The Dominance of the Chinese Union Version Bible

Between the publication of the Marshman and Lassar Bible in 1822 and the completion of the Union Version editions in 1919,Footnote ¹ there had been more than 20 major versions of the Chinese Bible translated, including just the New Testament or the entire Bible. The highly vibrant translation activities happening within that ninety seven years were remarkable, though often the motivation was fuelled by dissatisfaction of the previous versions (e.g. W. H. Medhurst's attempts to revise Robert Morrison's), or as a result of a disagreement among translators and societies (e.g. Elijah Bridgman and Michael Culbertson translating their own version, after leaving the Delegates Version committee). The publication of the Union Version, more specifically the one in Mandarin Chinese, seemed to finally settle this restlessness, providing the Chinese Protestant communities a version that most could finally identify with.Footnote ² From 1919 to 1949, millions of copies of parts of or the entire Union Version were distributed in China.Footnote ³ The next major Chinese translations of the whole Bible, the Catholic Studium Biblicum Version《思高譯本》and Lu Zhen Zhong yiben《呂振中譯本》(The Translation by Lu Zhen Zhong), would only appear five decades later in 1968 and 1970 respectively, and as a whole only 5 new versions of the whole Chinese Bible were completed from 1919 to 1992.Footnote ⁴ One Chinese writer loudly claimed in 1969 that “right now 99% of the Protestants are using (the Mandarin Union Version)”.Footnote ⁵ The statement was fairly accurate, because according to a more recent study by the Amity Press, 26 million Chinese Bibles were distributed in China from 1988 to 2000, and most of them were still the Mandarin Union Version. Footnote ⁶

The unfading popularity and importance of the Mandarin Union Version also means that there is a strong scholarly attention to the version, whether it is regarding its history, translational and linguistic characteristics, hermeneutical features, or influences on the Chinese language and culture.Footnote ⁷ However, few of these studies have taken into the account the use and reliance of the Chinese base texts by the Mandarin Union Version committee members, and simply assume that the popular version was translated from the English base text (the English Revised Version) and the underlying Hebrew and Greek texts. This article examines the history of the completion of the Mandarin Union Version, and argues that because of the way the tentative edition of the version was created and the many obstacles the committee members faced, the version was in many ways a revision of the Peking Version. The article also explores the major patterns of revision used by the committee members, and argues for the importance of understanding the relationship between the Mandarin Union Version and its Chinese base text in order to conduct an in-depth study of the features of the version.

The Historical Context

The decision to come up with three editions of a new Union Version of the Chinese Bible was confirmed and announced at the general conference held in Shanghai in 1890. Different committees were to be selected to work on the Wenli (Classical Chinese) version, Easy Wenli (low Classical) version, and Guanhua (Mandarin) versionFootnote ⁸ independently. Judging from the historical perspective, the Mandarin Union Version was never considered a brand new translation to begin with. Unlike the Wenli and Easy Wenli versions, the Shanghai Conference did not use the term “translation” or “translators” when reporting on the Mandarin version, but instead used “revision” and “revisers”. The first statement of the report reads: “That they select and secure the services of a corps of competent scholars for the work of revision, consisting of not less than seven men, to be know as the Committee on Mandarin Revision” (italicised by this author)Footnote ⁹, different from both reports for the high and simple Wenli versions, which state “the work of securing a translation of the whole Bible”.Footnote ¹⁰ Zetzsche believes that it was because of the predominant importance of the Peking Version, that the translators felt that the new Mandarin version could be completed by simply revising the 1872 translation.Footnote ¹¹ The revision committee obviously had a high view of Schereschewsky's Old Testament translation of 1875, because when it came to finalizing the list of Chinese base texts to be used for the Old Testament portion, Schereschewsky's version was the only one selected. As for the New Testament portion, however, three base texts would be selected at the end, as stated in the 3^rd statement of the Report: “the Committee on Revision shall make constant and careful use of the union Mandarin version of the New Testament, prepared in Peking and widely employed in the Mandarin-speaking regions of China, of the recent revision prepared by Dr John (Griffith John), and of the Medhurst version formerly in extensive use in Central China (the Nanking Version)”.Footnote ¹² There appeared to be some struggle for the committee to agree on this point, as D. Z. Sheffield reports:

