Religion Compass 1/1 (2007): 50–60, 10.1111/j.1749-8171.2006.00007.x

Understanding Israelite Religion: New Challenges for Chinese Bible Translations Yiyi Chen* Peking University

Abstract

With improvements in archaeological methodology, new discoveries in SyriaPalestine, as well as tremendous progress of knowledge about the Ancient Near East in the past several decades, we have never understood Israelite religion as reflected in the geographical and chronological scope of the Hebrew Bible better than now. However, today the most widely distributed and utilized Chinese translation of the Bible is the Union version, which was produced more than 100 years ago. At the dawn of the twenty-first century, the preparation of an improved translation of the Bible based on our better understanding of Israelite religion is brought to the agenda. However, in order not to produce yet another paraphrased Chinese version of one or a combination of several existing English versions that most probably would not outlast the one-hundred-year-old Union version, a group effort of seminary-trained theologians, scholars in the Ancient Near East fields, as well as different sectarians among Christians, is called for. Never before in the history of China is this country more ready than today to execute such a plan, and the general public to embrace a translation reflecting Israelite religion as recorded in the Bible.

Some Fundamental Issues of Translating Culturally Loaded Terms in the Bible to Chinese Recorded attempts to translate the Bible into the Chinese language started at least as early as the Tang Dynasty (618–907 CE).1 Translation always involves two types of efforts. The first type is relatively easy but laborintensive: when a word or phrase, or even a sentence has identical meaning and definition in the original language and the target language, the work of a translator is to render a linguistic equivalent in the target language. For example, when the Hebrew Bible writes “He drinks some water” in Hebrew, and the Chinese translated version says the same thing in Chinese word for word, both the Hebrew readers and the Chinese readers would have an identical understanding of the sentence. If only the translators’ job were this easy, there would not be that much discussion and argument in the translation of the Hebrew Bible or any other translation projects at all. The harder type of work is to translate the culturally loaded terms of the original language. Let us look at this difficulty stage by stage. If the © Blackwell Publishing 2006

Challenges for Chinese Bible Translation . 51

above-mentioned sentence is changed to “Jacob drinks some water,” would the task of the translator be as easy? Now the translator faces a personal name, “Jacob,” to render into the target language. Should the Chinese version just render the name with a few characters pronounced similar to the Hebrew original?2 Or should the translator make an effort to reflect in the Chinese-translated name its etymology as given in the Bible simply because the etymology is carried with the name in the Hebrew texts? The translator could argue that since not every native Hebrew reader would ponder the etymology of the name every time he or she reads it, thus it is a name without much meaning most of the time, therefore there is no need to reflect the etymology in the Chinese translation. The opposite side could also retort that since the native Hebrew reader can always have the freedom to stop and ponder on the name’s etymology, a translation not reflecting the etymology is an inferior translation since it deprives the Chinese reader the same freedom of choice; therefore, translators need to put into the Chinese version of the name an equivalent hint as to the etymology.3 This is more easily said then done; this type of effort would render translating the Hebrew Bible into another language next to impossible. Now we come to the second stage of the problem. Imagine when the name we are dealing with is not simply a personal name, but with the name of the Israelite God YHWH? Or even further, it is not a name, but a culturally loaded term such as the “shofar,”4 or “high places”? Should footnotes be inserted in the Chinese translation to enlighten the readers?5 The problem does not stop here. If a term in the Hebrew original needs to be translated to a term that exists already in the Chinese language, but has different meanings in two cultures, and sometimes very different meanings, then the most trouble arise. Typical examples are “Temple” and “sacrifice.” The most controversial case for Chinese translation of the Hebrew Bible is in naming the Israelite deity, the Hebrew tetragrammaton YHWH. It actually reflects the two types of the above-mentioned dilemma in a combined way. YHWH is first of all the unique name of the Israelite god, which has a very problematic etymology with which even today’s biblical studies experts do not agree upon every detail. Secondly, but most importantly, the term is used so many times equivalently or together with the Hebrew term for “god” and “lord,” while the Masoretic scribes’ invention of putting the vowel notations of “my lord” to the tetragrammaton further complicated even the Western languages translation tradition (the “Jehovah” problem). This is not to mention the Chinese translators, who rely heavily on the translations of the Western languages.6 This is not the only problem with translating this term. Since Israelite religion is eventually considered as monotheism, the abundant appearance of the plural linguistic features attached to “god” and “my lord” give rise to additional debates among interpreters of the Hebrew Bible. Chinese has its own word for “god” and “lord” in general, and some classic Chinese sources have even hinted that the term Shangdi as the personal © Blackwell Publishing 2006

