The Union Version Committee in 1906, from left to right: Frederick W. Baller, Liu Dacheng, Chauncey Goodrich, Zhang Xixin, Calvin Wilson Mateer, Wang Yuande, Spencer Lewis, and Li Chunfan[1]
Since the arrival of Christianity in China, the Bible has been translated into many varieties of the Chinese language, both in fragments and in its totality. The first translations may have been undertaken as early as the 7th century AD, but the first printed translations appeared only in the nineteenth century. Progress on a modern translation was encumbered by denominational rivalries, theological clashes, linguistic disputes, and practical challenges at least until the publication of the Protestant Chinese Union Version in 1919, which became the basis of standard versions in use today.
Although the motive for making translations was to spread the Gospel, there were further consequences. 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. Since regional languages or dialects could not be adequately written using Chinese characters, phonetic systems and type faces had to be invented; Christian texts were often the first works to be printed in those languages. The task of translation motivated missionaries to study Chinese closely, contributing to the development of Sinology. 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.
^- page 264 Undated photograph, printed in the Chinese Recorder 1906 [facing page 355], courtesy of American Bible Society Archives, New York.
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