The main reason for this compromise was likely due to be the insistence of John Archibald of the NBSS (National Bible Society of Scotland), the sole sponsor of Griffith John's translations, who stood out in opposing a revision of the Mandarin translation but suggested an adoption of John's translation, during the planning of the General Conference in 1887.Footnote ¹⁴ The compromise of including three base texts was to make sure NBSS could support the effort of doing a union version, together with the BFBS (British and Foreign Bible Society) and the ABS (American Bible Society). There was however no mention of the much earlier copy completed by the Jesuit court painter and missionary Louis de Poirot, who almost completed the translation of the entire Bible (including the Apocrypha) in Mandarin in 1803.Footnote ¹⁵ Louis de Poirot's translation included an introduction before each book and notes afterwards, but he could not secure the permission to print this spectacular work from the Propaganda Fide. A comparison between Poirot's version and the Mandarin Union Version shows no resemblance at all, indicating that the Protestant translators were either ignorant of this Catholic version, unable to secure a copy of it, or hesitant to consider it at the time of the Shanghai conference. Finally, it was another controversial decision to pick the English Revised Version over the Authorized King James Version as the English base text for the new Chinese translation, and along with it the original text “which underlies the revised English version of the Old and New Testaments be made the basis, with the privilege of any deviation in accordance with the authorized version.”Footnote ¹⁶ What it means is that the committee members were to use the original texts used by the Revised Version – which would be the Masoretic Text and the Palmer 1881 and/or Scrivener 1882 Greek text,Footnote ¹⁷ instead of the Textus Receptus, although the translators had all the freedom to consult the old Greek base text still.

A Committee that Lacked Consistency

Right from the beginning, the process of completing the Mandarin Union Version was frustrated by a number of high profile rejection, first and most notably began with Griffith John. Like Schereschewsky, John was well respected in the field, and he was considered such an important figure in the effort of producing a “union” version that he was invited to join all three committees. John however declined, and would write to both the Easy Wenli and Mandarin committees on 10 Feb 1891 and gave his reasons for his decision:Footnote ¹⁸ 1) He disapproved of the conference's decision to pick the original texts used for English Revised Version as the basis; 2) He questioned the effectiveness and practicality of a committee approach to translation, citing the split happened to the Delegates Version committee; 3) He also cast doubts on how there could be three harmonious versions of the Union Version, when there was no single Chinese basis. Although John's concern was valid, the rejection could also be a result of him seeing the new version as a competition to his own Mandarin and Easy Wenli translations. In fact, there was evidence that John could have considered the invitation more favourably if he was made to head the committee.Footnote ¹⁹

But John was not the only missionary who turned down the invitation, as a few others would also turn it down, making the formation of the Mandarin committee the hardest among the three.Footnote ²⁰ Worse, some missionaries would resign from the committee after shortly joining it, among them some of the most experienced. For example Henry Blodget, who was the only member who also participated in the Peking Version translation, returned to the States after agreeing to joining the committee and resigned shortly after in 1894, having little if any impact on the new version. Some members joined the committee for so brief a time (e.g. John Nevius for only 3 years, and James Lowrie for even less), that one wonders how effective could they had been. Even John Hykes, who was a member for 7 years from the beginning till 1897, wrote that he had “furnished no work for the use of the committee”.Footnote ²¹ Even though some other members must have done considerable amount of work, one wonders how consistency could be maintained with such a frequent change of committee roster. A chart of the timeline of commitment of the Mandarin committee members is provided above, which makes the changes of personnel (“D” meaning declined) and the brevity of some of their services very obvious, especially for the NT portion of the process (1890-1907):