Religion Compass 1/1 (2007): 50–60, 10.1111/j.1749-8171.2006.00007.x

52 . Yiyi Chen

name of the God in China. China’s diversified religious and philosophical traditions also entail much diversified understanding of all these Chinese terms among Chinese themselves. It is obvious that synchronizing the Chinese terms and those in the Hebrew Bible are among the most challenging tasks before a translation effort is even started. Using what term or set of terms to render the Israelite God has been among the most debated issues in the field of Chinese translation of the Bible.7 To cover the history of this debate and all the details would require too much space to be permitted here.8 Professor Archie Lee of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, an expert in the study of hermeneutical issues of reading the Bible in a religio-cultural milieu and cross cultural contexts, added another dimension to the debate: should the Christian missionaries be considered superior in determining the term being used, or should we weigh the opinions of the targeted audience with equal, if not more favorable standard? The following quote gives a glimpse of his reflections on the issue: There are a host of questions about whether the Asian conception of the divine in its polytheistic and pantheistic religious orientation is capable of expressing the monotheistic faith brought by the missionaries. There are ideological and political issues about who should decide on which existing name of God/Gods is to be adopted. There is also the question of whether a neologism, a totally new term for the divine, is preferred. In the colonial setting, it is of no surprise that the natives’ view will not be given any weight. Self-representation does not merit a respectable space. The missionaries automatically assumed a superior role when it came to “their religion.” The pagan worshippers will not be given a voice in the choice of the name for the divine, even though the name is to be used by them to address God.9

The Existing Chinese Translation of the Bible Was Done with a Christian Agenda In the early stages of the missionary movement in China, translating the Bible was not considered as an important task due to the relative effectiveness of the catechetical preaching that had been brought to China by the catholic missionaries.10 According to the early Jesuit historian Daniello Bartoli, the local Jesuit superiors considered translating the Bible “a difficult, dangerous, very long and hardly necessary project.”11 In early times, the first attempts to translate the Bible mostly started with the New Testament. When a part of the Hebrew Bible was considered for translation, the book of Psalms has always been on the short candidates list. In order to avoid translating the difficult terms loaded with culture and religious connotations, more often than not, the Jesuits astutely chose to rewrite biblical stories in Chinese from scratch, only utilizing the plots in the Bible as inspiration. In this way, the difficulties of rendering names and religious concepts can be avoided altogether. When the time came that a translation of the Bible was unavoidable, there is no need to say that these resulted translations always reflected the © Blackwell Publishing 2006

