerged as a creative force during the translation process, they may have contributed to the written style of the translation, if not the theological interpretation of the Bible in Chinese.

This article explores the path of the National Bible Society of Scotland (NBSS) to publishing its annotated edition of Proverbs in the Mandarin Union Version in China during the Republican era. After providing an overview of how the NBSS became the first Bible society to publish annotated Chinese Gospels and Acts in the 1890s, this article examines why it took more than three decades thereafter for the NBSS to publish an annotated edition of another biblical book. It argues that one of the main reasons was that the NBSS had difficulty securing reputable scholarly Protestant missionaries’ services to prepare the necessary annotations. Moreover, this article suggests that the familiarity of the Chinese people with short and pithy sayings was a condition favourable for the reception of Proverbs in China. This, together with the status of the Mandarin Union Version as the standard biblical text for Chinese Protestants, helps explain why the NBSS eventually published an annotated edition of Proverbs in the Mandarin Union Version. Annotations in that edition of Proverbs are analysed to understand how they could help bridge the gaps between Proverbs and its Chinese readers, so as to shed light on why such an edition of Proverbs was well-received as an evangelistic tool.

The majority of Chinese Christians can be considered to be theologically conservative. One distinctive feature of conservative theology is Biblicism, according to which Scripture occupies a central role. The Reformation principle of sola scriptura legitimises this conservative stance and calls for a stern application of this principle. As Biblicists, they are discontented with the ‘unbiblical’ practices and ministries of missionaries. On the other hand, missionaries have put forward the Union Version translation project on the basis of the principle of sola scriptura. This article investigates how Watchman Nee (1903–72) and Wang Mingdao (1900–91) were discursively influenced by the missionaries’ Union Version Bible translation project through their different understandings of sola scriptura. For missionaries, sola scriptura required the translation of a faithful and popular Chinese Bible, and Mandarin was deemed an appropriate language for the task. While Nee and Wang did not appreciate the missionary enterprise, for sola scriptura they valued the Chinese Union Version as an outstanding and up-to-date translation of the Scripture. For Nee and Wang, sola scriptura was not only a translation principle, but also a principle underpinning religious life. Conservative Christians’ devotional practice emphasises the memorising of biblical texts and verbalising them throughout the day. This practice resulted in the Union Version, which is written in eloquent modern Chinese, becoming an integral part of Chinese Christian practice rather than a mere translation. Though Nee and Wang accused missionaries of having betrayed the Reformation principle, they were still under its influence thanks to the Chinese Union Version Bible. Also, their teaching on biblical reading had similarities with the medieval monastic practice of lectio divina. In this sense, the Chinese Union Version Bible reveals an interesting integration of Chinese conservative Christian faith, missionary enterprise, sola scriptura, and a monastic style of spiritual practice within the Chinese Church.

This article explores the ways Chinese Protestant intellectuals, when facing up to the challenge of socialism, interpreted and appropriated Chinese Gospel texts to refashion the image of Jesus. It argues that Protestant intellectuals’ political use of the Chinese Bible remade a socialistic Jesus with some religious qualifications. Both the reading of the Chinese Bible and the interaction of Chinese biblical texts with the socio-political milieus dramatically influenced the textual practice of Chinese Protestant communities in the Republican era.

The production of the Union Bible was designed to provide Chinese Protestants with a standardised sacred text to better understand and approach the Christian faith in their native language. While believers regard the translated Scripture as a moral compass that gives spiritual references to everyday challenges, the methods of acquiring these references point to individual creativity and improvisation. When the Union Bible was banned from circulation in the public domain during the Maoist period (1949–1976), Chinese church leaders were jailed and reading the Bible was deemed to be subversive, how did ordinary Protestants draw on their reading of the Union Bible to sustain their religious commitment beyond initial conversion? How did they construct a biblically-centered faith against the socialist indoctrination? This study investigates the centrality of the Union Bible among Chinese Seventh-day Adventists in Wenzhou from the 1950s to 1970s. In particular, it explores how two female Adventists enmeshed the Chinese mode of divination with their daily Bible reading for spiritual insights as they confronted personal and congregational crises in the Maoist era. It argues that this indigenous mode of Bible reading sheds light on the ways in which Chinese Adventists asserted and empowered their scriptural-textual authority, interpretive agency, and personal piety against the state's relentless atheistic propaganda.