Zetzsche suggests that there are three main reasons why the formation of the Mandarin Committee was especially difficult and problems-ridden.Footnote ²² First of all, the literary style of the Mandarin writing genre was still not regarded as prestigious as classical Chinese (the impression would only gradually change over the years), making it more likely for missionaries to turn down or resign from the project; secondly the missionary translators were truly pioneers in the promotion of the use of Mandarin, but it was an area remained to be developed, even though some of the committee members were already among the most prominent in the field;Footnote ²³ thirdly, many of those selected were at the same time active missionaries, which made them very qualified on-the-field Mandarin users, but left them with very little time outside of their ministries to work on the revision. Their respective societies were often hesitant to let them work on such time-consuming projects too.Footnote ²⁴

In addition to the huge problem of finding qualified and willing committee members who could stay long enough to get the work done, another issue of practicality arose from the location of these committee members. Since these translators lived far apart and had to continue their own ministries in different parts of China, it was not practical for them to meet frequently, let alone spending enough time to work together on a new edition. This was a concern faced by all three Union Version committees, but especially difficult for a committee that was already facing so many obstacles. The Old Testament Mandarin committee would prove to be more stable, and the progress was considerably smoother than that of the Mandarin New Testament, given that it took 17 years to complete the NT portion, but just 12 to complete the much longer Old Testament.

A difficult process

The actual process of producing the Mandarin version was also difficult from the start, comparing to the Easy Wenli and High Wenli versions. For the two wenli committees each translator was assigned a respective part of the Bible to translate, and he was provided with a specially prepared sheet with blank parallel columns, on which he would write out his translation (from top to bottom) in one column, and the sheet would be passed to other members of the committee, who would make comments within their respective columns (hence a total of five columns say for the High Wenli version, as there were five members on the committee). Since the Mandarin version was supposed to be a revision, in addition to the five columns for the five Mandarin committee members (designated by say 富 (Fu) for Chauncey Goodrich, 狄 (Di) for C.W. Mateer, and 文 (Wen) for George S. Owen), an extra column was added to the special sheet – the Peking Version.Footnote ²⁵ So even though a member would be responsible to translate a certain book of the Bible, he would have the Peking Version already provided for him on the sheet in a separate column, making it a real base text in a very true sense, unlike the Nanking Version or Griffith John's version. This point is often missed or ignored by the modern commentators of the Union Version, one that distinguishes the Mandarin version from the other two Wenli versions.Footnote ²⁶ Given the unique arrangement, the tendency for the revisers and the proofreaders to base their revisions closely to the Peking Version became almost unavoidable, and it shows when we do a close comparison between the two versions.

The progress of the Mandarin version continued to be frustratingly slow. By the time the members conveyed to meet for the first time in 1898, only the book of Acts was completed. George Owen vented his frustration to the London Missionary Society (LMS) in a letter date 23 Dec 1898:

To put things in perspective, the High Wenli team had completed the translation of many of the NT books by 1892, even though the progress would stall afterwards.Footnote ²⁸ The translation of the Easy Wenli version went even smoother, with the new edition completed and published in 1902. Chauncey Goodrich, the only Mandarin committee member who stayed from start to finish, highlights some of the difficulties faced by the translators in a 1913 report: 1) The members had different translation approaches, with Mateer wanting a lower, tongxing (“commonly” used) style, while Owen argued for a higher style; 2) There was disagreement as to which “Mandarin” dialect should be considered the standard; 3) The foreign translators spoke with different Mandarin dialects and could not understand one another in Chinese, at the end they had to speak in English and hence effectively excluded the Chinese members from participating.Footnote ²⁹ The Mandarin committee chair C. W. Mateer would echo with a strong sentiment of frustration in early 1900:

It would take a few more years for the entire New Testament of the Mandarin Union Version to come close to completion, when the tentative edition of the books from 1^st Timothy to Revelation (without Hebrews, which was completed a year ago) was printed in 1905, after a long and grilling effort. A complete New Testament in one volume was finally printed in 1907, with an image of its title page gracing the cover of the 91st Annual Report of the American Bible Society, published in that same year.Footnote ³¹ Mateer summarized how difficult the whole process had been:

That the final product was at most a revision of earlier Chinese versions was not lost on the mind of the committee members, as the English title of this version was written as the “Revised Union Version of the Mandarin (Chinese) New Testament”.Footnote ³³ It would take another 12 years for the OT portion to be completed, and fortunately the process would go comparatively smoother, because of greater stability at the committee personnel level.

