The Bible is the common classic of Judaism and Christianity. It comes from the Hebrew kethubhim, meaning "article", and later means "scripture";Graphai in Greek, Scripturoe in Latin, and "Jing" in Chinese.
The Christian Bible, also known as the Old and New Testaments, consists of the Old Testament and the New Testament.The Old Testament consists of 39 volumes, written in ancient Hebrew (including Aramaic), compiled by Jewish priests according to the teachings of Judaism, and contains the humanistic and historical materials of Jews and neighboring peoples from the 12th century BC to the 2nd century BC.The New Testament has 27 volumes.The Old Testament, the Bible of Judaism, is inherited from Judaism by Christianity. However, the Old Testament and the Hebrew Bible are different, and the order of the bibliography is also different.
There are more than 1800 Bible translations in the world, including almost all national languages and even regional dialects.Among them, more than 280 are full versions of the Old and New Testaments, more than 590 are only part of the New Testament, and more than 920 are separate or selected versions.
Ancient translation
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Greek translation: From the Hexapla compiled by Origen in the third century AD, we can see that there were at least seven Greek translations of the Hebrew Bible in ancient times, namely, the Seventy Sons Translation, the Aquila Translation, the Diodotian Amendment, the Simaku Translation, the fifth translation, the sixth translation and the seventh translation.Since the original manuscript has been lost for a long time, we can only learn some information about the first four translations from some works of the ancient Godfather and the six classics of the Syrian translation.Among them, Septuagint (LXX for short), or the 70 Son Translation, is the earliest version of the Old Testament.
Aramaic translation: In 586 BC, Judah fell, and Israel became prisoners of the Babylonians.After that, they lived in a foreign country for a long time, and gradually became accustomed to the Aramaic language popular in Babylon and the Persian Empire, and became increasingly rusty with their own Hebrew mother tongue. So that in the early days of their return, when Ezra and Levi read the law book to the people, they needed to read it while explaining it in Aramaic, so that they could understand the meaning of the text.Since the 2nd century BC, this kind of orally interpreted Bible has been written down and become the Aramaic version of the Bible, collectively known as "Targum".
Ancient Syriac translation: Ancient Syriac is a dialect of Aramaic, which was used in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, northern Palestine and eastern Turkey today in the era of Jesus.In the 2nd century AD, the Old Testament was translated into ancient Syrian.This translation is still used by some Christian sects in Syria, Iran and India.It is known that there are four versions of ancient Syrian: Peshitta, Philoxenus, Six Classics, and Syrian Palestinian.
Latin translations: According to textual research, there were no fewer than 38 ancient Latin translations from the 2nd to the 3rd century AD, all of which were translated from the Greek Translation of the Seventy Sons.The most important Latin translation is the subsequent Latin Popular Translation, also known as Vulgate (the original text is "popular", "ordinary").
New Testament translation: By the middle of the third century, the New Testament had been translated into Latin, Syrian and Coptic.They are all directly translated from Greek.The main translation of the New Testament in Latin is the Latin Popular Translation (or Vulgar Translation) translated by Jerome in 382 AD.The main translation of the Syrian language is the "Bessie Translation", which was written about the end of the 4th century AD.There are four dialect transcripts of Coptic New Testament.Other New Testament translations include Provencal and Bohemian based on the Latin translation;Armenian, Ethiopian, Persian and Sogdian translations based on Syrian translations;Arabic translation and Nubian fragments with Syrian and Coptic origins;A Gothic translation based on the original Greek text (also referring to the Latin translation) in the 4th century AD, and a Slavonic translation from Greek in the 10th century AD.
Late Medieval Translation
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In the late Middle Ages, another batch of new Bible translations came out one after another, and most of the translators were the rabbis who were dissatisfied with the Catholic Church.At the end of the 12th century, a French businessman named Walledo translated the Bible into Puyunsi (a southern French dialect).In the second half of the 14th century, Wycliffe, one of the pioneers of the early British religious reform, translated all the Bible from Latin to English for the first time.In the 15th century, the New Testament and the whole Bible in German, Italian, Czech, Dutch and Spanish met with readers successively.The appearance of these new translations promoted the religious reform.At that time, an important front for Protestant leaders was to translate and publish the Bible.Because various new versions of the Bible have shaken the exclusive position of the Latin version of Wujia, some translators have been hunted, some sentenced to death, some forced to flee abroad, and some have been transferred to underground work.Therefore, this period is called the "dark period" of Bible translation.Martin Luther, a German religious reformer, sternly denied the absolute authority of the Church to interpret the Bible, and advocated that believers should establish a direct relationship with God by reading the original Bible.In order to meet the needs of ordinary people to read scriptures, he translated the Bible into German in fresh and bright words, the New Testament in 1522, and all the Scriptures in 1532.This Bible became the best model of modern German language.The first achievement of the English translation of the Bible during the Reformation was Tindall's version (1525 or 1526).Tindall was persecuted by the British Catholic Church when he was translating scriptures. In order to escape arrest, he exiled to Germany. He risked his life to translate the "Five Classics" and the "Book of Jonah" in the New Testament and the Old Testament, and was later captured by the Catholic Church and sent to the stake.Later, there were also important translations in Britain, such as the Corvidale Translation, Matthew Translation, the Large Bible, the Geneva Bible, and the Bishop's Bible.However, with the deepening of the religious reform, Bible translation was sometimes supported by the King of England.Matthew's Translation is the first Bible to be published with the imperial permission of the King of England, and Keweidell's Translation has also been officially promised.More importantly, King James I approved the translation of the King James Version, which was published in 1611.After its publication, it received a strong response and enjoyed a high reputation for 350 years. Some scholars said that it was the most elegant, most popular and only authentic English translation ever.It is generally believed that the King James Version in English and Martin Luther's German translation reflect the highest achievement of Bible translation during the Reformation.In the following two or three hundred years, the translations of European languages such as Icelandic, Swiss, Danish, Finnish, Portuguese, Norwegian, and Russian also came into being.In some countries in Asia and Africa, there are also Bible translations in Hindi, Bengali, Japanese, Chinese, Nigerian and other languages.