Religion Compass 1/1 (2007): 50–60, 10.1111/j.1749-8171.2006.00007.x

Challenges for Chinese Bible Translation . 53

translator’s theological point of view. Since Christian theology itself went through stages of changes, different versions of Chinese translation are reflections of the differences among these stages. For example, during the medieval period, which more or less corresponds to the late Song to early Qing Dynasties in China, typical medieval understanding of the Christian religion, such as the prominent role that angels played in the faith and imagination in the mediaeval theology, are carried over into contemporary Chinese translations and rewritings of the biblical stories.12 The most popular and today most widely spread Chinese translation of the Bible is the Union Bible.13 This version was commissioned by the Shanghai Missionary Society in 1890, and was finished at the very beginning of the twentieth century (1919). The Union translation took the Revised version of 1885 in English as its source text, and translators from all the major denominations of the time came together and worked in cooperation with each other in order to produce the finished work. Translators of the Hebrew Bible part were selected Bible experts who were also missionaries. They were C. W. Mateer from the Presbyterian Church in the USA, G. Owen and S. Lewis from the American Methodist Episcopal Church, C. Goodrich from the American Congregationalist, and F. W. Baller from the China Inland Mission. It is not hard to understand the point of view that was reflected in the translated work simply by looking at the contributors’ religious affiliation. There is nothing wrong with translating the Bible with a certain religious agenda. And as a matter of fact, whatever the agenda was, the produced translation has contributed significantly to the Chinese understanding of the Bible. The Union version has also been an excellent piece of work reflecting the highest editorial and scholarly standard.14 In order to learn about Israelite religion from the Chinese translation of the Bible, one would not have problems if a term or segment in the Bible is understood identically in the original Israelite religion and Christianity. However, when there is a conflict between the two understandings of the questioned term or segment, having in our hands only Chinese translations reflecting the Christian belief would be a problem. The Opportunity Today’s China Presents for a Biblical Text-Centric Translation China’s economic growth has been tremendous after it opened up to the world in the early 1980s. During the past twenty years, new generations of Chinese scholars were able to study abroad and absorb knowledge and explore methodologies in the field of biblical studies, and some of them have since come back to China and started to contribute to a better understanding of the Bible in China. This trend started in Hong Kong,15 and is now in its early stage in mainland China.16 With the growing number of Chinese expatriates scattered around the world and Chinese citizens in mainland China who are interested in learning © Blackwell Publishing 2006

Religion Compass 1/1 (2007): 50–60, 10.1111/j.1749-8171.2006.00007.x

54 . Yiyi Chen

about the Bible, there has been an obvious increase in individual as well as collaborative activities in retranslating the Bible into modern Chinese. So far, all of these efforts are made by Christian groups or individuals, who usually have the means and financial resources gathered from their respective affiliations. Non-Christian biblical scholars were almost never invited into such focus groups for obvious reasons. Consequently, the products of this sort of efforts are reworks of the Union version, with little if any improvement, and generally a poorer standard of editorship. Due to the lack of team members who are formerly trained in the academic fields of Palestinian archaeology and biblical research, it is not uncommon to find that these translations are almost completely ignorant of the latest progress in the study of Israelite religions.17 On the other hand, young Chinese intellectuals as well as the increasing number of middle-class citizens who have no interests in converting to Christianity demonstrated a strong curiosity in reading and learning about the Bible. The reason behind such curiosity varies. Due to the fact stated above, these people cannot find a Chinese translation of the Bible that reflects the Bible as a literary work by a group of Hebrew authors who intended to tell a story of their life and belief, their relationship with their god, and their view of this relationship. Instead, they have to read a translation that is New Testament-centric and Christianity-centric. In these translations, Israelite religion was not portrayed as the original authors intended, but as Christian eyes see it. It is sufficient to give one example here, where the Hebrew word “alm-h” in Isaiah 7:14 was translated in these translations as “virgin,” or “young woman,” instead of the more appropriate “chief queen.”18 As we know, Christianity has distinctive features from Judaism, and Judaism was a result of long historical development with its origin in Israelite religion. One of the richest corpora of resources for Israelite religion is the Hebrew Bible. Among the distinctive traits of Israelite religion are (1) monolatry: worshipping one god while acknowledging the existence of many other gods, (2) covenant of the law: the tribes of Israel must enforce biblical laws, or their god YHWH will punish them, (3) belief that sacrifices and offerings will gain forgiveness, and (4) no real belief in afterlife. These features all changed significantly later in the exilic period of Judaism, and further under Christianity. Concepts such as God will send an anointed one (Messiah) to restore the Kingdom of Israel, although prominent in the New Testament and Christianity, had no manifestation in Israelite religion. All the above were substantiated or at least not invalidated by the late Bronze and early Iron Age Palestine archaeological evidence. However, Christian translators deeply immersed in their religious belief who are not aware of the above distinctive traits (and others) of Israelite religion, can generate critically different interpretations of certain passages in the Hebrew Bible, which can lead to misleading translations. In addition, research outcomes from the textual and archaeological discoveries in the last eighty years, most prominently the discovery of © Blackwell Publishing 2006