The Textual Observations

Given the very difficult situation surrounding the committee forming and actual process of revision for the Mandarin Union Version, it is perhaps not surprising that the committee members would tend to consult the Chinese base text regularly, given the high reputation of the Peking Version and the format in which it was provided side-by-side for the translators’ easy reference. A casual comparison would find that the Mandarin Union Version being very similar to the Peking Version, both in terms of syntax and diction. Comparatively it is much different from the Nanking Version, and although it is closer to Griffith John's, it's likely because John's translation is similar to the Peking Version also. An example can be seen in 1 Corinthians 4:15:

The Nanking Version's expression of zongliao Jidu 宗了基督 or zong Jidu 宗基督 (“modelling after Christ”) was replaced by the Peking Version with the more modern and casual expression of xue 學 (“learning”), and so was the expression of laozi 老子 by fu 父 (“father”). Griffith John followed the Peking Version by using fu 父, but kept the expression of zong 宗unchanged; the Mandarin committee, on the other hand, followed the Peking Version in both cases. The Nanking Version also translates the last phrase as “helping you to be reborn by preaching the Gospel of Jesus”, but the Peking Version changes it to “begotten you through the Gospel”, a translation that reflects better the original meaning and is followed by both Griffith John and the Mandarin committee. As a whole we can see that the Mandarin Union Version is quite different from the Nanking Version, and syntactically and terminologically closest to Peking Version. Although we have chosen only a short verse to look at here, the overall picture echoes a similar pattern.Footnote ³⁴

Extant proof copies of the Mandarin Union Version used by Mateer and Owen, termed the Tentative Edition translations, allow us a textual window into the early process of revising done by the committee members. These copies were printed and distributed to all the committee members, after they had the chance to contribute towards a new revision, using the parallel lines sheets we have described earlier. Using the various Tentative Edition copies completed from 1898 to 1905, along with the 1907 Mandarin Union Version New Testament, and the 1919 complete Mandarin Union Version Bible (Old Testament and New Testament), we can evaluate the extent of the changes the Mandarin committee had made over the years, and how much and in what manner the Chinese base text of the Peking Version had been used:

1) Comparing between the Peking Version and the Tentative Edition

Because of the way the Mandarin Union Version was “translated” with the Peking Version provided on the side, it is found that its Tentative Edition, the first version in progress, shares much similarities with its Chinese base text. Examples of such textual resemblance can be frequently and abundantly found. Take the example of Mark 3:1-5:

The Tentative Version in this case mirrors the Peking Version closely in a lot of ways. Most of the changes are non-semantic, and there seems to be a lack of consistency in the trend of revisions made. For instance yita buyi 醫他不醫 (“whether or not to heal him”) is expanded to yizhi buyizhi ta 醫治不醫治他, indicating an approach to render the sentence more vernacular. But this is by no means a standard revision approach, because a couple verses later the phrases zuoshanshi, zuoeshi, jiushengming, haishengming 作善事、作惡事、救生命、害生命 (“to do good, or to do harm? To save a life, or to kill?”) are shortened to become xingshan xinge, jiuming haiming 行善行惡、救命害命, showing a preference of higher style and more abbreviated Mandarin here, and revealing a lack of consistency in the revision standard. More significant changes are found in the deletion of qilai 起來 (“rise up”) and xiang nazhi shou yiyang 像那隻手一樣 (“like the other arm”) in the Tentative Version. The first change was likely to be the result of referencing to the English base text, since neither the English Revised Version nor the Authorized Version have “rise up”, just “stand forth”. In Greek the word used is ἐγ είρω, which is found in both the Textua Receptus and Scrivener Greek text and does have the meaning of “arise” or “rise up”. So the committee's decision to remove qilai 起來 from the Peking Version was likely to be influenced by the English base text and not the Greek original. As for the second change: the deletion of the phrase xiang nazhi shou yiyang 像那隻手一樣, it is also indicative of the influence of the English base text, as the English Revised Version has “and he stretched it forth: and his hand was restored” only, without the phrase “as the other” as found in the Authorized Version. Finally, another change can be found in 1:5, where zhongren 眾人 (the “crowd”) was replaced by the 3^rd personal plural pronoun tamen 他們 (“they”). The change is consistent with the much more frequent use of personal pronouns in the Mandarin Union Version, which will be discussed in more details in the following section.