Modern Translation
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Important English translation: American Standard Translation (1901), the first Bible published by the American Bible Society.The Revised Standard Translation (1952) was revised on the basis of the American Standard Translation.The Jerusalem Bible (1966), which was directly translated from Hebrew and Greek into English on the basis of absorbing the research results of earlier translations, is welcomed by Catholics and Christians because of its strong academic nature.The New English Bible (1961-1970), completely translated by English Protestants in popular contemporary English, once caused controversy after its publication, but its great achievements have gradually been recognized by the world.The Contemporary Bible (1971) was freely translated by Taylor on the basis of consulting Greek and Hebrew experts with reference to the American Standard Translation.For the sake of accuracy, he also referred to many popular versions, which made the translation a sensation.In addition, there are The Updated Bible (1945), The Contemporary Gospel Bible (1966), The New American Bible (1970), The English Translation Today (1976), The Gospel Bible (1976), etc.
Chinese translation
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It is difficult to determine the number of Chinese translations of the Bible (including full translations and abridged translations).It is generally believed that there are nearly 100 kinds of people who can be investigated.Among them, there are not only Chinese classical and vernacular translations, but also dialects and minority languages translations.The earliest Chinese version of the Bible can be traced back to the "Jingjiao version" in the 7th century, which was translated by the Nestorian missionary Alopen and others according to his Syrian Bible, and has now been lost. Some of the translations are scattered in Dunhuang documents.J. de Monte Corvino, a Catholic missionary in the Yuan Dynasty, translated the New Testament and Chants in Mongolian, but the translated versions have also been lost.Catholic missionaries in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties also translated some chapters or scriptures of the Bible into Chinese, which were scattered in Matter Ricci's Ten Rules for Qiren, Emmaunel Diaz's Interpretation of the Bible and Interpretation of the Ten Commandments of Catholicism, and Julio Aljulio's A Chronicle of the Birth of the Heavenly Lord.In addition, Basher translated part of the New Testament at the beginning of the 18th century, and his translation was kept in the British Museum. He Qingtai also translated most of the Bible at the end of the 18th century.These translations are called "Ming and Qing editions", and later generations have used them for reference when translating scriptures.
In 1807, R. Morrison, the first Protestant missionary to China, arrived in Guangzhou from England and moved to Macao to translate scriptures there because he could not preach openly in Guangzhou.The New Testament was translated in 1813 and published in Guangzhou the following year.Later, with the help of William Milne, a missionary to China, it was translated into the Old Testament in 1819.The whole book of the Bible was named the Book of God's Heavenly Sages, which was published in Malacca in 1823.At the same time, Joshua Marshman, a British Baptist missionary, and Joannes Lassar, an Armenian born in Macao, also translated a Chinese Bible, which became the "translation of Marshall Lassar" and was printed in India in 1822.These two translations are not widely sold, but they are the first Chinese Bible and have a prominent position, and lay the foundation for future Chinese Bible translation.Before long, the number of Western missionaries coming to China was increasing. They had different national backgrounds and different requirements for Bible translation.Around 1830, a four person group consisting of W.H. Medhurst, K.F.A. Gutzlaff, E.C. Bridgman and J.R. Morrison, son of Morrison, decided to retranslate the Bible.The New Testament was translated by Madus and completed in 1835. In 1837, it was named the New Testament and published in Batavia.The Old Testament was mostly written by Guo Shila and was published in 1840 under the name of the Old Testament.The main contribution of this translation is in terms of style and terminology. Its style and terminology provide useful reference for future translation of scriptures. This book was once spread in the army of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, from which most of the scriptures quoted in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom proclamation were recorded.In the middle of the 19th century, there were several translations, such as The Delegates' Version, 1852, 1862, 1866 and 1868, all of which were translated in classical Chinese.