Religion Compass 1/1 (2007): 50–60, 10.1111/j.1749-8171.2006.00007.x

Challenges for Chinese Bible Translation . 55

Ugaritic literature and the Dead Sea Scrolls, should be incorporated into the new Chinese translation of the Bible. The discovery of Ugaritic language and literature added to our knowledge a remarkable amount of insights to the Canaanite literature and religion, and led many scholars to believe that the early Israelites were originally merely a subgroup within the broader Canaanite cultural zone, who only distinguished themselves in the region later from the larger group. The discovery and research on the Dead Sea Scrolls added another dimension of the textual tradition of ancient Judaism, and raises as many questions as it solves. It is next to impossible to ignore research in this field if one wants to render an informed translation of the Bible for the twenty-first-century Chinese audience. We have come a long way on our understanding of the whole Ancient Near East, including the Palestinian region and the religion of the people there three thousand years ago. It is time that when we put ourselves to the task of translating the Bible into Chinese, we give a fair and informed interpretation of Israelite religion as it was reflected in biblical texts and the pool of newly obtained knowledge about the region and the people. The Challenge Ahead of Us In the previous section, it is stated that when we put our effort in translating the Bible, we have to pay attention to the new progress and development the scholarly community gained concerning the reality of Israelite religion during the past several decades. This caution is crucial in rendering a meaningful new Chinese translation of the Hebrew Bible. However, drawing on everything that has been published in research journals into the translation effort can be a daunting task, if not impossible. The qualification for knowing what to draw upon and what to avoid itself calls for years of training. Unfortunately, this training is not something we can bypass in our effort of rendering a high-standard Chinese translation of the Bible. What we can sense in today’s China is not the lack of enthusiasm to draw upon various sources of information and knowledge to help in interpreting the Bible, but too much, and sometimes from irrelevant sources. One reason for the overenthusiasm is actually the lack of proper training by the activists. This typically leads to another form of biblio-centrism that is very hard to detect by the practicing activists themselves. Such types of misguided enthusiasm are not new in the history of disseminating the knowledge of the Bible in China. One good example is the “Figurism” way of linking Chinese classical texts with the Bible. This movement by the missionaries in China combined typological exegesis, “ancient theology” and Judaeo-Christian cabala (a form of European symbolism) together, and applied this method to the reading of the Chinese classical texts. Once this effort was augmented by elements of Chinese mysticism by Chinese scholars, far-fetched conclusions were drawn irresponsibly. For example, concepts such as “Three Ages,” “One © Blackwell Publishing 2006

Religion Compass 1/1 (2007): 50–60, 10.1111/j.1749-8171.2006.00007.x

56 . Yiyi Chen

Creator–God,” and “Trinity” were found prevalent in typical Chinese classics such as the book of Yijing and Daodejing; the legendary Chinese emperor Fuxi (third millennium BCE) was identified with the Hebrew Patriarch Enoch.19 Missionaries have been active in China for hundreds of years; in order to achieve their missions, overenthusiasm sometimes propelled them to overuse Chinese classics and cultural concepts to explain the Hebrew Bible and Israelite religion embedded in it.20 However, it would be of great embarrassment retrospectively if in today’s open academic environment, scholars laboring in the field of translating the Bible to Chinese repeat the missionary’s improper measures in such doings, even when sometimes such repetition is guised in all sorts of academic jargon shown in scholarly writings, publications, and conference proceeding. One crucial step for the renewed effort to translate into Chinese an Israelite religion conscious, not Christianity-centric Bible is to identify all the potential contributors’ role clearly and realistically in terms of their understanding of Israelite religion. It is common knowledge that the field of biblical studies is divided into different schools. The school whose main task is to debate how the Bible affects our life and belief as a religious canon is the school of theology. There are schools that treat the Bible as great literature, others take it as a collection of feminism statements, and some treat it as a rich source for ancient Israelite history. Whichever school one is in, no one denies the fact that the Bible is first a text collection that carries a tremendous amount of information about the religion in Palestine during the period of composition of these texts by the authors. We term this religion Israelite religion, as it appears in the title of this paper. We have learned many aspects about this religion from both biblical and extra-biblical sources. Another major task is to differentiate the three religious concepts closely related to the Bible: Israelite religion, Judaism, and Christianity. A sizable portion of the biblical texts described to us a religion that we cannot call “standard Judaism,” since these texts were written down even before Judaism came into being; at the best, it tells us a story how Judaism as it was in the Babylonian exile came into being during its formative ages. Needless to say, the Hebrew Bible is not a text about Christianity, even though one can glean from it the preconditions of the birth of Christianity – originally a sect of second to first century BCE Judaism. There is a plethora of literature about how the Hebrew Bible gave birth to Judaism and Christianity. Books and articles on this theme keep appearing every year. However, what really marks the scholarly community’s delight is what we have garnered in our knowledge fundamental information about the religion as it was in the biblical period, as meticulously recorded in the Bible. Although a lot of the features are inherited by later Judaism and Christianity, many are distinctively unique only in the biblical period. Even for the concepts that exist in both the biblical period and later © Blackwell Publishing 2006

