New Chinese Version - History

In the first 100 years of the Chinese Church History, the western missionaries held a crucially important position in the translation of the Bible into Chinese.  They were either individually toiling or corporately laboring to produce Chinese translation versions.  To these western missionaries who were translation-pioneers, our Chinese churches present the highest honor.

In the year of 1919, the publication of the Chinese Mandarin Union Version Bible marked the climax of the history of Chinese Bible translation by the western missionaries; also it marked the turning point when the westerners handed over the important responsibility of Chinese Bible translation to the Chinese.  From the time onward, the western missionaries withdrew to an auxiliary and accessory position in the ministry of Chinese bible translation.  They have been expecting the rise of Chinese Bible scholars to shoulder the important responsibility of Chinese Bible translation.  Fellow Chinese with insight also gradually recognize that it is but reasonable for the Chinese to translate the Bible into Chinese.  As soon as the time come, re-translation will commence.

Fifty years afterwards, wars and battles have sacrificed many a soul on the great land of China; many corrupted things and matter need to be rebuilt and renewed. The Chinese language underwent many changes; many old terminologies were forsaken; much old elocution fell out of use; many words changed their meanings; new punctuation marks and new vocabulary became popular.  At this time, many archeological finds, recent linguistic studies lent support to Bible scholars for their newer and deeper understanding of the Bible original.  In addition to these, recent textual criticism has great development which offers precious information which was inaccessible in the 50’s and the 60’s.  These include the more authoritative original texts.  Therefore, basing on more reliable original texts and using modern Chinese to re-translate the Bible, is an urgent and imminent task.  The more important is that after this half century, Chinese Bible scholars emerge and the opportunity for retranslating the Bible into Chinese becomes mature.  In 1972, the idea of retranslating the Bible surge generally among Chinese churches.  This seed of retranslation germinated in the hearts of some Chinese Bible scholars.  So, at that time, some Church officials from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Philippines, Singapore and North America gathered together and with mutual sponsorship and support, fellowship and participation; they established the New Chinese Bible Translation Committee.  This committee took up the duty of re-translating the Bible into Chinese by the Chinese.

Throughout this translation process, there were together more than 30 presidents, administrators, professors and lecturers of theological seminaries and more than 10 pastors, overseers, elders, and Christians majoring in Chinese participated in translation, consultation, research and language refining.  The coworkers under the guidance of the Holy Spirit all strived toward the goals of translation: fidelity, elegance, and expressiveness.  The whole translation process consisted of meticulous discussions in three working panels (original language, theological and Chinese language), and receiving opinions from the general public among Chinese churches.  The translation text was revised and finalized by experienced Christian scholars.

 The New Chinese Version bible went through four years of hard work before the New Testament of this New Version appeared in 1976, and through 16 more years, the Old Testament part was completed.  The whole translation engineering of the Old and the New Testaments was finished in 1992. After publication this Bible was more and more supported by Chinese believers, and churches switching from the previous version to the New Version have been increasing.  May glory be to the Lord.  Besides, the cross-century version of this Bible was out in public in 2001. This publication included General Introduction to each Bible book written by pastors and Christian scholars from all over the place.  These would help believers understand the Word more deeply. IN striving for excellence and in conformity to with the mission of our association, we would make necessary revisions of this Chinese New Version at the turn of generation, so that Chinese believers all over the world can understand the Word of God more accurately. To smoothen and expedite the ministerial work, we established the Worldwide Bible Society in 2001 and we plan to use two years’ time to review the Chinese New Version and prepare to publish the upgraded Chinese New Version.