This article explores the continuing linguistic impact of the Mandarin Union Version by investigating and contrasting two Chinese translations of William Paul Young's global bestseller The Shack (2007): the Traditional Chinese version Xiaowu (《小屋》, 2009) and the Simplified Chinese version Pengwu (《棚屋》, 2010). Ever since its publication, the Mandarin Union Version has served as the predominant Bible within Mandarin-speaking Protestant communities across the world. This has brought about the standardisation of terminology in Chinese Protestantism. The Shack, though widely marked as a Christian novel, is also known for its unconventional fictional representations of Christianity that some Christians think depart from orthodoxy. Both Xiaowu and Pengwu were published by non-Christian publishing houses for a general readership. However, Xiaowu, translated by a Christian, exhibits a significant number of phrases that specifically belong to Chinese Christian terminology shaped by the Mandarin Union Version. Pengwu is a contrast in this regard. By comparing extracts from these two Chinese versions, this article highlights how far the Mandarin Union Version has contributed to the formation of the linguistic repertoire of Mandarin-speaking Christian translators as well as linguistic norms for translated Christian-themed texts into Chinese.

The importance of the Mandarin Union Version for the Protestant Churches in China can be compared to the relevance acquired by the Sigao Shengjing 思高聖經 for Chinese speaking Catholics soon after its publication. The 1919 Union Version was the result of a collaboration among Protestants after a century of separation and many lone translations, while the 1968 Sigao Bible was the first version of the Bible in Chinese completed by Catholics.1 This translation project was undertaken in 1935 by the Franciscan missionary Gabriele Allegra.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze and compare these two noteworthy versions. A brief introduction will present the translation process of the Union Version and of the Sigao Bible. Subsequently, some handwritten documents of Gabriele Allegra will be analyzed, to outline his attitude towards the missionary activity and the translations of the Protestants. Thereafter, some passages from the Gospel of John in the two versions will be examined and compared to analyze the features of the two translations.

Coinciding with the May Fourth new cultural and literary movement, the publication of the Mandarin Union Version, the vernacular Chinese translation of the Bible, in 1919 had a profound impact on the formation of modern Chinese literature. This paper examines the ways in which the Union Version provided a novel source of imageries, poetic genres and worldviews for the experimentation of modern Chinese poetry during the Republican period, particularly between the 1920s and 1940s. Revering the Bible as the Holy Scripture, young Christian poetess Bing Xin (1900–99) spontaneously expressed her religious sentiments and commitment by composing a series of “sacred poems” as her own poetic response to the striking beauty of biblical images. Zhou Zuoren (1885–1967), a renowned May Fourth Chinese writer and intellectual, regarded the Bible as a treasured anthology of Jewish literature and appreciated the humanistic values embodied in the teachings of Jesus. Placing the biblical references of the wilderness, Jesus's universal love and Moses's legalistic position in the forefront, Zhou Zuoren's poem “Qilu,” or “Crossroads,” captured the perplexity of his contemporary intellectuals, Zhou himself included, in their sabbathless search for cultural rejuvenation and national salvation during the transitional and tumultuous Republican era. An ardent admirer of W. B. Yeats and T. S. Eliot, Chinese modernist poet Mu Dan (1918–77) studied their poetry at the Southwest United University in Kunming during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–45). Imbued with biblical allusions, for instance, the fall of humankind and the loss of paradise, Mu Dan's poems, like “She de youhuo,” or “The Temptation of the Serpent,” articulate his penetrating critique of modernity. These works of poetry represent the multiple voices and diverse reactions of the early twentieth-century Chinese poets towards the Union Version which had not only firmly established its canonical status as the predominant Chinese translation of the Bible used by the Protestant Church, but also emerged as a literary tour-de-force to propel the evolution of modern Chinese poetry.