Religion Compass 1/1 (2007): 50–60, 10.1111/j.1749-8171.2006.00007.x

Challenges for Chinese Bible Translation . 57

Judeo-Christian religions, there are many that have evolved and diverted from the original. Some of the features of this Israelite religion have been confirmed by archaeological and extra-biblical textual evidence. This is the religion of the authors of the Hebrew Bible and their intended audience, living at Palestine between approximately the beginning of the first millennium and 200 BCE. The following are just a few of the typical terms of this period’s Israelite religion, some of them lost their meanings in later period Judaism or Christianity, others changed greatly in their connotations: “covenant,” “sacrifice,” “temple,” “high place,” “Ruah,” “land,” “people,” “tribe,” and “nation.”21 How to render these terms in appropriate modern Chinese is of great importance if the translators want to convey the correct image of Israelite religion to the Chinese reader. In this case, the author sees no simply one-size-fit-all solution to this challenge. However, simply raising the questions brings caution into the translators’ subconscious to avoid the inertia to just modify the Union translation’s rendering to the new one; answering the question sometimes requires both reading into the latest research on the topic, as well as some creativity in the Chinese rendering on the part of the translators. Short Biography Yiyi Chen’s research includes the Hebrew Bible in its Ancient Near East context, Ancient Judaism, and early interactions between the near East and China. He is the Chinese translator of A. B. Yehoshua’s novel Three Days and a Child, which won him the Hebrew Literature Translation Institute Annual Prize in 1994. He has authored articles on the early Jewish community in China, Chinese translations of the Hebrew Bible, as well as various topics on the study of the Hebrew Bible. His recently published book The Hebrew Bible, from Textual and Archaeological Perspectives, till 586 BCE is so far the only systematic overview on the subject written in Chinese. He is now working on an introductory textbook for Chinese university students studying the Bible. Before joining Peking University, Beijing, China, where he presently teaches, he worked as a software developer and an Internet evangelist in the Silicon Valley, USA. Chen holds a BA in Hebrew Language and Literature from Peking University, a master’s degree in Near Eastern Studies, and a PhD in Biblical Studies from Cornell University. Endnotes * Correspondence address: College of Foreign Languages, Peking University, 100871 Beijing, China. E-mail: [email protected]. 1 The actual record of the translation effort is found on a stele made in 781 CE. For a survey of the translation effort of the Hebrew Bible into Chinese, please refer to Chen (2005); see also Boon (1993), Spillett (1975). © Blackwell Publishing 2006