2) Comparing between the Peking Version and the 1907 Mandarin Union Version

Evidence of frequent usage of the Peking Version in the 1907 Mandarin Union Version (New Testament portion) is still easily seen. From John 1:1-5, we can see about 3 types of changes made in the Union Version –

1. a) First of all the term Tianzhu 天主(“Lord of Heaven”) has been changed to Shangdi 上帝(“Heavily Emperor”). The Term Question had split the Protestant missionaries into two camps since the time the Delegates Version was being translated, and the heated dispute had never been resolved between the Shangdi favouring British missionaries and the Shen 神 (“God”) favouring American translators.Footnote ³⁵ The Peking Version translators followed the lead of Schereschewsky and used the Catholic alternative of Tianzhu, which bypassed the Shangdi-Shen controversy but created another one of potential confusion of Protestantism with Catholicism.Footnote ³⁶ The discordance continued, threatening the very core concept of a general, unified version. Hence the decision of the general conference in Shanghai to allow different translations for the name of God to be used by different Bible Societies was a necessary compromise to see the project continue. In fact, even in the Tentative Edition, copies were diligently and sensitively prepared and provided for different committee members, so that the copies for Mateer (an American Presbyterian) have Shen for God, but those for Owen (an English missionary sent by the LMS) have Shangdi.

2. b) Personal pronouns are used heavily in the language found in the Mandarin Union Version,Footnote ³⁷ which is a striking departure from Classical Chinese, in which pronouns would be avoided at all costs for stylistic and sophistication reasons. According to the Far East representative of the BFBS, J. C. F. Robertson, schoolboys used to jokingly refer to the Mandarin Union Version as the “niwot'ati shu” (niwota de shu, the “you-I-he book”), taking note of the frequent use of the personal pronouns.Footnote ³⁸ This can be seen in 1:3 when the Union Version changes dao 道 (“word”) to ta 他 (“him”), which is consistent with the English Revised Version as well as the Greek text (αὐτοῦ). Another change is found in 1:5, where guang 光 (“light”) is changed to ta 他 (“it”), although the Chinese third personal pronoun used is not distinguishable between “him” and “it”.Footnote ³⁹ Since the Peking Version was a pioneering effort in using Mandarin as a written language, the exclusion of the personal pronouns despite the frequent use of them in both the Greek text and the English base text (the Authorized Version) suggests a reluctance to divert from the Classical Chinese style too rapidly. The trend of accepting the use of personal pronouns had already begun with Griffith John, who used “it” for John 1:5 in his 1889 Mandarin New Testament translation, even though he kept “Word” for John 1:3, similar to the Peking Version.Footnote ⁴⁰ Perhaps even more interesting is that in the 1919 version of the Mandarin Union Version, John 1:5 has guang 光 (“light”) instead of ta 他 (“it”), just like the Peking Version again guang zhaozai heianli, heian quebu jieshou guang 光照在黑暗裏、黑暗卻不接受光 (“And the light shineth in the darkness; and the darkness apprehended it not”).Footnote ⁴¹ Whether it is because the committee members were unwilling to use ta to translate the third personal pronoun “it”, or they still preferred the Peking Version usage, it should at least show that the Mandarin Union Version does not necessarily follow the English original text when it comes to the use of pronouns, even if it represents the original text better.