After the Opium War, China's sea ban and opening up, frequent contacts with the outside world, coupled with the impact of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement, the traditional concept gradually wavered, and a group of people of insight realized the importance and urgency of opening up people's wisdom.Therefore, in terms of writing, a relatively easy to understand "shallow literary theory" (semi classical Chinese) language gradually replaced classical Chinese and spread among the people;At the same time, the vernacular has become increasingly popular.Against this background, some knowledgeable missionaries felt that the Bible could be popularized in China only by translating the Bible into "shallow literature" or even in vernacular.The initial achievement of the translation of "Shallow Wen Li" scriptures was the New Testament (first edition in 1885, revised edition in 1889) translated by John Griffith, a Protestant missionary.Then came the New Testament (1889), which was jointly translated by John S. Burdon and H. Blogde, and the New and Old Testaments (1902), which was translated by S.T. Schereschewsky.There are several kinds of vernacular translation: "Madus Stonley translation" (1857), "Beijing language translation of the New Testament" (1866), "Joseph Smith translation of the Old Testament" (1875), "Yang Gefei translation of the New Testament" (1889).Around this time, there were also a number of dialect translations in various parts of the country. Some translated the whole Bible, and some only translated some scriptures.There are 10 kinds of Bible translations: "Mongolian translation" (1880), "Hakka translation" (1886), "Fuzhou translation" (1891), "Guangzhou translation" (1894), "Ningbo translation" (1901), "Xiamen translation" (1902), "Shanghai translation" (1908), "Suzhou translation" (1908), "Xinghua translation" (1912)"Taizhou Translation" (1914).In addition, there are "tribal translations" in minority languages.
The highest achievement of Bible translation in modern China was the "Mandarin Hehe Translation" published on the eve of the May 4th Movement.In 1890, representatives of missionaries from Britain and the United States to China held a conference in Shanghai, and decided to collectively translate a Chinese translation that can be used by all sects, and set up three committees to respectively translate the literary and scientific (classical Chinese), the light literary and theoretical, and the Mandarin and joint translation.The National Language Translation Committee officially started its work the next year, translated the New Testament in 1904, published it in 1907, and published the Old Testament in 1919.In February 1919, the "Mandarin Hehe Translation", the New and Old Testament, was published and soon spread to all provinces in the north and south, and its sales volume was far better than other versions, gradually becoming the only Bible translation used by the Chinese church.This translation opened up a new era for the Chinese church to translate the vernacular scriptures, and had a certain impact on the vernacular movement during the May Fourth Movement.Its appearance is also the end of the translation of the Chinese Bible by Western missionaries.
Since then, Chinese biblical scholars have started their independent translation work.In the 1930s and 1970s, Chinese translations such as "Wang Xuanchen's Translation", "Zhu Baohui's Translation", "Xiao Tiedi's Translation", and "Lu Zhen's Chinese Translation" came out one after another.Due to the development of biblical archaeology, people have a new understanding of some scriptures in the previous translations;At the same time, the development of modern Chinese also requires updating the language of the old version, which calls for the continuous emergence of new versions.In 1979, on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the publication of the "Mandarin Hehe Translation", Hong Kong simultaneously launched three new translations: "Modern Chinese Translation", "Contemporary Bible" and "New Bible Translation".Among them, "Modern Chinese Translation" has the greatest impact.The book was translated by Xu Mushi, who started writing in 1971, translated the New Testament in 1975 and the Old Testament in 1979.The translation work is always carried out in the "Bible Building" at the headquarters of the American Bible Society.During this period, I referred to Bible translations in many languages, including almost all Chinese translations since Morrison.There are many footnotes in the text. At the end of the book, there is a list of notes on special terms, Bible year representatives and some maps.The Swiss female painter A. Vellotton drew many exquisite illustrations with lively lines for the book, which greatly enhanced its splendor.In 1980, in order to meet the needs of believers and other readers, the Chinese Christian Three Self Patriotic Movement Committee photocopied and published the New and Old Testaments in Shanghai, a joint translation of the "Mandarin Harmony". In 1982, it was republished jointly with the Chinese Christian Association.In 1989, the above translation was reissued in simplified Chinese characters.After the Catholic Church approved the canon of the Bible at the Trento Council, in 1566, someone called some uncontroversial scriptures accepted by the whole church canons, or "first bibliography" scriptures;Some scriptures that were controversial in terms of content, age, writing and author and were finally included in the canon are called "secondary scriptures" or "second bibliography" scriptures.Catholicism is also called secondary scripture, but it believes that secondary scripture and canon are both canons of the Bible, and there are only differences in the time of validation.Protestantism only recognizes the volumes of the Canon as canons, and believes that the volumes of the New Testament are canons without secondary canons;He also believes that only the canon is the Bible, and the secondary scriptures are respected only as classical documents, and they are not recognized as the Bible.