Religion Compass 1/1 (2007): 50–60, 10.1111/j.1749-8171.2006.00007.x

58 . Yiyi Chen 2

Here we are assuming the translator is dealing with the original Hebrew texts; as a matter of fact, we have plenty of evidence shown that the majority of the modern Chinese translation of the Hebrew Bible was not based on original Hebrew texts. 3 We do not want to go into the further complicated discussion here on what is a proper “hint” in the translation of the name. The Hebrew original name is delicate enough to provide just a hint without being too straightforward. It is possible that Chinese language with its logogram feature can achieve the goal of just hinting better than the English or any other alphabetical language. 4 Nowadays most English translations do not use “shofar” to render the Hebrew word. They usually translate the term to either “trumpet” or “ram’s horn.” By doing this, the English readers obviously gained more straightforward understanding of the term, but unavoidably eliminated the uniqueness of the type of horn or trumpet that “shofar” implies. 5 This is actually the practice of many Chinese translations done in the last several decades. 6 For an easy-to-read writing on “Jehovah” as a phonetic corruption of God’s name, and the probable pronunciation of God’s name is Yahweh, please see the article by Jason Dulle at http://www.apostolic.net/biblicalstudies/jehovah.htm, accessed on August 2, 2006. 7 David E. S. Stein (2006), Revising Editor at the Jewish Publication Society, weighs the different possibilities on rendering the name in a gender-sensitive Jewish translation, and eventually settles on representing the name using four unmediated and unvocalized Hebrew letters: YHWH. This is also the current author’s suggestion for the new Chinese secular translation of the Hebrew Bible. 8 For the latest summary of the debate, an excellent start point is Lee (2004, 2005); and Eber (1993, 1999, pp. 164 – 233). Abundant bibliographical information is provided in these works, most importantly Carroll (2002), Hyatt (1976), Spelman (1969), and Loewen (1985). 9 Lee (2005). 10 Standaert (2001, p. 620); see also Bays (1996). 11 Daniello Bartoli, Dell’Historia Della Compania di Giesu: La Cina, Terza Parte Dell’Asia, Roma, 1663, 123; this quote was drawn from Standaert (2001, p. 621). 12 Standaert (2001, pp. 593–595). 13 For many important versions in between, see Yiyi Chen, 2005 (note 1). 14 See note 17 for an example of the meticulousness of the Union version. 15 Ho (2004). 16 A national conference on biblical studies organized by Professor Xinping Zhuo in the Religions Studies Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Science has been held annually for 9 years since 1997. An institute of Ancient Near Eastern Language and Civilizations was established in Peking University, with one of its main focuses on Hebrew Bible studies. Introductory courses on the study of the Bible are being taught in half a dozen universities in mainland China. 17 New translations came into being every several years during the last two decades. Most, if not all, are with little original contribution. Many of them are actually problematic copies from the Union version. For example, in the Union version, whenever emendations or additions happen in the Chinese in order to make sense of the originally probably corrupted Hebrew texts, notations such as small dots are put in the added part of the translation. In some of the “newer” translations, this type of small yet significant notations got lost in the process of copying from the Union version, even though the identical Chinese wording betrays that the “newer” translation is unquestionable copycat from the Union version. Sometimes these new translation projects were initiated due to commercial reasons (few publisher can resist the high demand of Chinese Bibles in the marketplace), and speed was the priority while quality of the translation and serious editorship were secondary and tertiary. For example, one translation (for obvious reasons, the name cannot be disclosed here) was a product of a group of over 30 people who divided up the whole Hebrew Bible to be translated by each person alone, with no cross-checking of the result. Among them, many are seminary-trained masters with one year of exposure to introductory classical Hebrew; some are Chinese who can hardly read and understand an English translation of the Bible, not mentioning the Hebrew original; some are clergy members of the Chinese Christian community; only two or three are seminary professors teaching mostly theological courses. The “translation” speed of such collaboration is always satisfactory, but the generally poor quality of the final product is imaginable. The low cost of publication, the abundance of online free Chinese Bible texts (mostly the Union version) and the easiness of copy and pasting increased and accelerated the production of such type of “newer” yet far from better translations. For proof of the above statement, one © Blackwell Publishing 2006

Religion Compass 1/1 (2007): 50–60, 10.1111/j.1749-8171.2006.00007.x

Challenges for Chinese Bible Translation . 59 can, for example, check the translation (and notation, or the lack of it) of Judges 16:13–14 in the Union Version and various “new” versions of Chinese translations of the Bible. We do not want to deny all the contributions from Christians towards a better translation of the Bible. As a matter of fact, there are many Christians who are making important contributions to a better understanding of the Bible by Chinese. For example, Andi Wu of GrapeCity Inc. and Kirk Lowery of Westminster Hebrew Institute are collaborating to create “A Cantillation-Based Hebrew Tree Bank” (article presented at a Near Eastern Studies International conference at Peking University, June 2006) using computer modelling technologies; one of the main goal of such a tree bank is to facilitate group translators in their collaborating effort to generate syntactically uniform Chinese sentence faithful to the syntax of the original Hebrew; the model can therefore be used to verify the Chinese translation in order to eliminate unavoidable human errors and inconsistencies among different translators in order to maintain a homogeneous style in the Chinese version. 18 Detailed discussion on the rational of translating the term to “young woman” can be found in various publications, for example, in Dingbang Cai 2005. This specific term of this verse has been discussed extensively due to its usage in Christianity theology. For additional bibliographical information, see Anchor Bible Dictionary’s entry “virgin” etc. The translation of “chief queen” is proposed by Nicholas Wyatt (2005, p. 63; see also 1998, p. 136) based partially on Ugaritic lexical evidence. 19 Standaert (2001, pp. 668–679). 20 The intellectual explorations of the European Jesuits gave rise to “proto-sinology,” as called by some scholars (Standaert 2001, pp. 897–8). 21 Eber (1999, pp. 164 –224) has already dealt with several of these mentioned terms in details as she treats the Jewish Bishop S.I.J. Schereschewsky’s Chinese translation of the Bible.