3. c) Many of the revisions found in the Mandarin Union Version, as opposed to the Peking Version, appear to be a reflection of the English base text and an attempt to follow it. In the case of 1:3 the phrase fan chuangzao de 凡創造的 (“all things created”) is changed to fan beizao de 凡被造的 (“all things were made”). The original Greek word ἐγέν ετο is an aorist indicative middle verb, which means “emerged” or “came into being”. So the use of the passive voice seems to be a reflection of the English base text “all things were made by him” in the ERV, and following the trend of “Europeanised syntax in Modern Chinese”,Footnote ⁴² which was much less regularly found in classic Chinese.Footnote ⁴³

Another important observation from the above comparison is that many of the theological terms and vocabulary of the Mandarin Union Version come directly from the Peking Version, except for a few significant exceptions such as the change from Tianzhu to Shangdi for “God”. Many of these terms are important in the articulating of the Christian belief to the Chinese-speaking readers. A good example is the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit listed in Galatians 5:22-23, where the lists from the two versions look very similar:

Only three of the translations of the nine fruits have been changed, and one of which is just a reverse of the order of the two Chinese characters for shanliang 善良 and liangshan 良善 (“kindness”). The change from xinde 信德 to xinshi 信實 (“faithfulness”) appears not very well thought of, because not only is the replacement effecting little change in the meaning in Chinese, it also makes the translation of the word πίστις elsewhere in the Mandarin Union Version inconsistent. That is because in Ephesians 6:16 the same Greek word is still translated as xinde 信德, this time in the phrase xinde de tengpai 信德的籐牌 (“the shield of faithfulness”), a direct borrowing from the Peking Version. We can at least argue that the two versions for “faith” are likely interchangeable in the eyes of the Union Version committee members. So the only more significant change is from cibei 慈悲 (“compassionate”) to enci 恩慈 (“gracefulness and compassionate”).

The situation is likewise with the beatitudes in Matthew 5:3-10:

A simple comparison will reveal changes in only 3 of the 8 types of blessed people between the Peking Version and the Mandarin Union Version. Among them the change from guanren hemu deren 勸人和睦的人 to shiren hemu deren 使人和睦的人 (verse 9) is small, just changing the verb at the beginning of the phrase from guan 勸 (“advise”) to shi 使 (“make”), though it does reflect better the expression of “peacemaker”. So for the most part the Union Version reads very much like a revised edition.Footnote ⁴⁶ More interestingly, the other two changes suggest that the committee members were referring to versions even older than the Peking Version. As noted earlier, the Mandarin Union Version makes very little use of the Naking Version in general, but for the translation of “the meek” the committee went back to the Nanking Version's translation of wenrou deren 溫柔的人, which is a variation of Delegates Version's translation wenrou zhe 溫柔者, over Peking Version's rouhe deren 柔和的人. Even more telling is the translation for “they that hunger and thirst after righteousness” (v.6), for which the Mandarin committee revised the long-winded version in the Peking Version slightly and used it in their 1907 translation (from xianmu renyi hoaxiang jike deren 羨慕仁義好像饑渴的人 to xianmu renyi rujiruke deren 羨慕仁義如饑如渴的人), but later chose to change again in the 1919 whole Bible version, with the more eloquent and refined expression jikemuyi 饑渴慕義, used by both the Medhurst/Gützlaff version of 1839 and the Delegates Version.Footnote ⁴⁷ Since there are many ways to translate verse 6, the chance of the Union Version using the exact same phrase is most easily explained by the committee referencing to the two older Chinese versions.

The Mandarin Union Version has long been praised as an accurate as well as eloquent translation of the Bible by the modern readers,Footnote ⁴⁸ even though it was intended to be a vernacular and not overly stylistic version. The above comparison suggests that some of the higher stylistic expressions found in the version may owe their origin to earlier Chinese translations. Between the completion of the New Testament version in 1907 and the publication of the whole Bible in 1919, the Mandarin committee would include many of the more refined phrases in this vernacular translation, borrowing directly from previous versions, such as in the case of Matthew 5:6. More examples can be found in the Old Testament, where the committee also based their translation heavily on the “Peking Version” – the Old Testament portion that was completed solely by S. I. J. Schereschewsky in 1875, with its revisions completed in 1899.Footnote ⁴⁹ Irene Eber has rightly observed that “although the (Union Version) represented a new translation effort, even a superficial comparison of Schereschewsky's Old Testament and the Union text reveals close correspondences both in style and the use of terms”.Footnote ⁵⁰ Phrases like deshi kongxu hundun, yuanmian heian 地是空虛混沌，淵面黑暗 (“And the earth was waste and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep”) of Genesis 1:2-3a, can be found to be imported from the Schereschewsky Old Testament in its entirety. Or in the case of Ecclesiastes, the translation of “vanity” as kongxu 虛空 is very much introduced by Schereschewsky, who expanded on just using xu 虛 to translate the Hebrew term, as found in the Morrison's translation and the Delegates Version. Furthermore, a comparison of Psalm 23:1-4 of the two versions reveals a similar pattern of mirroring:

