Bible translations into Chinese

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The Bible has been translated into many Chinese languages since Christianity came to China. Early work may go back to the 7th century, but the first printed Chinese Bible appeared in the 1800s. For a long time, new translations faced fights over church groups, theology, language ideas, and practical problems. The effort that finally led to a standard version was the Protestant Chinese Union Version, completed in 1919.

Translating the Bible into Chinese had many effects. Reading the Bible in their own language helped Chinese Christians form forms of faith not tied to foreign churches. Translations meant to be read aloud helped people learn spoken Chinese and provided models for writing in the vernacular. When regional dialects could not be written well with Chinese characters, new writing systems and typefaces had to be invented, and Christian texts were often printed first in those languages. Translating the Bible also pushed missionaries to study Chinese more closely, helping linguistic and cultural study in China. The Old Testament in particular gave some social and political ideas inspiring Chinese reformers, including leaders of the Taiping Rebellion in the 19th century.

The Nestorian Church, also called the Church of the East, brought Christianity to China in the 7th century and began Bible work early. The Xi’an Stele from 781 mentions “the translation of the Scriptures,” though it does not say exactly which books. A Dunhuang document lists Chinese titles for several Bible books. But there is little evidence of a complete Chinese Bible from that early time. Protestant missionaries later led the way in translating the Bible into local languages and in printing and distributing it.

In the 1800s, several missionaries began serious translation work. The first major printed Chinese Bible edition came in 1822, produced after earlier efforts by Morrison, Milne, Marshman, and others. Morrison, the first Protestant missionary to China, completed the New Testament in 1813 and, with Milne, began the Old Testament. They translated mostly literally rather than as elegant Chinese. Over time, other translators revised and improved the text.

Many Bible versions appeared in the 19th century. The New Testament by Medhurst, Gutzlaff, and Bridgman, finished in 1835, became the main Protestant text for a while. A key moment was the Delegates’ Version, completed in the early 1850s after a large study group of British and American missionaries and Chinese scholars worked together. The Old Testament continued to be revised, and some missionaries produced their own final versions. Taiping leader Hong Xiuquan used a Bible created from parts of older translations, and his version helped shape his movement’s ideas and its appeal to common people.

In 1865, Chinese leaders in Beijing started a project to translate the New Testament into Mandarin. A team of well-known missionaries and scholars worked for six years to produce a Mandarin text. Different groups later produced two versions of the Old Testament and the New Testament revision work continued at various times.

By 1919, the Chinese Union Version (CUV) was completed after combining several earlier efforts. It became the main Protestant Bible in China for many years. In the 1950s, Lu Zhenzhong produced a Chinese translation, and in the 1970s new versions appeared, including Today’s Chinese Version (TCV), Chinese New Version (CNV), and Chinese Living Bible (CLB), which later evolved into the Chinese Contemporary Bible (CCB). The CUV remained widely used, with a revision for the New Testament approved in 2003 and the full Bible published in 2010 by Amity Press in Nanjing.

In 2022, the Trinitarian Bible Society released a new Chinese New Testament. This translation uses the same Bible texts as Morrison’s and the old Peking Bible but stays as close as possible to the CUV in style.

The Catholic Church has its own translation history as well. Gabriele Allegra began translating the Old Testament from Hebrew and Aramaic in 1935, with the first draft printed in 1954 and a full edition in 1968. Another Catholic translator, John C. H. Wu, rendered the New Testament and Psalms into Classical Chinese in 1946, though his work is noted for its ornate style.

Orthodox Christian translations also appeared. Russian missions produced several New Testament editions from the 1860s to the early 1900s, with later updates to use more vernacular Chinese and to add explanations of theological terms.

Jehovah’s Witnesses published their Chinese New World Translation in 1995 for the New Testament and 2001 for the full Bible, with a simplified Chinese and Pinyin edition in 2004. In 2019 they released a Traditional and Simplified Chinese version in Taiwan.

Because Chinese characters don’t always fit regional spoken languages, missionaries and church leaders created phonetic systems and other writing methods to print Bibles in those languages. This also led to early Braille systems and writing schemes for minority peoples, such as the Miao language developed by Samuel Pollard in the early 20th century.

Translations have shaped both religion and culture in China. They helped spread the Gospel, allowed Chinese Christians to practice faith in their own language, and encouraged scholars to study Chinese language and culture more deeply. They also influenced political and social ideas at times, as in the Taiping movement, showing how scripture can impact history in many ways.