References Bays, DH, 1996, Christianity in China: From the Eighteenth Century to the Present, Stanford University Press, Palo Alto, CA. Boon, CW, 1993, Tracing Bible Translation – A History of the Translation of Five Modern Chinese Versions of the Bible, China Graduate School of Theology, Hong Kong. Carroll, R, 2002, ‘Between Lying and Blasphemy or On Translating a Four-Letter Word in the Hebrew Bible: Critical Reflections on Bible Translation’, in A. Brenner and JW van Henten (eds), Bible Translation on the Threshold of the Twenty-First Century, Authority, Reception, Culture and Religion, pp. 53–64. Sheffield Academic Press, Sheffield. Chen, Y, 2005, ‘A Brief Survey of the History of Chinese Translations of the Hebrew Bible’, SBL Forum, November. Eber, I, 1993, ‘Translating the Ancestors: S. J. Schereschewsky’s 1875 Chinese Version of Genesis’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, vol. LVI, pp. 219–33. —— The Jewish Bishop and the Chinese Bible, SIJ Schereschewsky (1831–1906), Studies in Christian Mission, vol. 22, E. J. Brill, Leiden. Ho, CYS, 2004, ‘Biblical Scholarship in Hong Kong’, SBL Forum, July. Hyatt, IT Jr, 1976, Our Ordered Lives Confess: Three Nineteenth-Century American Missionaries in East Shantung, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA. Lee, ACC, 2004, ‘Naming God in Asia: Cross-Textual Reading in Multi-Cultural Context’, Quest: An Interdisciplinary Joural for Asian Christian Scholars, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 21–42. —— 2005, ‘God’s Asian Names: Rendering the Biblical God in Chinese’, SBL Forum, November. Loewen, JA, 1985, ‘Translating the Names of God: How European Languages have Translated Them’, The Bible Translator, vol. 36, no. 4, pp. 401–9. Spelman, DG, 1969, ‘Christianity in China: The Protestant Term Question’, Papers on China, vol. 22A, pp. 25–52, Harvard University East Asian Center, Cambridge, MA. Spillett, HW, 1975, A Catalogue of Scriptures in the Languages of China and the Republic of China, British and Foreign Bible Society, London. Standaert, N, ed., 2001, Handbook of Christianity in China, E. J. Brill, Leiden. Stein, DES, 2006, ‘God’s Name in a Gender-Sensitive Jewish Translation’, SBL Forum,August. © Blackwell Publishing 2006

Religion Compass 1/1 (2007): 50–60, 10.1111/j.1749-8171.2006.00007.x

60 . Yiyi Chen Wyatt, N, 2005, ‘ “Supposing Him to be the Gardener” (John 20:15): A Study of the Paradise Motif in John’, in There's Such Divinity Doth Hedge a King: Selected Essays of Nicolas Wyatt On Royal Ideology in Ugaritic and Old Testament Literature, Society for Old Testament Study Monographs, pp. 61–76,Ashgate,Aldershot, England. Wyatt, N, 1998, The Religious Texts from Ugarit: The Words of Ilimilku and his Colleagues, Biblical Seminar 53, Sheffield Academic Press, Sheffield.

© Blackwell Publishing 2006

Religion Compass 1/1 (2007): 50–60, 10.1111/j.1749-8171.2006.00007.x