A number of changes are made that is consistent to the pattern of revisions made in the New Testament portion, such as changing the translation of the name of God from Zhu 主 (“Lord”) to Yehehua 耶和華 (“Jehovah”),Footnote ⁵¹ and the much more frequent use of the personal pronouns. There are also other revisions, with some being mostly cosmetic (e.g. from wo 臥 to tangwo 躺臥 (“lie down”), which is just an expanded version of the verb with no change in meaning), and others constitute some differences in meaning, for example from zai wo pangbian 在我旁邊 (“by my side”) to yu wo tongzai 與我同在 (“be with me”). Still, phrases found in the verses remain mostly identical, if not totally identical (such as lingwo zai keanxie de shuibian 領我在可安歇的水邊 (“leadeth me beside the still waters”); weiziji deming yindao wo zouyilu 為自己的名引導我走義路 (“guideth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake”); wo suiran xingguo siyin de yougu, ye bupa zaohai 我雖然行過死蔭的幽谷, 也不迫遭害 (“though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil”)), showing the strong influence of the Peking Version Old Testament on the Mandarin committee.

3) As mentioned earlier, a comparison between the 1907 New Testament edition and 1919 whole Bible edition of the Mandarin Union Version would easily show that the New Testament completion process did not end in 1907. In fact, rather notable changes were made in 1918, because the completion of the Old Testament portion called for revising the New Testament portion for greater consistency, and that the 1907 version might be rushed to completion, with the committee facing pressure of a long delayed process.Footnote ⁵² What is interesting to our discussion is that some of the translation that appears in the Peking Version, even though rejected in both the Tentative Edition and the 1907 version, would be included again in the 1919 version, proving that this Chinese base text continued to play a major part in the final completion of the Mandarin Union Version. Revelation 3:14-16 offers such an example, when we examine the four Mandarin editions:

The Tentative Edition of 1905 made a few changes to the Peking Version, including changing the translation of “faithful and true” (from xinshi zhencheng 信實真誠 to zhongxin zhenshi 忠信真實), and of “the beginning of the creation of God” (from zai Tianzhu suozao wanwu zhishang wei yuanshou de 在天主所造萬物之上為元首的 to wei Shangdi zaohua de yuanshi de 為上帝造化的元始的). The Tentative Edition also adds the phrase ni jiru wenshui 你既如溫水 (“since you are like lukewarm water”), a verse that was ignored by the Peking Version, probably because the Peking Version committee felt that it was redundant and difficult to represent, as the following line already describes it as “neither cold nor hot”. The Greek word χλιαρὸς (“lukewarm”) is an adjective, and there is no “water” in the original nor the ERV for Revelation 3:16, hence by adding “water” the Union Version is putting an assumption into writing. Commentators tend to agree that χλιαρὸς is used in reference to the lukewarm water of Laodicea, which is compared unfavourably to either the hot waters of Hierapolis, which had healing effects, or the cold, drinkable waters of Colossae.Footnote ⁵³ However, there are also other opinions regarding what “lukewarm” may refer to,Footnote ⁵⁴ hence the Mandarin Union Version's addition of “water” may be hermeneutically misleading. The revision of the translation for “faithful and true witness” (3:14) has more to do with the diction preference, and even though all four versions have slightly different terms for the phrase, their meaning is more or less the same. The third change in particular is relevant to our discussion, with the Tentative Edition changing the translation of the phrase “the beginning of the creation of God” to wei Shangdi zaohua de yuanshi de 為上帝造化的元始的. The new translation was kept in the 1907 New Testament version of the Mandarin Union Version, but the 1919 version discarded it and again returned to a version very similar to the Peking Version's: zai Shangdi chuangzao wanwu zhishang wei yuanshou de 在上帝創造萬物之上為元首的. Not only does it show that the revising of the NT portion had not quite ended by 1907, it affirms the continuing importance of the Peking Version as a base text for the Mandarin committee, all the way till 1919.

Hermeneutical Reflection

The textual comparison between the Peking Version and the various editions of the Mandarin Union Version shows a high level of similarities in terms of syntax and vocabulary used. Though the Mandarin committee had also made many changes to bring the Union Version up to their expectation, in many parts it still reads like a revision of the Peking Version, as it was never translated straight from the original languages. This recognition is important, because even though the committee brought in numerous changes, there remains a large portion of the Mandarin Union Version containing what had been used in the Peking Version. So when we attempt to analyze the Union Version and the context of its translation process and decision-making, we ought to have a better understanding of its use of the Chinese base text, which will help clarify many of the translational and hermeneutic theories and hypotheses that have been associated with the Mandarin Union Version.

For instance Robert Menzies has noticed that the Chinese translation of the Greek word προφητ εύω in the Mandarin Union Version is usually associated with shuo yuyan 說預言 or yuyan 預言,Footnote ⁵⁵ which literally means “uttering about things of the future” (e.g. Acts 2:17 and Acts 19:6).Footnote ⁵⁶ But since the meaning of the word can well be non-futuristic (like in 1 Corinthians 12-14), the word is sometimes translated as jiangdao 講道 or xianzhi jiangdao 先知講道, which means “preaching” or “preaching as a prophet”. Menzies argues that because the Chinese words used by the Union Version translators were so limited in their range of meaning, it “incorrectly narrows the semantic range of the verb”.Footnote ⁵⁷ Menzies has a valid point there, because the Greek word προφητ εύω does have a greater variety of meanings, and it is often difficult to decide on which Chinese word to use to translate it, or whether one should use just one Chinese expression in each case. Hence in both cases of Acts 19:6 and 1 Corinthians 14:1 the Mandarin Union Version needs to add an explanatory note (see later) to offer an alternative reading of the text. However, what is missing in this argument is that the translation of yu yan or jiang dao did not originate with the Union Version, but the translations come directly from its Chinese base text. The Peking Version is already using yu yan (e.g. Acts 2:17,18),Footnote ⁵⁸jiang dao (e.g. 1 Corinthians 11:4,5) or xian zhi jiang dao (e.g. 1 Corinthians 14:1,3,4) to translate προφητ εύω. In fact, by comparing the two versions, it is the Mandarin Union Version that takes the extra step to reveal the versatile meaning associated with προφητ εύω, adding explanatory notes for example at the end of Acts 19:6 (“can also mean preach”) and 1 Corinthians 14:1 (“the original word means prophecy, as hereafter”):

Acts 19:6

1 Corinthians 14:1

This understanding of the influence of the Peking Version can be crucial, because Menzies tries to speculate on the reasons behind the choice of the translations yu yan and jiang dao, and rules out the possibility that the committee members were influenced by the wording used in the English Revised Version, or that they deliberately tried to curb the modern Pentecostal movement.Footnote ⁵⁹ Instead, he believes it was the theological background of the committee members that impacted their judgment and choice of words:Footnote ⁶⁰

Menzies goes on to point out that Mateer (a Presbyterian), Goodrich (a Congregationalist), and Baller (a Baptist) were all heavily influenced by the Reformed tradition, hence were either consciously or unconsciously harbouring an “anti-charismatic bias”.Footnote ⁶¹ Of course, this speculation can hardly stand, if we take into account the Mandarin committee members were simply basing their translation on the Peking Version, and it would be highly improbable for a version completed in 1872 to be influenced by the charismatic movement that only began to pick up steam in the 1880s in America, whether consciously or sub-consciously.Footnote ⁶²